Change.

"I see them watch their own faces for the twenty minutes they sit below me. Men hate to see themselves change. They laugh nervously.This is the power I live in. I manipulate their looks" (Pg. 48)

It is true that men hate themselves change, especially when they realize they have changed. But why do we fear it so much? Is it because we consider the past as a determinator of who we are? Or simply we are afraid to let go because when we change we do not know what comes before us.  We always change, we are meant to change and experiences and thoughts are the causes of our change. It is a risk we will always have to take. 

Bolden credits himself as the cause for a man's physical change, he sees men changing but he never sees a change in himself. He has the ability to change others but finds himself stuck in his own fate. 

It's as if he were longing a change, but has to see how others go through it and he's simply the same person. Maybe he is who fears his own change, and relies on other means to avoid it, his music and alcohol. His customers mirror his deepest desires and longings, yet he forbids himself to search for a new path and a new way of living.

It's something inevitable we all have to go through, eventually Bolden will find himself mirrored through his own change, longing to go back yet having to face his new fate.