Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

Dennis reflects on his hatred of cockroaches. He feared them as a child. As much as his mother sprayed and cleaned, they were still there. Now the areas where the Irish community lived when he was a child are taken up by Puerto Ricans. But the cockroaches are still there. He has to fight them as he crawls through smoke towards a fire. He used to fear them; now he resents them as to him they represent poverty. After a devastating fire, Dennis sees the cockroaches return to every wall but the burned ones. Survivor instincts.

Dennis thinks of young Tina deVega who lives in the neighborhood. She is a prostitute who works for $4 or $5 a trick. She seems oblivious to the murder rate in South Bronx as well as the VD and infant mortality rates. She is unaware that the...