Simile : Broken Bottles
" I always picked my way around words and sounds in sentences like I walked around broken bottles and dog turds in alleys."
The fact that Victor compares words and sounds to broken bottles and dog turds definitely tells the reader his feelings about both; they are both dangerous and likely to trip him up (comparing them to the broken bottles) and they are also something to definitely be avoided (the dog feces). He is also telling us that whereas most people are not really wary of words at all and approach speaking to people without any trepidation, he is constantly aware of where words and sounds might be, where they might cause him harm or embarrassment and where they definitely need to be avoided.
Simile : The Streets
"The streets are like friends that I don't have to talk to."
Victor has grown up in the area of Memphis where he is delivering the newspapers and knows the streets like the back of his hand. They are very familiar and reassuring to him and he knows them really well. This is why they are like his friends, but they are better than actual friends because they are still familiar and reassuring because he doesn't have to worry about talking to them.
Simile : Apple Peel
"The can looked like the peel of an apple after he got through with it."
When Ara T uses the knife to cut through an aluminum can, the knife is so sharp that it makes the can look like the peel of an apple that has come off the fruit in one long coil, demonstrating the sharpness of the knife. This is important because it is one of the reasons that Victor gives him his yellow-handled knife to sharpen which leads to some of the pivotal events in the novel.
Simile : Feather
"He would pull up to the curb in front of our house in his old truck and lift the mower out of the back like it was a feather."
Big Sack is very strong and just generally bigger than the average human being. To demonstrate this Victor compares the way in which he lifts a heavy mower out of the back of his truck to the way in which most people would lift up a feather, showing how light it is to him when it would be incredibly heavy to most people.
Simile : Organ Grinder's Monkey
"It's like I walked into every room with an organ grinder's monkey sitting on my head and everyone pretending the monkey wasn't there."
This is the comparison Victor uses to explain how most people act around him when he is stammering. Although it is painfully obvious it is there, nobody mentions anything and pretends he is speaking without the stammer. This is how it would be if he had a monkey on his head but everyone pretended not to see it. It's Victor's way of explaining that most people deal with his stammer by not dealing with it at all.
