We were never bad.
Here, the central character needs reassurance. The long years of physical and emotional abuse left him “damaged.” The narrator repeats over and over again that he was “never bad.” Does he have problems with alcohol? “Yes.” Is he “damaged”? “Certainly.” Is he “lost”? “Perhaps.” But he is not bad. It is not his fault that his parents didn’t need him. It is not his fault that some people has to hide his/her fear and resentment under a mask of respect whilst talking to him or interacting with him. The protagonist is not “bad,” he is just “damaged.” This representative of “the next greatest generation” turns out to be broken.
Assuming what you say is true, that’s still a long way from money, honey.
Money has always been an issue in the family, to be more precise, the lack of it. Claire couldn’t understand how he, “smart” and “talented,” could fail to earn more, to get a better job. According to her, everyone would be happy to have such a diligent worker as her husband. The problem is that he doesn’t think of himself like that. “Assuming” that what his wife says is “true,” it is “still a long way from money,” for he is nothing like a person she describes. His inferiority complex doesn’t let him see that he can achieve success.
What good would it do?
It was “only four” the first time he’d heard that he “was brown like poop or brown like dirt and that his father was ugly because he was brown.” Claire wanted “blood split.” There were “meetings and protests and petitions and apologies.” One mother even dragged her “wailing son” to the protagonist, demanding that he apologize. The only one who refused to “sign the petitions that would broaden the curriculum” was the protagonist. According to him, it would do nothing good, because “no institutional legislation” could change “the hearts of bigots and chickenshits,” as bigotry became an accepted fact of life.
