This is one of those necessary chapters to move the plot along. Short but required to set up the rest of the story.
His life had been rough growing up. His father had died of an overdose when he was twelve-years-old. After his Dad's death, his mother had whored herself out to pay for her habit leaving, he and his brother, to raise themselves with only each other to rely on.
Life hadn't always been such a disaster; in fact, they had been the typical American family until the dot-com crash. They had been a family of four with a residence in a nice suburbia neighborhood, 6000 square feet of living space, two new cars, good schools, country club membership and of course the beloved Golden Retriever; then it all went away. The company his father had built during the heyday of the dot-com frenzy went bust. His father, use to calling the shot, found he could not adjust to working for someone else; his boss was always an idiot his father claimed when he was fired. Not able to work for anyone else and incapable of coming up with the 'next great idea' to pull them out of debt, his father had drifted into the world of alcoholism and drugs. At that point everything slowly went away; the house, the cars, the country club, even the dog. After they lost the house they moved south, ending up in a bad tenement in one of the worse sections of LA. His father continued his pattern of being hired and fired from dozens of meaningless jobs, finally ending up supporting his habit by working for the local drug lords. But a bad batch of heroin killed him, leaving a wife with no skills and two underage sons. That was the life and times of his father.
His mother, who had always been totally dependent on his father, couldn't handle life on her own. Swearing she wouldn't, but unable to cope, she too wandered down the path of addiction. At first she only drank to keep her husband company; he got mad if he had to drink alone she claimed. Then it was the drugs under the same excuse; keeping her husband happy. Joel knew it was a lie but he was only a kid, what was he supposed to do? His mother was a very attractive woman, but she had no job skills, having married his father young and quickly getting pregnant with his brother. She too ended up getting involved with the gangs to feed her habit after her husband's death. Joel hated thinking about the services she offered them. Such was his mother's tale.
Joel and his older brother Jake had made a pact not to get caught in the same web as their parents. They did the best they could to survive the terrible environment in which they were raised. They regularly attended school and in fact used it as a sanctuary to escape their home life. They found other places to hide out, particularly if it was a bad scene on the home front. Some days things were fairly good with food on the table and their parents reasonably sober and drug free; then the pendulum would swing back the other way and the apartment would turn into a horrendous scene that made the boys head for the hills. After his father died and his mother hooked up with the gang to feed her needs, the boys were totally forgotten, left to their own devises; the only thing their mother was able to provide was a roof over their heads…barely.
Jake and Joel were not dumb and knew they had to have a plan if they wanted to survive and escape to a better life. Their strategy was for Jake, who was one year older than Joel, to graduate high school and enter the Navy; Joel would join him a year later, after he graduated. They would learn a trade in the Navy, one that led to a career for when they got out. It would be a new life, a fresh start for them; the problem was it didn't work out like they planned.