39 pages • 1 hour read
Piri ThomasDown These Mean Streets
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 33-35: “New York Town”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 33 Summary: “Free Side Is the Best Side”
Despite being released from prison, Piri still must face outstanding warrants for robberies committed in the Bronx. Two police officers arrest him as he is released and Piri is driven to the Bronx by the officers. Along the way, they stop for a meal and Piri contemplates making a run for it and escaping out the back door, but he decides that it is better to take his chances facing the warrants. They drive through Piri’s old neighborhood in Harlem and though many things have changed, “the heart was still there. New faces and old hearts” (314).At the Bronx prison, he is cellmates with a young man who shot a cop and is scared about what sentence he will get. Piri says: “I felt I was looking at myself six years ago” (315). He tells the young man that everything will probably be alright. The night before his hearing, Piri prays to God, and with this act he “began to feel better inside, like God had become Pops and Moms to me” (317).
Chapter 34 Summary: “Hey Barrio—I’m Home”
The day of the hearing arrives and Piri is given three years’ probation. Riding the subway back from the hearing with his aunt, Piri impulsively leaves the train car a stop early, simply because “it felt good to be able to leave when [he] wanted to” (320).Piri gets a job but starts partying and smoking marijuana. Realizing that he is engaging in old destructive habits, Piri promises to God that he will help others if God helps him avoid going back to his old ways. Piri is able to stay out of trouble and some months later he visits Trina, whose husband “had turned out no good” (323).Before visiting her, Piri fantasizes a romantic scenario in which Trina leaves her husband for him. But in actuality, Trina doesn’t even say anything to Piri at all, and Piri decides that “nothing is run the same, nothing stays the same. You can’t make yesterday come back today.” (326).
Chapter 35 Summary: “I Swears to God and the Virgin”
Visiting his old childhood apartment building in Harlem, Piri runs into a “stone junkie” that he recognizes to be his old friend, Carlito, who is Trina’s cousin (327). Carlito is shooting up heroin and asks Piri if he’d like some. Piri thinks “wonder what it would be like again?” but tells Carlito that he is not using heroin anymore, that he is “clean” (329). After watching Carlito shoot up the heroin, Piri leaves and walks out into the street.
Chapters 33-35 Analysis
In the closing three chapters, the “changed” Piri is tested by temptations. First, he is tempted to run from the officers and escape his Bronx warrants. Later, he is tempted by the seduction of the partying lifestyle he had lived previously. Finally, he is tempted by the enticement of someone shooting up heroin right before his eyes. Piri is able to push aside each temptation and is thus able to prove to himself that he has truly changed. Piri is also finally able to help someone else when he offers words of comfort to the young man accused of shooting a police officer. Piri recognizes this young man as essentially a younger version of himself. This recognition symbolizes Piri’s newly-found ability to see himself in other people. The ending of the book is hopeful because if Piri can combine this fledgling empathy with the knowledge of the destructiveness of his previous habits, then Piri has a good chance of having a decent and productive adult life.
