Denouement/Resolution

The beginning of chapter 19 is very clearly the beginning of the denouement (that word makes me think of Mrs. Miles). The fiesta and all the excitement which accompanied it are over, and it's time for everyone to leave. Signs are torn down, hotels begin to empty, and Jake, Bill and Mike load up a car and leave. When they get to Bayonne, they begin going their separate ways with a "So long, fella" on page 235, and it feels as though the story is coming to an end. It's almost like when the day becomes night. Everything becomes quiet, and everyone relaxes. Since Brett was the center of the all the conflicts, the conflicts have all been resolved by her running away with Romero. But still everything feels unfinished. She just left and dropped all the conflicts. Nothing really got resolved. It was just dropped.