Light in August: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

McEachern lies in bed, unable to sleep. He is tormented because he can tell that the suit Joe bought with the cow money has been worn. He concludes that Joe must be sneaking out at night, wearing the suit and committing “lechery.” McEachern himself has never committed this sin, and even avoids discussions of it. Nonetheless, he quickly develops an amazingly precise and correct intuition of what Joe has been up to lately. McEachern’s bigotry functions as a kind of “clairvoyance.” 

Still in his slippers and nightshirt, McEachern gets his horse from the stable and rides to a building where he knows a dance is being held, although there is no rational way he could know that there would be a dance taking place here. He doesn’t even bother to tie up his horse, instead going straight inside. Seeing Joe, McEachern runs toward him. Joe is dancing with Bobbie, who sees McEachern and immediately stops, frozen. McEachern attempts to banish Bobbie, calling her “Jezebel” and “harlot.”

McEachern tries to hit Joe, no longer seeing him as the child he has raised for years but rather as “Satan.” Joe ducks and grabs a chair. He brings it crashing down onto McEachern, who descends into “nothingness.” McEachern falls to the floor, seemingly asleep and looking quite peaceful. Joe pauses, still holding the chair, while Bobbie starts screaming at him, calling him a bastard and a son of a bitch.

Joe shakes the chair at the people surrounding him, telling them to get back even though no one has approached him. He shouts that he told McEachern he would kill him one day. Finally throwing the chair to the ground, Joe runs after Bobbie, who is getting into a car. He tells her that she should head into town and that he will meet her soon, though he is not able to speak very clearly.

Almost by instinct, Joe mounts McEachern’s horse and heads home. As he is riding, he shouts: “I have done it! I told them I would!” Inside, Mrs. McEachern is awake. She asks what is going on, as she heard her husband get out and ride outside. Joe rudely replies that McEachern is at a dance, but is not dancing. He laughs and then runs upstairs. Mrs. McEachern follows him. Joe dumps the rest of the money out of the secret tin, telling Mrs. McEachern that he has been stealing the money rather than asking for it, because he was afraid Mrs. McEachern would give it to him if he asked.

Joe rides into town. The horse is now so tired that it won’t move. Joe gets off and begins beating it with a stick. Passing the corner where he and Bobbie used to meet, he thinks about how long ago that period of his life now seems to be.  He goes to Bobbie’s house, expecting her to be ready to run away with him. He is somehow convinced that she will be packed and ready to go, even though he never told her about this plan to leave together. However, he imagines that his intentions must have been obvious. He knocks on the door and no one answers.

Eventually Max comes to the door and brings Joe inside, commenting: “Here’s Romeo at last… the Beale Street Playboy.” Joe has never heard of Beale Street, the district in Memphis that is a famous hub of black culture. Joe sees an enormous pile of suitcases, and wonders how he will be able to carry them all. He goes into Bobbie’s room with her and Max. Inside, Bobbie is sitting on the bed next to a man Joe doesn’t know. Bobbie is wearing a hat, and both of them are smoking. Although Joe’s body is completely still, there is some part of him that is already “running.”

Max asks Joe if McEachern is dead. Joe stammers in reply, suggesting that he doesn’t even understand the words the men are saying. Joe tries to talk to Bobbie, but she ignores him. The stranger tells Joe to “quit stalling” and answer the question. Joe exclaims that he doesn’t know if McEachern is dead, only that he hit him like he always promised he would. Max asks why Joe came to the house, and Joe splutters that he came to take Bobbie so they can get married. He shows them the money he brought from home. Bobbie starts shouting at him, cursing him for letting her treat him like a white man. Joe is shocked, thinking: “I committed murder for her. I even stole for her.”

Mame is now also in the room. She instructs someone to “take [Joe],” because soon the police will come looking for him. Bobbie is still screaming about Joe being a “n_____ son of a bitch,” lamenting that she slept with him for free and that now she might get into trouble with the police because of him. The stranger hits Joe twice and Joe falls to the ground, unable to move. He can hear the group of them talking, speculating about whether he is really black. Someone hits him again to gather his blood in order to see if it is black. The group of them then set off for Memphis, leaving Joe lying on the floor.