Joseph Ucci: 12/4

Joseph Ucci

Blog Post 12/4/15

Once the narrator returns back to the bar in Harlem where he thought he would be welcomed greatly, his thoughts are soon reversed. The brotherhood wasn't so brotherly anymore. The brothers that once listened to the narrator’s speeches there no longer wanted to be associated with him. They attacked the narrator with harsh words like, "I hear he got the white fever and left..." (pg 425) Realizing something had been altered, the narrator wonders what possibly could have pushed these men out of such a bonding brotherhood. Barrelhouse begins to explain how the organization diverged away from local problems in Harlem to bigger problems nationwide. The men didn't feel like the brotherhood was returning effort back into the Harlem community. "But the minute y'all stopped, they started throwing folks on the street."(pg 426) Once the narrator visits his old office, the place that offered many with new jobs, he reached a vacant building. The brothers that once inhabited the building fled and it showed the narrator that the brotherhood truly did crash and burn.

The narrator becomes offended when he arrives at the brotherhood headquarters and sees that there was a strategy meeting occurring. Brother Jack told him that he would give him a call when one was to take place, but the narrator was never contacted. He realized that the men didn’t want him there.  He wondered why the men would purposely exclude him. Did they not care for his opinion anymore? Did they not look at the narrator as one of themselves anymore? His new life under the “white fever” (pg 425) labeled the narrator as a man to avoid—a traitor in their eyes.