Study Questions
1. To what does the narrator compare the sounds he hears when he arrives in Harlem?

2. Why does Scofield assume that the narrator also picked up some “loot”?

3. How does Dupre carry the items taken in looting?

4. What reason does Scofield give for how the riot started?

5. What does Dupre take from his boot to show his serious intention regarding the building?

6. What does Scofield say will be a surprise in the fire?

7. What medical treatment does the narrator render in the street?

8. When the narrator finds him, what is Ras telling the people to do?

9. Once inside the sewer system, what does the narrator tell the men he has in his briefcase?

10. At the end of the chapter, to where does the narrator realize he cannot return?

Answers
1. The narrator compares the sounds he hears when he arrives in Harlem to the Fourth of July.

2. Scofield assumes that the narrator also picked up some loot because of the narrator’s briefcase, which is heavy with the smashed ceramic bank from Mary’s place.

3. Dupre carries the items he takes in his looting in a huge cotton sack he brought with him from the South.

4. The reason that Scofield gives for the riot is that a policeman slapped a kid for stealing a candy bar, and then slapped the kid’s mother.

5. To show his serious intention regarding the building, Dupre takes a nickel-plated revolver from his boot.

6. Scofield says that the bedbugs in his bed will be getting a surprise in the fire.

7. The narrator tightens the tourniquet of a seriously bleeding man in the street.

8. When the narrator finds him, Ras is telling the people to leave off from their looting and to join him in storming the armory for guns and ammunition.

9. Once inside the sewer system, the narrator tells the men on the street that he has them in his briefcase.

10. At the end of the chapter, the narrator realizes that he cannot return to Mary’s, or the Brotherhood, or his old campus, or to any part of his former life.