Salvage the Bones: The First Day: Birth in a Bare-Bulb Place Summary & Analysis

Esch’s brother Skeetah’s dog, China, is giving birth to her first litter of puppies. As Esch watches the dog struggle and labor, she is reminded of her own mother’s final labor: the birth of her younger brother, Junior. Esch and all of her siblings were birthed in their house—a house built in a clearing in the woods called the Pit. Though Esch’s older brothers Randall and Skeetah and even Esch herself came into the world quickly, Junior came out “purple and blue as a hydrangea” after hours of difficult labor. Esch’s Daddy put her mother into his truck, against Mama’s protestations, and none of the children ever saw her again; she died at the hospital. 

Now, Esch observes that “what China is doing is fighting, like she was born to do.” Skeetah urges Esch, Randall, Junior, and their daddy to leave the shed and give China some space to breathe and relax, but they all want to stay and watch. Skeetah has been sleeping in the shed with China all week, waiting for the birth.

Esch tries to get Junior to turn away from the gory labor, but it is of no use; Junior wants to watch. He watched when China mated with the dog that impregnated her, too, and Esch observes now that he is watching China as if he’s watching television. Daddy insists that Junior is old enough to stay and watch.

Esch sees China start to struggle, and suggests Skeetah help her push. Skeetah insists that China doesn’t need any help; sure enough, seconds later, a “purplish red bulb” begins to “bloom” from China; the first puppy is arriving.

Earlier that day, Esch was awakened by her father knocking on the door of her and Junior’s room, urging them to get up so they could start preparing for the next hurricane. It’s summer, and during summer, there is always a hurricane coming or going to or from the family’s Mississippi Gulf town, Bois Sauvage. Esch, still exhausted, fell back asleep, and woke up hours later to the sounds of Junior fishing jugs and bottles out from under the house at his father’s instruction; Daddy wanted to start cleaning the vessels and filling them with water.

Esch could hear the sounds of her brothers talking with their friends; she could recognize the voice of Manny, one of Randall’s buddies, talking about how no more hurricanes were going to hit. Esch heard her Daddy insisting the opposite: that this year’s storm season was the worst in his memory. As Esch pulled her hair back and dressed, preparing to join the boys outside, she thought of her reading for class: Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, and wondered if when Medea met her husband Jason for the first time she felt what Esch was feeling.

Now, blood oozes from China as she pushes the first puppy into the world. China writhes and bucks, and Esch thinks she looks like a churchgoer who has “caught the ghost.” Skeetah catches the first puppy in a towel and notes that it is “orange, like [its] daddy;” Skeetah predicts that the puppy will be a “killer.”

The second puppy comes just after the first; it is small and white with tiny black spots. Esch notes that the puppy looks like a “flat cartoon dog;” after looking at it for a moment, she realizes it is stillborn. Skeetah is briefly discouraged, but then realizes that a third puppy is coming right away. The puppy is a girl; she is white and brown and alive. China growls and yelps; the labor is not done.

Esch thinks back, again, to earlier that day. As she walked outside and greeted Manny, who was playing basketball with Randall in the yard, she felt hot and nervous. Before she could talk to Manny, Daddy urged her to rinse the jugs Junior was pulling out from underneath the house. As Esch rinsed the red earth from the jugs, more of Randall and Skeetah’s friends arrived: Big Henry and Marquise. The Pit, Esch thinks, feels “empty” without her brothers’ friends around.

Esch listened to the boys talk; they soon brought up Manny’s girlfriend, Shaliyah. Esch was shaking water around in a jug to clean it, and it cracked in her hands. She began bleeding. Not wanting the boys—especially Manny—to see her and pity her, she hurried to rinse the cut underneath the faucet on the side of the house. Randall came up beside her and examined the cut; he told her to press on it until it stopped bleeding, advice their mother used to give them when, as children, they got cuts or scrapes playing in the Pit. Esch noticed Manny staring at them; as she did, he looked away.

The fourth puppy is black-and-white and mews more loudly than his siblings. This puppy is Esch’s favorite so far, and she wants to keep it for herself. She knows, though, that Skeetah will never let her, as the pup is worth too much money. China is a renowned fighting dog in Bois Sauvage, and her puppies will fetch a high price—especially considering the fact that the dog that sired them, Kilo, is equally fierce. The dog’s owner, Rico, is Manny’s cousin, and he makes his whole living dogfighting. The fifth puppy comes; it is pure white, China in miniature. The puppy is silent, and Esch worries that it is dead; Skeetah pets the puppy with one finger, though, and it soon comes to life. A “fighter” like her mother, the puppy takes her first breath.

Earlier, when Esch finished washing out all the jugs and placed them in the kitchen, she took a walk towards the woods at the edge of the Pit. The boys had finished their basketball game, and Junior had gone to the woods to hunt for armadillos. As Esch walked towards the forest, she thought about the history of her family’s land. Her mother’s parents, Mother Lizbeth and Papa Joseph, originally owned all fifteen acres of the Pit. Papa Joseph let neighboring white folks dig the land up for clay, and their excavation created a pond. Both of Esch’s grandparents have passed, and now it is just her, her father, and her brothers left on the family’s land. The Pit has become overgrown, and because Esch’s father burns all their garbage on the property, it often smells like plastic and trash. The water in the pond often gets low and turns the color of a scab.

Walking up to the pond earlier, Esch stared down into it for a while, and when she turned to leave, she ran into Manny, who predicted that there would be rain soon, and they’d all be able to swim in the pond. Esch was too afraid to make a move on Manny, but he reached out and grabbed her ass, pulling her shorts down and peeling off her clothes. Esch has slept with many boys—when she’s having sex, she feels like a Greek goddess; “beloved.” Every time she sleeps with Manny, though, she feels different than she’s felt with other boys. She feels she has given Manny her true heart, her “pulpy ripe heart.” 

Back in the shed, China is licking her puppies clean; Esch has never seen her so gentle. Daddy warns everyone that China’s labor is not done—she still has to pass the afterbirth. Sure enough, as if she can hear him, China suddenly stands up and walks to a corner of the shed, where she squats and delivers the afterbirth. She turns around and eats it, then walks over to Skeetah and licks his pinkie.

Esch can see something moving in the corner—Skeetah goes over to inspect it, and sees that China has abandoned in the corner the runt of the litter. It is a brindle puppy, and though it is half the size of the others, it is alive. Skeetah predicts, though, that the runt will soon die.

China grows stiff and rigid, glowering past her puppies and Skeetah towards Esch, Randall, and Junior. Skeetah tells everyone to leave the shed so that he can tend to China and the puppies. Inside, Randall gives Junior a bath; when Junior is done, Esch takes a lukewarm shower. She crawls into bed, feeling nauseous and lightheaded. She imagines Manny hovering above her, and thinks that he must love her “like Jason” loved Medea.