When Grady Cole goes to watch his mother perform at the theater, there is a sequence where he cuffs his jean pant leg to ash a cigarette into it. He expects to observe something of substance or meaning about how the world works in the performance, but he receives none:

He'd the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not. There was nothing in it at all. When the lights came up there was applause and his mother came forward several times and all the cast assembled across the stage and held hands and bowed and then the curtain closed for good and the audience rose and made their way up the aisles. He sat for a long time in the empty theatre and then he stood and put on his hat and went out into the cold.

I imagine this is just about exactly how McCarthy imagines himself as a commentator on the world.

After some intense games of chess, Col gets braced by Alejandra's aunt who is missing two fingers and has some shit to say about the permanence of scars to remind us of the mistakes of our past:

I lost my fingers in a shooting accident, she said. Shooting live pigeons. The right barrel burst. I was seventeen. Alejandra's age. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. People are curious. It's only natural. I'm going to guess that the scar on your cheek was put there by a horse.

Yes mam. It was my own fault.

She watched him, not unkindly. She smiled. Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. The events that cause them can never be forgotten, can they?

No mam.

She then instructs Cole that he's not to be seen riding alone with Alejandra because of the implications for her reputation as a young lady.

Hard cut to them LOVING on each other at the ranch:

Me quieres? she said. Yes, he said. He said her name. God yes, he said.

This is the climax of the love affair. After she shows up to the stable that he stays in, they make a habit of eloping a couple hours away to go ride horses at the mesa and skinny dip in various lakes. There's something noble about this romance.

Very much enjoy the way that Rawlins teasingly lies to Blevins at just about every single opportunity. It's very filial and good natured while still being entirely earnest. E.g., when they're all locked up in jail in Mexico and get separated for questioning

The guard crooked his ringer at John Grady who sat squinting up at them in the sudden light. He rose. He looked down at Rawlins.

You sons of bitches, he said.

Tell em whatever they want to hear, bud, whispered Rawlins. It dont make a damn.

Vamonos, said the guard. What did you tell them? Told em we was horsethieves and murderers. You will too. But by then the guard had come forward and seized his arm and shoved him out the door and the other guard shut the door and pushed the boltshackle home in the padlock.

They're transferred to a larger prison, and en route Blevins is just executed outright.

In the prison, Perez appears to be some sort of crime boss in the prison. After Rawlins and Cole decline his hospitality (and presumably servitude as well), Rawlins immediately gets stabbed up in the prison yard. Cole meets with Perez again, who then waxes philosophical about the nature of crime:

You dont think there's good and bad things? Things no. I think it is a superstition. It is the superstition of a godless people. You think Americans are godless? Oh yes. Dont you? No. I see them attack their own property. I saw a man one time destroy his car.

With a big martillo. What do you call it? Hammer.

Because it would not start. Would a Mexican do that? I dont know. A Mexican would not do that. The Mexican does not believe that a car can be good or evil. If there is evil in the car he knows that to destroy the car is to accomplish nothing. Because he knows where good and evil have their home. The anglo thinks in his rare way that the Mexican is superstitious. But who is the one? We know there are qualities to a thing. This car is green. Or it has a certain motor inside. But it cannot be tainted, you see. Or a man. Even a man. There can be in a man some evil. But we dont think it is his own evil. Where did he get it? How did he come to claim it? No. Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has.

...

I thought you wanted to know what would happen out there? said Perez. John Grady turned. Would that change it? he said. Perez smiled. You do me too much credit. There are three hundred men in this institution. No one can know what is possible. Somebody runs the show. Perez shrugged. Perhaps, he said. But this type of world, you see, this confinement. It gives a false impression. As if things are in control. If these men could be controlled they would not be here. You see the problem.

After Cole beats the breaks off a cuchillero, they the remaining duo gets bailed out of jail by Alejandra's Aunt. The jail guards don't seem to to mind getting the violent rabble-rousers out of their little village. Cole makes fun of Rawlins for perhaps now being a half-breed due to the blood transfusion he had to receive after his knife-wounds. Teasing Rawlins in the same way that Rawlins used to tease Blevins:

They put Mexican blood in me, he said. He looked up. John Grady was lighting a cigarette. He shook out the match and put it in the ashtray and looked at Rawlins. So.

So what does that mean? said Rawlins. Mean about what? Well does it mean I'm part Mexican? John Grady drew on the cigarette and leaned back and blew the smoke into the air. Part Mexican? he said. Yeah.

up.

How much did they put? They said it was over a litre. How much over a litre? I dont know. Well a litre would make you almost a halfbreed. Rawlins looked at him. It dont, does it? he said. No. Hell, it dont mean nothin. Blood's blood. It dont know where it come from. The waiter brought the steaks. They ate. He watched Rawlins. Rawlins looked What? he said. Nothin. You ought to be happier about bein out of that place. I was thinkin the same thing about you. Rawlins nodded. Yeah, he said. What do you want to do? Go home.”

Cole continues to deal with the guilt of killing the assassin, despite it seeming like a pretty open-shut case of self-defense. Perhaps something to do with the honor of feigning being down and out and using that to expose the weakspot of the unsuspecting attacker? He says something to Rawlins about buying the knife knowing he was planning on using it.

That aint the worst thing I ever heard of. I done some other stuff too. If you're goin to talk I'm goin to smoke a cigarette. I'll shut up. They lay quietly in the dark. You know about what happened, dont you? said John Grady. You mean in the messhall? Yeah. Yeah. John Grady reached and got his cigarettes off the table and lit one and blew out the match. I never thought I'd do that. You didnt have no choice. I still never thought it. He'd of done it to you. He drew on the cigarette and blew the smoke unseen into the darkness. You dont need to try and make it right. It is what it is. Rawlins didnt answer. After a while he said: Where'd you get the knife? Off the Bautistas. I bought it with the last forty-five pesos we had. Blevins' money. Yeah. Blevins' money. Rawlins was lying on his side in the springshot iron bedstead watching him in the dark. The cigarette glowed a deep red where John Grady drew on it and his face with the sutures in his cheek emerged from the darkness like some dull red theatric mask indifferently repaired and faded back again.

I knew when I bought the knife what I'd bought it for. I dont see where you were wrong. The cigarette glowed, it faded. I know, he said. But you didnt do it. In the morning it was raining again and they stood outside the same cafe with toothpicks in their teeth and looked in the glass.”

Same motif of a fate as expressed though a coin flip has been predetermined since the time which it was minted as appears in No Country:

My father had a great sense of the connectedness of things. I'm not sure I share it. He claimed that the responsibility for a decision could never be abandoned to a blind agency but could only be relegated to human decisions more and more remote from their consequences. The example he gave was of a tossed coin that was at one time a slug in a mint and of the coiner who took that slug from the tray and placed it in the die in one of two ways and from whose act all else followed, cara y cruz. No matter through whatever turnings nor how many of them. Till our turn comes at last and our turn passes.

related