Marked as a target: Poor Tony sizes up the "interracial" duo

texture · 14 Nov YDAU, ~2200h

• When: 14 Nov YDAU, purple twilight into ~2200h; Poor Tony, discharged post-seizure from Cambridge City Hospital, catches up to the pair on Prospect near the Man o' War Grille
• What: Trailing a few steps behind, Poor Tony Krause debates snatching the purses of "the two young and unstriking women walking just a few steps ahead," their purses on flimsy evening-gown-width straps from slumped shoulders. He reads the pair as "interracial, rare and disquieting in metro Boston" — "the black girl talking a click a minute" (Ruth) and "the white one not responding" (Kate, in running shoes under a tartan skirt) — with "an air about them of routine victimization" he judges guarantees minimal protest or pursuit. The judgment is the scene's irony fuse: it is exactly wrong about Ruth (events 6-7). (For the FLTO/Antitoi errand that motivates the theft, and the snatch logistics, see Poor Tony spine events 9 and 11.)