Chapter 2 Midnight meeting

“Socrates only neighbors were two burned out furniture stores and an almost always empty street”


Page 29 Paragraph 3 “they wanted him to kill Petris. After all he was the one among them that had gone to prison for double murder” (this quote is of course talking about how Socrates’ friends want him to kill Petris because has had experience with killing people)

Page 26 “We aint even sure he did it, Right,: Stony Wile, the squat ship welder from East ST. Louis said. “It’s just hearsay we goin’ on .”Noooo,no.” No- neck Howard shook his head. He was both the heaviest and the youngest man in the room.. “My li’l girl aint lyin’. She seen what I told you. “

(This quote proves that they have absolute confidence in what each person says and are willing to do anything that they feel is necessary even if they don’t have any hard evidence.)

(In this chapter it becomes apparent that the Socrates and his friends prefer to solve there problems without any help from the police.

Page 26 “ I aint sending my baby down to no cops.”

Page 28 “he wouldn’t even get to trial ‘less they got hard evidence” . “ he be on the street in less than a week” “ an’ be knocking on my door”

Howard feels that unless they do something about Petris , not only will he not be arrested but he will come after his family, and he doesn’t want to put his family through that.

By the end of the chapter they all come to the agreement that the best way of handling the situation is to exile Petris with the condition that if they ever see him again they will kill him.

Socrates is the one given the responsibility of telling Petris.

Petris leaves almost immediately after being told of the deal regarding his being exiled.

At the end of the chapter you learn that Petris was killed a little over a month after being exiled. After being exiled Petris had no where to go but was afraid to go back to his home.

‘He begged and lived in alleys downtown”

Petris robbed other street people and tried his hand at drug dealing but failed. One day Petris got into a fight with a man he thought he could rob. Petris ended up getting beaten to death.

“I don’t know if I’d ever have the heart ever to do it again”