How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #28
He was around and others like him, but I had looked past him until Clifton's death (or was it Ras?) had made me aware. What on earth was hiding behind the face of things? If dark glasses and a white hat could blot out my identity so quickly, who actually was who? (23.151)
After the narrator dons a disguise, he understands the fluidity of identity.
Quote #29
Still, could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is real anyway?…His world was possibility and he knew it. (23.203)
More fluidity of identity business here. Can the narrator take on such contradictory personas? Probably not (we'd imagine it'd be hard to combine a career as a pimp and a reverend), but this epiphany opens the door to the narrator's understanding of identity as being extremely complex.