White Peacock

        As Milkman and Guitar are "sauntered down route 6, stopping frequently...bantering each other about the best way to burglarize a shack that, as Guitar said, 'didn't have a door or window with a lock'" (177), a white peacock appears on the roof of a building all of a sudden.  It has no name, is actually very unimportant to the matter at hand and in the wider city, and it comes from nowhere.  Yet it acts important, knows that it can show off to others, and acts like it comes from somewhere important.  The two men actually speculate where it comes from (the zoo?  no), as well as one about its behavior, and it is this discussion that might lead us to the symbolism of the peacock.  The peacock seems to symbolize something, but what it symbolizes is not served to the reader on a silver platter.
        Milkman describes its flying as "jive" (178), which is an odd descriptor because Google dictionary defines jive, the adjective as "decietful, worthless," whereas Morrison states the Milkman "felt again his unrestrained joy at anything that could fly" (178) just before Milkman describes the flight as "jive."  This almost implies that Milkman is actually decieved by the material qualities, in a sense, that the peacock possesses, and that he realizes it.  Milkman is liable to like anything that has the ability to fly, something that he doesn't possess.
        Whereas Milkman focuses on the fact that the peacock can't fly but acts like it can, Guitar focuses on its "tail full of jewelry" (178).  The peacock opens its tail, and Guitar's instinct is to catch it; when the peacock closes its tail, "the two men stood still" (179).  Guitar interprets the peacock's tail as something he can't have, and so he wants to chase it.  Similar to Milkman, he realizes that the peacock is just showing off, and really doesn't have anything special.  He, too, is liable to be attracted toward the peacock because it possesses that quality he can't have.
        Morrison ties together the two qualities of this peacock together, and manages to twist them in with racial tensions.  Milkman asks why the peacock can't fly, and Guitar replies: "All that jewelry weighs it down.  Like vanity. ... Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down" (179).  As Guitar addresses Milkman's question about something important to him, flight, he implies that Milkman has something that weighs him down, too.  Just like Milkman, the peacock seems like it should have the potential to fly, but it cant.  What is behind it holds it back, just like Milkman's past holds him back.  And in both cases, it is something that would be very difficult to cut oneself from.  In answering Milkman's question, Guitar also realizes that what he was attracted to, the riches, is deceitful, showy, and does the peacock no good.  And since the peacock is white, he connects the wealth, color, and ostentatious air of the peacock and labels the peacock as a "white faggot" (179).  Just like the whites that Guitar is so violently against, the peacock has something that he wants, and has this because of fate: it was born into it.  And Guitar holds this against the peacock, just like he holds it against the whites.
        It is important that the peacock seems to embody all of the qualities that either man might want, but actually doesn't embody them whatsoever.  It seems like it could fly but it is incapable.  It seems like it has riches, wealth, but all it really has is vanity and feathers.  And it likes to show off what it has, strutting along the pavement and opening its tail.  Because the peacock has what both Guitar and Milkman are tempted to get from the money they are stealing (Guitar hopes to use a lot of money and Milkman hopes to buy himself a ticket to fly the heck away from his hometown), it leads them to think about the final outcome of the gold, not how to procure the gold in and of itself.  When Milkman and Guitar finally get back to planning how to get the gold, the final decision is that they would not plan anymore, and simply go for the stealing the next day.  Just get riches and flight without thinking: the peacock, here, spreads its tail.  Its action shows that the two of them are eager to fulfill their wishes, but implies that they will never really be able to get what they want.  The peacock is neither actually rich, nor can it actually fly.