Mad Dog is Billie Jo’s friend. He was named Mad Dog because, when he was a child, he bit everyone. He is an attractive boy with blue eyes. Mad Dog lives in the Dust Bowl and works on a farm as a “plowboy.” He has a “smooth voice” and sings with Arley Wanderdale and his band, the Black Mesa Boys.
Mad Dog respects Billie Jo and sees her as “Billie Jo Kelby,” the person and musician, not the “motherless” child that others seem to see first. Mad Dog doesn’t feel sorry for Billie Jo, and he is not embarrassed by her scarred hands or the accident that she was involved in that culminated in her mother’s death.
Mad Dog escapes the Dust Bowl by getting a job in Amarillo as a radio performer. If Billie Jo’s hands had not been severely burned in the accident, she might have followed in Mad Dog’s footsteps and used her talent as a pianist to escape as well.
