Compulsory Riot Reading

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SCOFIELD TOUCHED MY ARM. “HERE we is,” he said.
We had come to a huge tenement building.
“Where are we?” I said.
“This is the place where most of us live,” he said. “Come on.”
So that was it, the meaning of the kerosene. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe they had the nerve. All the windows seemed empty. They’d blacked it out themselves. I saw now only by flash or flame.
“Where will you live?” I said, looking up, up.
“You call this living?” Scofield said. “It’s the only way to get rid of it, man…”

—from Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, first published 1952

Comments

  1. Bravo, Liam.

  2. Concise.

  3. I’d like to retract my gravatar’s smile.

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