sinking into the mire of violence, drugs and crime
of a life on the streets. He is being nurtured away from that world, especially the self-destructive violence of a heroin addiction, by his older mentor, Raglan. As do the other two stories, Mowry's tale indicates that perhaps the source of Jeremy's salvation is a two-edged sword: Raglan shows a certain ambiguity or mystery in his attitude toward Jeremy, suggesting at times a desire for the boy beyond merely wanting to save him. The major symbol of the Mowry story is the dead baby which Raglan and Jeremy find in a dumpster. The baby represents Jeremy and all the other endangered, unwanted youth of the ghetto
who, without committed help from their elders, will end up dead and discarded.
Thomas Merton, in his essay "Is Man a Gorilla with a Gun?" counters Robert Ardrey's cynical thesis that human beings are naturally violent creatures who evolved not despite but because of their capacity for violence. If this thesis were true, then for the protagonists in these stories to
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