Down These Mean Streets

Piri’s father loses his job and starts working for the WPA, a public agency that employed out-of-work men during the Great Depression. Piri talks about how their apartment used to get almost unbearably cold during the winters, and how his mother would lament not being in Puerto Rico, where it was always warm. His mom says that though her family was very poor in Puerto Rico, they were also “very happy”, saying that “when you have a little, then the good does not have to be looked for so hard” (9).Piri’s father arrives home in an angry mood, cursing nearly everything in his life: “the damn WPA, the damn depression, the damn home relief, the damn poorness, the damn cold, the damn crummy apartments, the damn look on his damn kids, living so damn damned and his not being able to do a damn thing about it” (11).After a few minutes, though, Piri’s father brightens and suggests they all play a beloved game of the family’s, wherein everyone pretends they are on a talent show called “Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour” (12).The next day, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and soon thereafter Piri’s father gets a job at an airplane factory:“Things were looking up for us, but it had taken a damn war to do it” (13).

In Chapter 3, Piri reminisces about hanging out in his neighborhood, which he calls a “sort of science. You have a lot to do and a lot of nothing to do” (14).He is about thirteen years old and spends his time playing marbles, doing dares, checking out girls, and playing stickball. One time, while they are playing stickball, a man gets angry with Piri for running out in front of his car. Piri yells back at him: “I was here before you. This is my block, you’re just riding through and we’re nice enough to let you, amigo”, and then all his friends rush to defend him with their stickball bats (17).Piri comes home and gives and gets some loving, good-natured ribbing from his mother and James, one of his brothers. However, he does not have this sort of relationship with his father, who he feels treats him differently from the rest of the family. He feels out of place when the rest of the family greats Piri’s father when he comes home from work. Piri tries to impress his father by holding his breath underwater, in the bath; this does get a positive response from his father, and Piri is pleased.

In this chapter, a young Piri runs afoul of some Italian-American kids whose block his family has moved onto. These “spaghetti-an’-sauce cats” make fun of him for his skin color: “he’s black enuff to be a nigger” (24).Piri is adamant that he is not black, but rather Puerto Rican. Piri gets in a fistfight with an Italian kid he calls “Rocky,” but the local adults break up the fight. His mother finds out and tells him “I raise this family in Christian way. Not to fight. Christ says to turn the other cheek” (27).The Italian kids keep harassing Piri, and he gets in another fight. This time, one of the kids throws ground asphalt in his eyes, and Piri is blinded. Rocky feels bad that they have hurt him unfairly and takes him home. His father rushes Piri to the hospital, fearing that Piri has been blinded for life. The doctors worry as well, but are able to heal Piri’s eyes after a couple days. Piri’s father calls him “un hombre” for being so tough throughout the ordeal (38).Through it all, Piri refuses to rat on the Italian kids, saying he just got some dirt in his eyes, though his parents suspect the truth.

In Chapter 5, Piri remembers a fight his mother and father had. His father is dissatisfied with all the work he does and threatens to leave, and his mother does, too. They both do leave but come back an hour later. His father has lost his job, and his mother takes Piri with her to the Home Relief Office (a social welfare program) to help her plead for some government help. There, Piri overhears the various plights of the people looking for aid. His mother’s plea is successful. On the way back to their home, Piri thinks about how good his father is at haggling. His father avoided “irregular goods at first-class prices. He fought to get first-class goods at the price of irregulars” (46).

Piri’s family moves back to Spanish Harlem, and he finds that he has to reestablish his reputation: “Even when the block belongs to your own people, you are still an outsider who has to prove himself a down stud with heart” (47). He gets into a fight with the locals, led by a kid named Waneko, who will become a close friend soon. He and Waneko fight, but end the fight on good terms. After the fight, Piri thinks to himself “You’ve established your rep. Move over, 104th Street. Lift your wings, I’m one of your baby chicks now” (50).Piri becomes a member of Waneko’s gang, the “TNT’s,” who get into a rumble with the “Jolly Rogers” over a dispute regarding one of the TNT’s disrespecting a girl in the Jolly Rogers’ territory. Later, a member of Piri’s gang suggests visiting some homosexuals and hustling money from them in return for sexual favors: “let’s make it up to the faggot’s pad and cop some bread”(55).Piri does not want to go, but decides that he must: “I don’t wanna go - but I gotta or else I’m out, I don’t belong in. And I wanna belong in!” (55). While there, the boys smoke weed, and the homosexuals perform sex acts on them. After, Piri muses, “I hadn’t liked the scene but if a guy gotta live, he gotta do it from the bottom of his heart” (62).

“I hated school and all its teachers”, says Piri (64).One day at school, he has to use the restroom, but the teacher won’t allow him to use it. When she tries to hold him back from leaving the classroom, Piri hits the teacher. The teacher calls for the principal, who chases Piri all the way back to his apartment building. There, a neighbor of his, Miss Washington, protects Piri from the principal, saying that Piri is “a good boy—at least good for what comes outta this heah trashy neighborhood—an’ you ain’t gonna do nuttin to him, unless you-all wan’s to walk over me” (67).The principal, intimidated by Miss Washington, relents and goes back to the school, leaving Piri at the apartment building.

In this chapter, Piri recollects various methods he had of making money as a kid. One method was to shine shoes. Piri is a smooth talker and is good at getting shoeshine business, but he realizes that he can only make so much money shining shoes: “I calculated how long it would take to make my first million shining shoes. Too long. I would be something like 987 years old. Maybe I could steal it faster” (72).One hot summer day, he and his TNT gang decide to sell lemonade. In order to make a bigger profit, they steal all the ingredients, even a glass pitcher. While stealing the lemonade ingredients, they notice that the local grocery store owner keeps a large amount of illicitly-gained money in a big bag of rice. Piri and two other members of the gang, Crip and Louie, come back at night and break into the grocery store in order to steal the money. However, a police officer discovers them and they run away. Crip and Louie are caught, but Piri escapes, though he feels guilty about leaving them: “I felt like I was in a war and I had lost my two best buddies […] I should’ve stayed there with Crip and Louie” (78).