The Nickel Boys

Elwood leaves behind another game when he stops going to the Richmond Hotel. When he wasn’t reading comic books or drying dishes, he used to peer into the dining room as the kitchen doors swung open and closed, and he would make bets with himself about whether or not there would be a black customer at one of the tables. He knows that the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education dictated that all schools must desegregate, so he thinks that all forms of segregation will soon crumble. Still, he never saw a black person sitting in the Richmond dining room. Addressing this fact, his grandmother tells him that the world isn’t going to immediately change, explaining that telling people to do the right thing doesn’t mean they’ll actually do it. Still, Elwood remains optimistic about the prospect of desegregation.

After he stops going to the Richmond with his grandmother, Elwood gets a job at Mr. Marconi’s cigar shop. Mr. Marconi is a white Italian American man who originally set up his store during World War II in the African American part of Frenchtown because it was close to a military base. This meant that black soldiers would come to the area on weekends and buy large amounts of tobacco and condoms, proving to Mr. Marconi that he was right to think that breaking the rules of segregation could be profitable. After the war, though, he moved his cigars to the back of the store and started carrying comic books, candy, and soda, wanting to make the establishment more family friendly. Around this time, he hired a young black man to help him run the store. When this position opens up, Elwood fills it. 

Elwood’s grandmother doesn’t mind the idea of Elwood working with Mr. Marconi , since he seems like a good person and Elwood gives her half of every paycheck. He puts the other half toward a college fund, something that overjoys his grandmother, since nobody in her family has ever gone to college. Elwood quickly proves himself to be a diligent and conscientious employee, tidying up the shop and making sure it runs efficiently. When it’s slow, he spends his time reading the magazine Life, in which he learns about the Civil Rights Movement and sees  pictures of protestors, whom he views as heroes.

Mr. Marconi likes having Elwood as an employee, since Elwood is hardworking and helps him interact with the shop’s African American customers. However, he also thinks the boy doesn’t know when to let things slide. This becomes evident when Elwood catches two boys from his neighborhood trying to steal candy. Mr. Marconi, for his part, doesn’t particularly mind when children steal from his store, thinking that this is simply part of the cost of doing business. According to Marconi, chasing children out of his store over stolen candy will make it less likely that their parents will shop there, since they’ll be embarrassed. Because of this mindset, then, Mr. Marconi is startled when Elwood says, “Put it back,” one day when two boys are shoplifting.

Elwood has known the two shoplifters for his entire life and he even used to play with them when he was a boy, before his grandmother decided that they’re too badly behaved for her grandson. When they hear him tell them to put back the candy, they obey and then angrily leave the store. That night, they spring out at Elwood as he rides his bike home. They give him a thorough beating and tell him he needs to be taught a lesson. During the beating, they say that he doesn’t have any sense, and Elwood inwardly acknowledges that this might be true. He has often felt that he doesn’t have any common sense, but At Zion Hill has finally given him the “language” to understand why, exactly, he’s sometimes willing to do things that go against his better judgment. 

Thinking about At Zion Hill, Elwood considers Dr. King’s words. “We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness,” Dr. King declares. This idea makes sense to Elwood, and he decides to adopt a “sense of dignity,” one that enables him to believe in himself. In keeping with this, he wonders how he could possibly explain to the shoplifters that he takes their poor behavior as a personal insult. After all, he feels as if he’d be going against his own dignity if he were to stand idly by while they stole.