Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in That Was Then, This Is Now, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humility, Responsibility, and Coming of Age
Brotherhood, Loyalty, and Betrayal
Rules and Consequences
Violence and Revenge
Love and Selflessness
Summary
Analysis
The following afternoon, Mark and Bryon go to the hospital to visit Bryon’s mother. She has just had a big operation, and they sold their car and their TV to pay for it. Bryon has been trying to find a job to make more money, and Mark had scrounged up some money as well; Bryon doesn’t ask where Mark got the money, figuring that he stole it. Together, Bryon notes, they make a great pair: he is the hustler, and Mark is the thief. But Bryon explains that Mark doesn’t see anything wrong with stealing, while Bryon does. He says that Mark thinks stealing is only a game, and that one of the rules is to avoid getting caught.
The fact that Bryon is trying to find a job to cover the cost of his mother’s operation illustrates how his love for his mother naturally grows into a desire to be more selfless, particularly at a time of great need for her. Additionally, Bryon shows that Mark doesn’t care about breaking the rules—in fact, he cares more about the “rule” of not getting caught than the morality of stealing and the damage it causes for others. Bryon, on the other hand, recognizes the underlying morality of rules (despite breaking them) and realizes that stealing and hustling are wrong. But because he, like Mark, hasn’t suffered any consequences for their crimes, he is relatively undisturbed by their actions as well.
Themes
Mark and Bryon hitch a ride to the hospital with a hippie named Randy. Bryon recalls a time when he and Mark beat up a couple hippies to seem tough—but they hadn’t realized that the hippies wouldn’t fight back. He recalls that what happened to one of the hippies they beat up made him sick, and so they left the hippies alone after that. Randy tells them about a house he lives in with friends, where anyone could come and live in peace. Bryon ignores Randy, but Mark is interested and asks Randy about the place.
Because Bryon and Mark were so disgusted by what they did when a hippie they beat up didn’t fight back, they resolved not to beat up any more hippies after that. This introduces the idea that even though nonviolence doesn’t always prevent violence in the moment, it can at least influence people to rethink their actions in the future.
Themes
At the hospital, Bryon’s mom is glad to see Bryon and Mark. Bryon explains that as usual, his mom isn’t thinking about herself: she tells them that there is a kid across the hall named Mike who never gets visitors. She asks Mark and Bryon to go see the kid so that he has someone to talk to. Mark agrees, and Bryon concedes to go with Mark. But when they leave Bryon’s mom’s room, Mark heads over to the kid’s room, while Bryon instead goes to the snack bar to get a hamburger.
Bryon’s mom is characterized as someone who puts others’ needs over her own, as she’s seemingly more worried about the lonely boy down the hall than she is about her own recovery. Yet even though Bryon is trying to be more selfless in his relationship with his mother—attempting to support her following her operation—he still can’t help but lie about his intentions to visit Mike. Thus, even though Bryon wants to put his mother’s desires over his own, at this point he is still a rather smug and self-involved kid.
Themes
Bryon sits and eats, explaining that he loves food and can’t get enough of it. He thinks that with his build, he could have gone out for football, but he knows he would never put up with a coach because he’s not good at accepting authority. Once, when Bryon was 13, he went to the movies and got drunk on cherry vodka. Afterward, he staggered alone on the street until two cops picked him up, drove him to a hill on the other side of town, and beat him up—which ruined his respect for cops.
Here, Bryon explains the origin of his aversion to following rules. Even though broke the law by getting drunk at 13, the punishment was doled out harshly and unjustly, as the police were following neither morality nor the law in beating him up. It makes sense, then, that this experience led Bryon to be disillusioned with rules, as even those who ostensibly uphold those laws deviate from them. Yet in hating the police, Bryon again focuses on the consequences of his actions on himself rather than understanding how being drunk in the street could have affected others.
Themes
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A cute girl behind the counter asks Bryon for his order. She then recognizes him and asks him how he is, saying that she just got back in town and started this new job. Bryon has trouble placing who she is at first—but after she brings him his order, he realizes that she’s Cathy, M&M’s older sister. He hadn’t recognized her because she grew out her hair and no longer has braces. As Cathy turns away from him, Bryon asks if they can talk sometime, and she agrees. He doesn’t ask when, however, as he is worried that he’ll seem too eager.
Bryon is charmed and even intimidated by Cathy’s more grown-up appearance, which foreshadows the ways in which Cathy will help guide Bryon’s own coming of age. Given that Bryon has more self-awareness than Mark does, it’s likely that he'll mature faster than Mark does.
Themes
After Bryon eats, he returns to his mother’s floor and looks around for Mark. He then ducks into the kid’s room across the hall. Mark isn’t there, but Bryon starts talking to the kid, who explains that Mark went across the street to buy him some comics. The kid introduces himself as Mike Chambers, and he notes that Bryon and Mark don’t look alike for being brothers. Bryon is pleased that Mark told Mike they were brothers. He and Mike share a cigarette, even though they’re not supposed to smoke in the hospital.
Mark again affirms the idea that he and Bryon are as close as brothers by telling Mike that they are brothers. Bryon’s pleasure at the fact that Mark says this indicates that even the knowledge of their mutual bond makes him feel supported, because it proves that Mark feels exactly the same way about their relationship as Bryon does.
Themes
Mike has bandages around his head, both arms in slings, and stitches in his lip. Mike tells Bryon the story of how he was hurt, explaining that one day he and his gang were hanging around a drug store when a black girl named Connie came in to buy cigarettes. The gang immediately started to harass her and push her around, but Mike had intervened, telling the others to let her go. Knowing that Mike’s brother was a tough guy, the gang listened to him.
Mark and Bryon have emphasized that violence can be a fun distraction for them, and even here Mike reinforces that having a reputation as a tough guy can give a person higher status. But Mike’s story also emphasizes that using violence as entertainment is cruel and unnecessary, as Connie didn’t do anything to deserve being harassed and assaulted.
Themes
After Connie left the drug store, Mike noticed that she missed her bus, and so he offered to drive her home. She was suspicious but accepted his offer, particularly because she would have to wait an hour for the next bus, and it was getting dark. When they got in the car, Mike started talking to her to try to make her feel better. He apologized for what happened in the drug store, and Connie started to cry. He realized that she was probably fed up with getting harassed by white people. He pulled over to offer her a handkerchief, and even though he didn’t have one, she thanked him.
Mike’s story also demonstrates how violence can instill hatred for entire groups of people. Regardless of whether Mike personally participated in harassing Connie, she is still suspicious of him. Mike acknowledges that this is because he belongs to a gang of white boys, and he recognizes that similar gangs had likely harassed Connie before.
Themes
When Mike got to Connie’s house, she got out of the car, and a group of black guys surrounded him and pulled him out of the car. They asked Mike if he hurt Connie, which he adamantly denied this. When he told them to ask Connie whether he hurt her, she told the men, “kill the white bastard.” Mike finishes his story by saying that he doesn’t hate Connie or black people for what happened—he can almost see why they did it.
Mike’s resolution that he doesn’t hate Connie or the people who beat him up is a key lesson in the book. While his plea for nonviolence in the drugstore doesn’t prevent him from being beaten up, he still understands that if he hated Connie or sought revenge on black people at large, this would only reinforce the harmful cycle that caused him to be beaten in the first place. The book therefore takes the position that while nonviolence isn’t always successful, it is worth pursuing because the alternative simply perpetuates violence.
Themes
Mark returns with the comics as Mike finishes his story. Soon after, Mark and Bryon leave Mike’s room, and Mark tells Bryon that he thinks Mike is pretty stupid. Bryon disagrees, thinking that he can see Mike’s point about not hating the people who beat him up. Mark, however, says that if anyone hurt him like that, he would hate the person for the rest of his life. Bryon explains that he didn’t think much about Mark’s statement at the time, but looking back on it, it drives him crazy.
Bryon’s understanding of Mike’s perspective not only illustrates his maturity, but foreshadows the fact that Bryon will come to the same conclusion later in the novel when he is the victim of violence. Additionally, Hinton includes a subtle and notable time shift here. Bryon is reflecting on Mark’s statement from an unspecified time in the future—one of the few instances in the book in which this occurs. The fact that Bryon dwells on Mark’s statement so heavily in the future foreshadows the fact that a similar kind betrayal and hatred may indeed befall Mark and leave a lasting impact on the two friends.
Themes
