Chap­ter 13: Cow­boy intro­duces Moshe, who finds him­self at the Ring­ing Rocks skat­ing rink, grap­pling with the com­plex emo­tions that have con­sumed his life. As he leans against the pavil­ion rail­ing, he watch­es the teenage skaters below, feel­ing an over­whelm­ing sense of detach­ment from their care­free laugh­ter and warmth. His thoughts drift to the near­by rocks, an unusu­al tourist attrac­tion that serves as a tem­po­rary escape from the tur­moil engulf­ing his fam­i­ly. With his wife, Chona, lying in a coma and their adopt­ed son now in state cus­tody, Moshe is left to wres­tle with feel­ings of despair and con­fu­sion. He ques­tions how every­thing in his life has spi­raled so far out of con­trol and won­ders if things will ever return to a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy.

Moshe recalls a time when Chona insist­ed on vis­it­ing the skat­ing rink, a stark con­trast to her cur­rent absence. He remem­bers how she nev­er allowed their son to skate, believ­ing that he should instead enjoy the vibra­tions of the ancient rocks near­by. This mem­o­ry stirs a sense of bit­ter­ness in Moshe, as he reflects on Chona’s ideas of “help­ful­ness” dur­ing their most dif­fi­cult times. He feels a grow­ing resent­ment towards her approach to life and their family’s strug­gles, won­der­ing if her uncon­ven­tion­al meth­ods con­tributed to their cur­rent predica­ment. As win­ter snow begins to gen­tly fall around him, Moshe takes out a pen and paper to write a let­ter to his old friend, Malachi. In his let­ter, Moshe express­es his deep­en­ing strug­gles in the the­ater busi­ness and laments how the audience’s tastes have shift­ed. He reflects on the decline of Yid­dish cul­ture and the rise of Amer­i­can cow­boy ideals, a shift that frus­trates him as he feels increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the art form he once loved.

The ten­sion at the the­ater that evening becomes anoth­er bur­den for Moshe, who arrives late due to his wife’s hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. As he enters the the­ater, a clash between Lionel Hampton’s band and Machito’s Afro-Cubans is already esca­lat­ing over their per­for­mance order. Trapped in the mid­dle of the con­fronta­tion, Moshe finds him­self strug­gling to medi­ate the grow­ing ten­sions, des­per­ate­ly wish­ing to avoid such con­flicts. He recalls how Chona used to guide him through these types of sit­u­a­tions with her calm demeanor and sharp under­stand­ing. Her absence in these moments becomes even more appar­ent, as Moshe now finds him­self floun­der­ing with­out her sup­port and guid­ance. The chaos in the the­ater sym­bol­izes the greater unrest in his life, where he feels lost and unsure of his next move.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in Moshe’s real­iza­tion that the cul­tur­al land­scape around him is chang­ing. The diverse sounds of music emerg­ing in Amer­i­ca are forc­ing him to recon­sid­er his own under­stand­ing of iden­ti­ty and art. These shifts chal­lenge his long-held beliefs and push him to ques­tion the role he plays in both the the­ater world and the larg­er cul­tur­al con­ver­sa­tion. Despite the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al tur­moil, Moshe receives a humor­ous pack­age from Malachi: infant-sized cow­boy pants. This gift, which seems so triv­ial yet deeply sym­bol­ic, prompts Moshe to reflect on the direc­tion his life is head­ed. The cow­boy, a sym­bol of rugged inde­pen­dence and a chang­ing Amer­i­ca, rep­re­sents the new path that may lie ahead for him. This moment sparks intro­spec­tion, as Moshe won­ders if he should embrace these changes, despite the uncer­tain­ties they bring.

As the chap­ter draws to a close, Moshe is left con­tem­plat­ing the com­plex­i­ties of his iden­ti­ty. He rec­og­nizes that his life, much like the cul­tur­al shifts around him, is in a state of flux. The cow­boy sym­bol, rep­re­sent­ing a new, unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry, stands as a metaphor for the changes he must face both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. At the same time, he reflects on the cri­sis his fam­i­ly is expe­ri­enc­ing and how it inter­twines with his own strug­gles. In these moments of reflec­tion, Moshe con­tem­plates whether embrac­ing a new path, sym­bol­ized by the cow­boy, will pro­vide the res­o­lu­tion he des­per­ate­ly needs. This chap­ter speaks to the uni­ver­sal theme of adaptation—how one must nav­i­gate a chang­ing world, bal­anc­ing per­son­al his­to­ry and cul­tur­al shifts, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­fronting the chal­lenges that life throws their way.