Dave puts it this way: “How is it we can do so much harm to one another as long as we are provided sanction? How is it we make marionettes of ourselves and give all power to those who have never heard a shot fired in anger or had even a glimpse of life at the bottom of the food chain?”
In “Cathedral,” Dave and Clete struggle in vain to come up with answers to those questions that might help them sleep better at night. Their ability to balance the scales by taking a few players off the board, as they might say, pales in the cold light of the evil that permeates Burke’s beautiful bayou country.