Character
Uncle Mark
Uncle Mark was Will and Shawn’s uncle and Pop’s brother, who died sometime when Will was a toddler. As Pop’s older brother, Uncle Mark was the one to pass on “the Rules” of the neighborhood to Pop.
Loyalty & Revenge
the novel makes it clear that loyalty and love motivated all of the killings. But it also suggests that such emotions, and the violent actions that Will and others like him want to take as an expression of that loyalty, have irrevocable consequences for all parties involved.
Floor 7
Buck
he was Shawn’s mentor after Pop died. He’s tall and slim, has no facial hair, and wears gold chains around his neck. When Will meets Buck’s ghost in the elevator, Buck is wearing a T-shirt commemorating his own death.
elevator rules
They get in, check that their floor button is lit, and then face forward. Nobody speaks.
"I put my hand behind my back, felt the imprint of the piece, like another piece of me, an extra vertebra, some more backbone" (91)
The gun was giving him a feeling of power/more courage. (Will)
Dani
Dani was Will’s childhood best friend until she was accidentally killed at eight years old in a revenge shooting gone wrong. The ghost of Dani gets on the elevator with Will on the sixth floor
Grief, Fear & Violence
The accepted way to deal with grief isn’t through introspection, time, or venting one’s emotions—the only correct course of action, per the Rules, is to seek violent revenge.
Floor 6
Dani
She was Will’s childhood best friend until she was accidentally killed at eight years old in a revenge shooting gone wrong.
elevator
The elevator in Will’s building represents his sense of feeling trapped—trapped by “the Rules” of his violent neighborhood, and trapped in his grief over his brother Shawn’s death. Most of all, Will feels trapped in the irrevocable choice he believes he’s made by stepping into the elevator.
You Coming?
Shawn turned back toward me, eyes dull from death but shining from tears, finally spoke to me. Just two words, like a joke he’d been saving
Carlson Riggs
Shawn’s former friend, who Will thinks murdered Shawn. Will believes this because Riggs recently moved and joined a rival gang, the Dark Suns, and Shawn was killed in Dark Suns territory while on an errand to buy his mother special soap for her eczema.
Rules
1- crying. Don't
2- snitching. Don't
3- revenge
Floor 5
Uncle Mark
He was Will and Shawn’s uncle and Pop’s brother, who died sometime when Will was a toddler. As Pop’s older brother, Uncle Mark was the one to pass on “the Rules” of the neighborhood to Pop.
Anagrams
“gunshots make everybody / deaf and blind” (p. 19)
Will reflects on the neighborhood’s impulse to avoid police interaction, even after a violent crime. He describes how even those who wept over Shawn’s body didn’t see or hear anything; they lie to avoid becoming a suspect or another victim.
Frick
Frick was shot and killed by Shawn in retaliation for Frick killing Buck.
Will's Identity
Will desperately wants to grow up and be a man like his dad, Pop; his Uncle Mark; and his big brother, Shawn, all of whom died because they followed the neighborhood “Rules” of revenge killing.
Floor 4
Pop
Will and Shawn’s father who died when Will was three years old and Shawn was seven.
The L buttom
As kids, Will and Shawn found the L button hilarious—L, to them, stood for “loser,” so everyone who got out at the lobby was, according to their immature sense of humor, a loser too.
"Did anybody see anyone?
I ain't seen nothin',
Marcus Andrews, the neighborhood know-it-all, said. Even he knew better than to know anything" (18)
Even Marcus, who had a big mouth, knew better than to snitch. Everyone knows just how badly it's perceived to snitch. It'll get you killed.
Will’s Mother
when Will talks about his mother, he focuses mainly on her grief over losing Shawn, which is all-consuming. He also talks about how his mother never had much say in what Pop, Shawn, and Will did, and instead must simply suffer the consequences of their choices.
Beef
In Will’s neighborhood, beef gets passed around like name-brand T-shirts. Like the T-shirts, the beef is always too big and never gets ironed. The beef is inherited, but it’s like fool’s gold or a treasure map that leads nowhere.
Floor 3
Frick
He was shot and killed by Shawn in retaliation for Frick killing Buck. And, if Will’s assumptions are correct, Frick may be the man whom Carlson Riggs was avenging by killing Shawn
The middle drawer
Will explains that the broken middle drawer was the only thing out of place on Shawn’s neat and tidy half of their bedroom—and furthermore, it contained Shawn’s gun.
"My wall had: an anagram I wrote in messed-up scribble with a pencil in case Mom made me erase it:
SCARE= CARES" (36)
When you're afraid, it means that you have something to lose.