"It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth Street—a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers."

From Kindle location 320 in Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities," this is the second entry in The "Bonfire" Project, where we talk about one short passage of continuous text:

All at once Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth Street—a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty-five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I’m not budging! It’s my territory! I’m not giving way for any street punks!

The black youth suddenly made a ninety-degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium-vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.

He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!

Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty-eight-year-old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military-looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.

This is sort of like the old "Gatsby" project, but, for reasons previously discussed, it can't be just one sentence out of context, examined purely as a sentence. I'm giving you more text and permission to use what you know from the rest of the reading — I know some of you are reading along with me — but you need to concentrate on what's going on in the chosen text.

A few thoughts of mine:

1. The "violently lurching animal" is a dachshund. I'm not sure that last sentence is properly written, since you might at first think the dog is "staring, bug-eyed" and only figure out that refers to the man when you get to "talking to himself."

2. There are 3 creatures — the "black youth," the white man (who has a name, Sherman McCoy), and the "violently lurching animal" (who isn't even called a dog, let alone a dachshund, let alone Marshall (which is actually his name, and I'm wondering if he was named after — speaking of black people — Thurgood Marshall)).

3. The dog is wild, uncontrollable, and very annoying to the white man, but the white man is terrorized at the sight of the black youth, who's doing nothing but walking down the street at night.

4. When the black youth suddenly crosses the street, McCoy exults in his release from what he perceived as danger, but he hasn't an inkling of awareness that the youth is also a human being, with his own inner life, and the youth did reveal something of inner life through his outward action of crossing the street to stay away from the man and his beast.

5. The beast in McCoy's hands seems to be the outward expression of his roiling innards. And there was other outward expression: He's out walking in the rain, what he thinks is an ordinary raincoat actually has disturbing military attributes (straps and buckles!), his eyes are crazy (bugged and staring), and he's doing what in the 1980s was the #1 streets-of-NYC way to look crazy — talking to himself. (I know, I lived in NYC in the time period when this book takes place.)

6. Despite that outward expression, the one thing McCoy doesn't do — refuses to do — is divert his path to avoid the black youth. He's standing his ground. It's "my territory." He's the gangster, in his own mind, though he does nothing, he's a mass of fear, and he doesn't even have domination over his own dog.

7. He's the beta, and yet he's ready to go down dying, "Well, let him come!"

8. Yellow is the color that symbolizes cowardice, and yellow is the color that falls onto the black youth's face. And it's even "feeble yellow." The youth may be more afraid than the man, but he's behaving like a normal, cautious person, keeping his distance from a weirdo. The white man has yet to realize that he's the weirdo.

9. McCoy is really very slow on the uptake, and yet he's ready to stand his ground — what ground? — and — what? — fight? use his dog as a weapon? accept a beating? Apparently, he's too stupid to know, and I, the reader, am entirely ready to see him get into the trouble I know is in store for him.

10. He emerged from his encounter with a black person unscathed. Unlike the mayor (in the first installment of the "Bonfire" project), he was not so much as hit with a jar of mayonnaise.