Character Analysis
Up to No Good
From day one, Mam tells Victor to stay far away from the likes of Ara T:
Mam hardly ever talked down about anyone but she never had anything good to say about Ara T. I asked her once if she had known him before she came to Memphis and all she said was As Little As I Could. (4.26)
Victor doesn't totally believe this at first and assumes it'll be okay to ask Ara T to sharpen his knife. But when Ara T ends up stealing his knife—and a bunch of his other stuff—Victor realizes that Mam was warning him for a reason. (Go figure, right?) She's had bad experiences with Ara T in the past, and she's not exaggerating about how bad this dude is. By the end, Ara T tries to kill Mam and Victor, as well as admits that he was responsible for Mam's brother's death way back in the day. This guy is rotten to the core.