The Street

Bub’s teacher, Miss Rinner, faces her class at the end of the day, anxious for it to be over so she can return home. She can’t escape the “offensive odor” (328) that the children carry everywhere, and she’s disgusted by their “shabby, ragged” (329) coats and their “impudent” (330) behavior. As a white woman, she dreads having to travel to Harlem for work, and “thought of every person she passed as a threat to her safety” (331). She hopes to transfer to a white school soon.

Miss Rinner excuses Bub early, and he runs across the street to buy earrings for his mom using the money he’s earned from Jones for stealing from mailboxes. Though he does feel strange about the theft, he convinces himself that “[i]t wasn’t really wrong because he was helping the police” (340), a lie told to him by Jones.

Bub escapes the clutches of neighborhood ruffians who want to steal his money. He then steps into an apartment building to steal from the mailboxes and lies when an old woman asks who he is. Though a part of him knows that this theft and his lying are wrong, he also finds himself drawn to the “thrilling” (342) nature of these activities.

Bub is so caught up in the excitement of his new job that he stumbles right into the clutches of the ruffians he had avoided earlier, led by the menacing Gray Cap. Gray Cap calls Bub’s mother a whore and bloodies Bub’s nose, but Mrs. Hedges breaks up the fight and threatens the ruffians, should they ever hurt Bub again. 

Bub retreats to the cellar of the apartment building, where he gives Jones the stolen letters and is again reassured that they are helping the police. Not wanting to return to the “clammy silence” (350) in his empty apartment, he decides to go back out to steal more letters. 

Rather than going to work, Min steps outside her apartment and looks at the gray sky, reflecting on the recent “bitter days that had made this the longest, dreariest winter she had ever known” (352), especially because of Jones’ erratic behavior. He’s been mostly ignoring her, fuming and stewing within the apartment, filling it with “furious, awful cursing” (353).

Min has finally decided that “she [is] going somewhere else to live” (354). Though she’s come to rely on living rent-free with Jones, she realizes that “[h]aving room to breathe in meant much more” (362) than not having to pay rent. She arranges with Mrs. Hedges to send for a pushcart man to help her move her things later in the morning.

When she enters back into the apartment, she surprises Jones, who’s “tearing up some letters” (356) and accuses her of spying on him. He approaches her with his hands raised, and Min prepares for violence: “She knew how it would go, for her other husbands had taught her” (357). She’s resigned to her fate, and absently makes the sign of the cross over her body. This stops Jones, who releases a “sharp, hissing sound” (358) like a snake before leaving the apartment.

Min, her legs shaking, definitively decides to leave. She thinks of the revealing nightgown she bought at a white saleslady’s insistence, and the way Jones ignored her, “apparently indifferent” (362) to her efforts. When she inspects the torn-up letters, she realizes that “Jones was doing something crooked” (365), and that he would likely kill her if he found out she knew. Though she is reluctant to say “good-bye to the security she had known” (368), she knows that if she stays in the apartment with Jones, she will likely die.

The pushcart man comes, and Min loads him up with all her possessions. She worries that Jones will return, but lingers about the apartment nevertheless, still reluctant to leave. She says goodbye to Mrs. Hedges, and then walks with the pushcart man to a new street, determined to find a new place to live. Recognizing that he was a “very strong man” (371), she makes an overture towards him.