Have a Nice Day Bag (Situational Irony)
When recounting the sight of his brother lying dead on the ground, Will notes Shawn was holding a plastic convenience store bag that features the phrases "Thank You" and "Have a Nice Day." In this instance of situational irony, the cheerful phrases on the bag create a jarring contrast with the grim and brutal turn that Shawn's day took. Indifferent to Will's reality, the face blithely broadcasts its message.
Ain't Never Done This Before (Situational Irony)
After an assailant shoots Shawn in public, the police arrive on the scene. A young officer comes over to question witnesses about what they saw. Will says, "He looked honest, like he ain’t never done this before. You can always tell a newbie. They always ask questions like they really expect answers." In this instance of situational irony, Will realizes that he, despite being a fifteen-year-old kid, has more experience with gang murders than a cop does. What Will understands and the cop has yet to learn is that no one is going to give useful answers to the police because people in his neighborhood live by a code of ethics that requires them to never snitch on a criminal to the police, no matter how serious the crime.
Kids Would Play Mummy With It (Dramatic Irony)
After police and coroners remove Shawn's body from the shooting scene, they leave up yellow caution tape to keep the public out. However, Will observes that the children in his neighborhood use the tape the next day to "play mummy with," wrapping the yellow plastic around their bodies as though mummified in bandages. In this instance of dramatic irony, the children innocently and ignorantly treat the tape that marks off Shawn's murder scene as a tool for make-believe while Will understands it as the police's quickly abandoned effort to appear as though they are investigating the killing.
Will Used to Know Dani (Situational Irony)
When a young woman steps into the elevator Will is taking down to the lobby, he is taken aback by her attractiveness. He leans back to get a glimpse of her chest down her shirt, and he is excited when she engages with him and flirts back. However, in an instance of situational irony, Will discovers that the fifteen-year-old woman is actually the ghost of Dani, a girl he used to play with. Instead of meeting a fellow teenager, he could start a romance with, he faces the haunting presence of a girl he once watched die after being hit by a stray bullet in another gang shooting.
