Chapter 10: Block Style- 145th Street Style

The chapter starts off with Peaches getting mad at her mother. Big Joe told her mom to plan the wedding. Her mother asks her if she doesn't want her to marry Big Joe, she won't. However, she doesn't want that. To cheer Peaches up, they go to the block party. J.T. was a boy who was known for stealing. So Peaches insulted him calling him a thief. He left. After Peaches cooled down, she wanted to give him a plate of food as a piece offering. They went to where they thought he lived, but found out he lived on the roof. Peaches went up and fought JT to find his mother there with him. Peaches told the narrator to get Big Joe. In the end, Big Joe helps them and gets married. That's life in 145th street.

Chapter 9: A Story in Three Parts

Part I- Doll
Big Time had followed his daily routine of asking his
grandmother for money. Every time he did, she would go on to tell a story about old times. This time she talked about Doll. Doll was slave with children. She begged her mistress not to sell her. Her wish was fulfilled. However, when a person came to buy slaves, he took the children. Doll's mistress allowed some time alone with her kids. Shhe killed them. Death was better than life, in their cases. Big Time got the money and left.

Part II- Sweet Jimmy
Sweet Jimmy is a drug supplier. Big Time paid him money for an injection that got him high. During that period of time, Sweet Jimmy and Big Time talked about the S.A.T.s.

Part III The Roof
Big Time needed to escape. So he always went to an old building roof. When he got up there, he saw a little boy. His name was Benny and lived on an avenue. They talked for a moment. All of a sudden, there was a blast of fire on the side of the building. Benny was panicing. At first, Big Time didn't care. Then, he thought of a plan and sat on the ledge with Benny. They jumped to the other building. They made it. This changed Big Time's life. He was now going to do something with his life.

Chapter 8: A Christmas Story

Mother Fletcher was known to be over 90 years old. Then there was Patrolman William Michael O'Brien. He had a wife, Kathy, and a little girl, Meaghan. While on patrol, a girl came up to him. She said to call an ambulance for Mother Fletcher. He went upstairs to investigate. After seeing her for the first time, he thhought of her as a "black version of a painted medieval saint." (106) He called the ambulance and asked for her age. All Mother Fletcher said was that she was full-grown.
A week later, a package arrived for O'Brien. It was a handknit sweater from Mother Fletcher. He visited her to thank her and mention he had a wife. Within time, he got another sweater for his wife. He visited her again and mentioned he had a daughter. Again, he received another sweater for his daughter. O'Brien talked to her now and then. He and his wife were trying to figure out her age. One day, after work, he told his wife that Mother Fletcher had invited them to Christmas dinner, but he did not want to go. So, the weeks flew by and it was Christmas. Kathy and Meaghan walked in the room with their coats on. They were going to Mother Fletcher. O'Brien felt the need to go.
Mother Fletcher wasn't expecting them, but had a lot of food. She told Meaghan how she played catch with Santa Claus when he was just a boy. It was a good ending to a good chapter.

Chapter 7: Kitty and Mack: A Love Story

Eddie McCormick, who was nicknamed Mack, was an athlete. He was into basketball, track, but mostly baseball. He had an attitude problem, but everyone still likkeed him. However, Kitty changed that. She had moved in with her grandfather Duke who owned a barbershop.
One day in class, Kitty read a love poem dedicated to Mack. He fell head over heels in love with her. He talked about her all the time and dplanned their future. When around her, he pretended to be a laid back kind of guy. One unfortunate evening, when Mack was waiting for Kitty at a train station, there was a drive-by and they shot Mack. In the end, they had to amputate his leg.
After the operation, Mack would isolate himself in the room. Not even, Kitty was allowed to call him, only his friends were allowed. Kitty got sick of his behavior and put up a sign at her grandfather's barbershop saying she was waiting for him. She wouldn't even go to school. Days passed by and one day he showed up. He said he wanted to lead his life without anybody else telling him. Kitty still waited for him. People started to worry about Kitty and encouraged Mack to go to her. He arrived without crutches with an artificial foot. Mack told Kitty she needed a man. Kitty knew she had a man, Mack. Finally, they reunited.

Chapter 6: Monkeyman

This chapter concentrates on the "'hood" of Harlem. Tigros is a gang that wants their name to be known. They are building a rep. Meanwhile, Monkeyman was a quiet kid who never did anybody harm. He was six feet tall, if not more, and he kept his head stuck in a book. Monkeyman got his name because he would climb a tree and read all day.
One day, a Lady Tigro got in a fight with Peaches. Peaches won. Other Lady Tigros came after Peaches with a razor blade, ready to kill. Monkeyman saw the danger and knocked the blade out of the way. The Lady Tigros knew they was no chance they would win the fight. They left and told the gang. Soon, they were after Monkeyman, putting up signs threatening him. Two weeks passed and nothing happened.
Clean was a guy who claimed he came from LA and was in the cribs. He wanted to join the Tigros but to iniciate, he had to beat some one up, in other words, Monkeyman. The narrator and his friends tried talking some sense into him but it was no use. He was set to rough Monkeyman up. However, when Clean was getting arrested, Monkeyman invited him and his gang to Memorial Park at 11 at night.
When night came, people gathered to see the fight. Monkeyman was late. He brought along his grandfather and a woman. Monkeyman took off his shirt and waited with arms extended for the beating. Clean hit him a few times, then decided it was no use wasting his time on Monkeyman. Monkeyman survived.

Chapter 5: The Streak

In this chapter, we meet Jamie. Jamie has a best friend and plays basketball. Unfortunately, he missed the ultimate winning shot; that led Froggy, his best friend, to believe he was on a streak. A streak is a line of bad luck. Meanwhile, Jamie wants to ask the girl of his dreams, Celia, to dance. He starts to notice his bad luck a while after the events happen. First, he missed the shot during the game. Next, he broke a glass bottle in the locker room. Third, he broke a slide in biology. He spilt milk on a bully, by mistake. Then he left his wallet and couldn't pay for his food. He injured his ankle and failed a test. He now believe he had 6 good luck sparks, since he used one up already. However, he used them all up before he asked Celia to the dance. He used the last one to help his team win. The next day, Celia walks up to him and asks him to the dance. Things were back to the way they were before

Chapter 4: Angela's Eyes

In Angela's Eyes, Angela is a little girl who is believed to have predicted Poli's death. Poli worked for Mr. Rodriguez's bodega. It was true, Angela did have dreams. Mr. Rodiguez and Mrs. Flores argue about it. It was believed that it was her dead father giving her a sign about Poli's death. Later on, she dreamt about Eddie. Mrs. Flores thought Eddie was going to die. After a while, Eddie was ran over by a truck. Word spread and people believed that Angela dreamed about death. It got to an extreme that Titi Sanchez didn't want Angela to look at her. She soon relaxed. Another worried person, Mrs. Colon, wants to see Angela to see if she will die. However, all Angela saw was a bomb. After a while, people stopped talking about Angela. She wasn't completely at peace, but things got better for her.

Chapter 3: Fighter

This chapter focuses around Billy Giles. He is a man with a family to maintain. Unfortunately, he doesn't make a lot. His wife, Johnnie Mae, takes care of their baby. We learn that Billy Giles is a fighter and his wife is 100% percent against it. The book states, "If he'd told her the truth, that he was going to fight again, he knew she would have cried." (27) The chapter starts off with Billy leaving and promising his wife ice cream. He goes to an arena where he meets Manny. Manny is the man Billy fights for. His opponent was Jimmy Walls. Before and during the fight, Billy remembers certain occasions. The narrator goes from the present to memories with Johnnie Mae, indicating that Billy was not there mentally. The first memory was when Billy got dizzy and how she was worried about him. Johnnie Mae suspected it was the boxing and got angry. Billy reasoned with himself that it was about the money. The second memory was during the fight when Jimmy was beating him. It was about when he was with Johnnie Mae. She told him he could go back to school. However, he remember when he was in Junior High School how his counselor basically told him that school is hard. He didn't go back. Then he remembered wasting money on a TV set for Johnnie Mae. Each time he was remembering, he was getting beaten by Jimmy. He lost the fight. After leaving the arena, he went home and Johnnie Mae saw that he had lost. She didn't say anything, but cleaned his face. This chapter talks about Billy and how he deals with situation with his wife and boxing.

Chapter 2: The Baddest Dog in Harlem

The chapter starts off with a cop interrogating the narrator and his friends. Eventually, he finds out that the cops are looking for a person with an automatic weapon in an apartment. Police surrounded their window. Then, an officer slipped on some dog poo and his gun fired against where the narrator was, but not hitting him. People started shouting their conclusions, leading people to scream. Ultimately, the person who lived in the surrounded apartment was Mary Brown. She was not in the apartment at the time. A cop grabbed the narrator's arm and took him up to the apartment. The "terrorist" was Mary's dog, which was killed. As the cops were leaving Mary's apartment, the next aparment caught their eye. It was open. They stepped inside. An innocent little boy was killed.

Chapter 1: Big Joe's Funeral

With a look at the chapter name, you'd expect this book to be all drama, sadness, and ultimately boring. After reading the first few paragraphs, I realized that this book is no melodramatic book. It's rather interesting. The narrator tells us all about Big Joe's funeral. Big Joe was your "go-to" guy. He was well-known and reliable. To prove his popularity, he planned his own funeral. He lay in the coffin, 100% alive, listening to people pay their respects. Almost all the people who attended knew he was alive. After the funeral, Big Joe jumped out of the coffin and the party began. The story ended with a neighbor being taken to jail and Big Joe, being reliable, giving his wife money to bail him out.

145th Street: Short Stories

Walter Dean Myers is a talented author with a thing for short stories. Not many authors can hop from story to story, always shifting focus. Myers was able to do it with facility. Each chapter, or story, had its own purpose, it's own style. This blog is dedicated to highlighting those purposes.