The Sheep Herder

As much as Neal and Jack try to be responsible human beings, they always end up having someone else pick up after them. Whether it be Jack picking up after Neal, or Jacks mother picking up after him. Neal is ultimately a child and I find him to be too comfortable with the people he meets because he pretty much just walked into Jacks family's house and made himself at home. Neal is like a sheep herder and all of his friends are the sheep. They all listen to him and he automatically assumes the position of a leader. "Furiously he hustled into the railroad station; we followed sheepishly."
I think Neal's friends like being the sheep though because they don't have to think for themselves in that case, all they have to do is listen and act. "'Alright now,' said Neal suddenly waking up and leaping out of bed 'what we must do is eat, at once, Louanne rustle around the kitchen see what there is, Jack you and I go downstairs and call Allen, Al you see what you can do straightening out the house.' I followed Neal bustling downstairs." Neal isn't even in his own house and the first thing he does when he wakes up is give everyone else (including himself) a job to do.
Neal reminds me of the lecture Mr. Shapiro gave us about how some people can have such IQ's that they don't know how to communicate with anyone else. I think Neal is just a brilliant person trapped with a childlike sense of humor. "There was nothing clear about the things he said, but what he meant to say was somehow made pure and clear." Neal can go on for house about how society already knows, and time exists and God is real, and I'm pretty sure what he says makes sense in his own mind but when I (the reader) read his dialogue, it sounds like free speech where he's just saying whatever comes to his mind.