He cleared his throat, he gestured, and remained a black ghost, store after store, accumulating the standard humiliations, until he climbed the black iron steps to Aronowitz & Sons and the proprietor asked, “Can I help you, sir?” Can I help you as in Can I help you? As opposed to What are you doing here? Ray Carney, in his years, had a handle on the variations.
This early passage describes Ray's negative experiences in electronics stores. The narrator describes the way in which some proprietors treat Ray like he does not belong in their place of business. Ray, after an accumulation of these racist encounters, is able to tell how a different inflection in the phrase "Can I help you?" can be a sign that the owner wants him to feel unwelcome. In contrast, he notes that Mr. Aronowitz treats Ray like any other customer and has a genuine interest in helping him. Whitehead effectively portrays more subtle moments of prejudice, highlighting how it does not act overtly.
Before Miami Joe and the crew arrived at Carney’s Furniture, there was time for monologues that ranged in tenor between the condemnation and the harangue. Carney expressed his rage toward, and disappointment in, his cousin, and proceeded to a dissertation on Freddie’s stupidity, illustrated with numerous examples, the boys having been born within a month of each other and Freddie’s boneheadedness an early-to-emerge character trait. Carney was also moved to share in emphatic terms why he feared for himself and his family, and his regret over the loss of his sideline’s anonymity.
This moment occurs after Freddie shows up at Ray's furniture store in the aftermath of the Hotel Theresa robbery. Instead of recounting the actual content of the argument, Whitehead chooses to give a general summary of Ray's criticisms of Freddie. This suggests that this conversation between them is habitual and recurring, as also indicated by the narrator's comment about Freddie's "boneheadedness." The overall effect of this unique choice is to show that this situation, while dramatic and dangerous, is part of a pattern of behavior between the two men: Freddie does something risky and Ray attempts to bail him out or save him. It also shows that Ray, for all of his frustration towards Freddie, always tries to protect him.
He’d been a muckety-muck at Carver Federal Savings, overseeing most of the neighborhood’s loans for twenty years. If a Negro wanted to get something going, he had to go through Wilfred Duke sooner or later. It was his new venture that had everybody talking, putting together the charter for a new black-owned bank to compete with his former employer: Liberty National, or simply Liberty, if you were in the know. Mortgages, small-business loans, community development. According to Pierce, half the room was trying to get their mitts in as board members or investors.
This moment takes place during Ray's visit to the Dumas Club. Ray notices that Duke carries a lot of weight in the community, as everyone had to deal with him for their various loans. His new business venture is an extension of his original job, as he seeks to expand the purview of his banking work. This passage draws attention to Duke's looming presence in Harlem while also implying that something isn't quite right with what he is doing. In showing how much influence Duke has, the narrator almost immediately casts suspicion on his motivations, as his power is effectively unchecked and everyone is scrambling to get in his good graces.
Five hundred dollars. Crooked world, straight world, same rules—everybody had a hand out for the envelope.
This quote occurs after Carney is asked to pay a bribe to Wilfred Duke to get membership into the Dumas Club. Inhabiting both the "straight" and "crooked" worlds, Ray recognizes that despite outward appearances they operate by the same rules. Money makes things happen and most people are looking for a payoff. His observation highlights the false propriety of Duke, and others like him, as they keep an appearance of respectability but are really no better than the criminals that Carney finds himself in contact with on a daily basis.
Then there were the invisible marks left by the lives within, those durable hauntings. In this room, the oldest son was born on a lumpy canopy bed by the window; in that parlor the old bachelor had proposed to his mail-order bride; here the third floor had been the stage, variously, for slow-to-boil divorces and suicide schemes and suicide attempts. Also undetectable were the impressions of more mundane activities: the satisfying breakfasts and midnight confidences, the making of daydreams and resolutions.
In this passage, Ray looks up at various apartment buildings and wonders about the lives occurring inside of them. He envisions all of the scenes of daily life that happened within them and how they were invisible to the outside world. This connects to the book's depiction of city life in New York, as it shows the many lives existing on top of each other in apartment buildings, drawn together by space though never actually crossing paths. This moment is also a reflection of Ray's job as a furniture salesman, as he is required to imagine how his items will fit into people's homes and act as an indicator of their taste.
Learned gentlemen aside, Carney knew crime’s hours when he saw them—dorvay was crooked heaven, when the straight world slept and the bent got to work. An arena for thieving and scores, break-ins and hijacks, when the con man polishes the bait and the embezzler cooks the books. In-between things: night and day, rest and duty, the no-good and the up-and-up. Pick up a crowbar, you know the in-between is where all the shit goes down. He upheld the misspelling in his thoughts, in keeping with his loyalty to his mistakes.
This quote explains the meaning of the title of the novel's second section. Earlier, Ray recalls learning about the idea of "dorvay," an idiosyncratic spelling of the French dorveille, a name for the period of wakefulness in the middle of the night that used to be prevalent before the advent of electric lighting, in one of his college courses. Here, he notes that this period of time is a central component of criminal activity, as it provides cover for deals and scores. It also functions as a mirror image of how Ray sees himself. He exists in both the day and night worlds, as he floats between the respectable work at his furniture store and his more illicit nighttime activities. The idea of dorvay appeals to him because it involves his moving between these ways of being and recognizing the doubled lives of the people around him and the city itself.
"That’s all you need to know for your purposes, I think," Moskowitz told him at the end of one meeting. The teacher produced a bottle of sweet sherry. They toasted.
For his purposes. The hoods who came in the side door of Carney’s furniture had a station, Moskowitz had one, and Carney had his.
In this scene, Ray talks with Mr. Moskovitz, a jewelry-store owner who allows him to move more expensive items at better prices. He makes the comment that Ray doesn't need to know more about his business and Ray accepts this. As the narrator notes, in this enterprise, everyone serves a "purpose." People don't necessarily offer more context for their work, as it might put it in jeopardy if someone gave them up to the authorities or a business rival. This moment also foreshadows Moskovitz's later betrayal of him, as he views Ray as an associate and utility, not a friend. Whitehead highlights how these operations turn on people's performances of specific roles, while also suggesting there is a danger to someone being viewed solely as an asset, as they can be easily betrayed or killed if the situation demands it.
Carney waved and grinned. Modern life had put them out of touch with the primitive friend-or-foe sorting but it came back quick. In these aftermath days, folks appraised strangers to see where they fell on the spectrum of outrage. Did their expression say Such strange days, don’t you think? or their balled fists communicate Can you believe they’re going to get away with it again? Had the person before you triple-locked the apartment door and waited in the dark for it to be over, or slashed a cop’s face with a bottle? These were your neighbors.
In this scene, the narrator describes the mood of unease in Harlem following the riots. Ray looks around and tries to assess if the strangers around him pose any kind of threat to his safety or well-being. At the same time, he is uncertain of what their gestures communicate to the outside world. This passage is important to the book as a whole, as Whitehead captures the tense atmosphere surrounding the riots, as people fear for their safety and search for signs that their neighbors share their political allegiances.
After their initial discussion of the job, Pepper hadn’t tried to talk him out of helping Freddie. Carney had enough doubts with outside encouragement. The debacle of Bella Fontaine and Mr. Gibbs aside, Freddie had brought danger close again. When they were children, when he’d brought down parental wrath and they sat in the bedroom waiting for the belt, Freddie would croak out a pitiable, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.” It never occurred to him that things would go wrong, that the caper would go sideways and there would be consequences. There were always consequences.
This quote occurs as Ray contemplates how he can help Freddie. Once again, he thinks back to their childhood and recalls how Freddie would apologize for getting them into trouble, failing to recognize that actions have consequences. This passage underscores their difference in worldviews, as Ray understands quite well what can happen when a plan goes awry or someone comes looking for retribution. While Ray is the more outwardly "straight" figure, he also has a better grasp on how to get away with his crimes, as he perceives the risks involved. Freddie's comment takes on a more tragic significance towards the end of the novel, as he says it to Ray on his deathbed before succumbing to the injuries he sustained from the Van Wycks.
Carney gave the WTC site one last look. The next time he was here it’d be something totally different. That’s how it worked.
At the story's conclusion, Ray looks out on the former site of the electronics shop he was visiting at the novel's beginning. He notes that New York is in a state of constant flux. In a literal sense this means that it is always undergoing new construction, as city blocks are reshaped with each new building. But in a figurative manner, this observation also captures the shifts in Ray's life, as he has lost both family members and business associates and now contends with a new future. His double life unfolds across the constantly shifting terrain, but his knowing appraisal of it suggests that he will continue to make it work.
