Summary

Chapter 1

Alfred Brooks sits on the stoop of his apartment building in Harlem one Friday night waiting for his best friend James who is supposed to go with the movies with him. When James doesn’t show, Alfred heads down the street to a back alley and then walks down a set of steps into the ‘clubroom.’ James is there along with Major, Hollis, and Sonny – three neighborhood hoodlums. When James says that he has no money for the movies, Alfred says that he has some money and can pay for him. Major comes over and asks why Alfred isn’t still at work since it isn’t even eight o’clock. Alfred says that the Epsteins, who own the grocery store where he works, always close early on Friday to go to synagogue and that they are so religious that they never...