Response to "Tony's Story"-Krista Smathers

"Tony's Story" chronicles three specific events of racial violence and injustice vividly in five and a half pages.  Her use of the dehumanizing pronoun "it" to describe the "big cop" illustrates the opinions and beliefs of the narrator.  Based on the narrator's dreams, the nature/drought imagery, and the use of "it" instead of "he," the reader can infer that Tony, the narrator does not so much see the cop as a person as the problem, but rather something possessing the cop, such as unjust or racist beliefs.   This is most evident when the narrator states, "They sometimes take on strange forms," near the end of the story, but there are hints to this mindset earlier.  Such hints include his mentioning of burning the body (generally seen as a final method of cleansing) and the imagery of dryness and heat specifically when he says, "it had not rained for a long time, and even the tumbleweeds were dying."  The inclusion of his beliefs in this way juxtaposes the beliefs of Leon, who has come back from being the army.  The narrator believes that army-men have been socialized somehow, and states multiple times how, "Leon didn't seem to understand."