When This Blows Over

“All at once Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on
the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and
the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could
tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of
every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth Street—a
black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was
forty feet away, thirty-five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him
come! I’m not budging! It’s my territory! I’m not giving way for
any street punks! The black youth suddenly made a ninetydegree
turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on
the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium-vapor streetlight
reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck! Not once did it
dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a
thirty-eight-year-old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some
sort of military-looking raincoat full of straps and buckles,
holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed,
and talking to himself.”
― Tom Wolfe, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”