At the outset of the book, Lonnie is quiet and withdrawn because he feels unloved and struggles with how others perceive him. The trauma of his parents’ deaths in a tragic fire haunts him, and he feels alone in the world. While in the group home before living with Miss Edna, he calls the other boys monsters because of how they treat him, but one day they dub him a “throwaway boy” just like them, saying, “You one of us now. / When the relatives stop coming // When you don’t know where your sister is anymore” (15). The word throwaway suggests unwanted or unneeded, something to be thrown away. Because these boys are without families, they feel this acutely, and so does Lonnie when he realizes that no one visits him anymore. In this moment he experiences utter isolation. Additionally, Lonnie battles stereotypes that others place on him as a Black boy. In “Mama,” he visits a drugstore to find the scent that reminds him of his mother but is cognizant of how he’s perceived: “And then I leave fast. / Before somebody asks to check my pockets / which are always empty ‘cause I don’t steal” (8). Most customers aren’t assumed thieves, but Lonnie expects the employees to view him this way, suggesting that he has faced such accusations before.