Chapter 2: Summary

The next day Mark and Bryon go to the hospital where Bryon’s mother is recovering from a surgery. The surgery was an expensive one and they had to sell their television and car to pay for it. Bryon has so far not been able to find a job, while Mark does bring in money at times. Bryon is aware that Mark steals but neither he nor his mother can question the source of Mark’s income.

The two friends hitch a ride to the hospital. Randy, a hippie, is the driver. Seeing him, Bryon recalls a time when the two of them had attacked a group of hippies. Neither of them had realized that the hippies would not retaliate. The consequences that one of the hippies had to bear had made Bryon sick and they had avoided hippies since then. On their ride, Randy tells them about a place where anyone is welcome to come and stay. Mark listens to him with interest.

On reaching the hospital Bryon’s mother tells them about a young boy named Mike who is admitted in the same hospital and is right across the hall. She tells them that Mike has no visitors and asks them to talk to him and give him company. Bryon is hesitant but Mark readily agrees. When they leave her room, Mark walks towards Mike’s room but Bryon decides to get a hamburger from the snack bar first.

At the snack bar he meets a pretty girl whom he flirts with. He later discovers that she is none other than Cathy, M&M’s sister. She too shows interest in Bryon, but he does not ask her out on a date because he is convinced that he should not seem too eager at this stage. Bryon then heads to Mike’s room where the boy, who is badly injured, tells him that Mark has gone to get him some comics.

Bryon is shocked to learn that the boy, Mike Chambers, had not met with an accident but had been assaulted. Mike tells him that he was with his friends when a black girl had walked into the drugstore to buy cigarettes. Mike tells Bryon that he never felt odd looking at black people or mixed couples; however, his friends were not used to it. His friends stopped the girl and hurled abuses at her. When one of them tried to grab her, Mike stepped in. He rescued her and convinced her to allow him to drop her home since she had missed her bus. On the way the girl, Connie, broke down and Mike assumed that she was sick of white people harassing her. When they reached her home, he found several young black men waiting on the porch. They were ready to attack Mike who tried to convey that he was innocent. One of the men asked Connie what should be done with Mike. She asked them to “kill the white bastard.” Mike almost lost his life in the attack that followed and that is how he had ended up in the hospital. He later tells Bryon that his father thought him to be stupid for getting attacked. Yet, despite the brutality of the attack, Mike said that he harbored no hatred towards his attackers as he understood their perspective. Bryon leaves him soon after this and meets Mark in the elevator. Mark tells Bryon that Mike is indeed foolish, especially for not hating those who attacked him. Mark further goes on to say that if anyone beat him like that, he would hate the person for life. Bryon, on the other hand, can empathize with Mike’s sentiments.

Chapter 2_Analysis

In the second chapter, we learn a lot more about the situation at Bryon and Mark’s home. Because they struggle to afford their necessities, one can almost empathize with Mark and Bryon’s unlawful acts. Through Mike’s story, Hinton compellingly highlights the racism that was pervasive in the 1960s. When Mike says that even though he personally did not attack Connie, he could understand her rage directed at him. It is as though Mike realizes that being a white man and part of a group that attacks black women, he is complicit in the wider evil that is racism regardless of his personal act. To Connie and the rest, he represents the kind of people who routinely discriminate against black people and hence must face their ire.

The differences between Mark and Bryon’s personalities gain further prominence in this chapter. While both indulge in petty crimes, Bryon is the only one who is aware that what they are doing is against the law. To Mark, all this is a game. Later in the chapter Bryon can understand Mike’s emotions and empathizes with him when he says he does not hate his attackers. Mark’s reaction is more drastic, and he says that if someone attacked him brutally, he would hate them all his life. Bryon tells the reader that this comes to haunt him later. In a way this anticipates the unresolved conflict between them at the end of the novel.