Summary
After the hurricane, death is all around Palm Beach. Two
white men with rifles force Tea Cake to bury corpses. Disgusted
with the work and fearful of the racism around the town (the white
corpses get coffins, but the black corpses are simply dumped in
a ditch and covered with quicklime), Tea Cake and Janie decide to
leave surreptitiously and return to the Everglades.
Tea Cake and Janie learn that although some of their friends
have died, many have survived, including Motor Boat, who miraculously stayed
alive during the storm while sleeping in the abandoned house. Tea
Cake works for a while rebuilding the dike. But about four weeks
after their return, he comes home from work early with a bad headache.
He says that he is hungry, but when Janie makes him food, he is
unable to eat. At night he wakes up in a choking fit and the next
day gags when trying to drink water. Janie gets Dr. Simmons, a friendly
white man who is a fixture in the muck. He chats amiably with Tea
Cake and hears his story. But afterward, he pulls Janie aside and
tells her that he thinks that the dog that bit Tea Cake was rabid.
He adds that it is probably too late to save Tea Cake but that he
will order medicine from Palm Beach just in case.
Tea Cake’s health deteriorates and the rabies warp his
mind, filling him with delusional, paranoid thoughts. Janie doesn’t
tell him about the doctor’s diagnosis. When she sneaks off to see
if the medicine has arrived, Tea Cake accuses her of sneaking off
to see Mrs. Turner’s brother, who has just returned to the Everglades.
She mollifies him, telling him that she went to see the doctor,
and they begin to talk lovingly. But Janie grows afraid when she
feels a pistol hidden under the pillow.
That night, Tea Cake is seized by more choking attacks.
In the morning, Janie says that she is going to see Dr. Simmons
again. Tea Cake gets angry, and when he goes outside to the outhouse,
Janie checks his pistol. She finds that it is loaded with three
bullets. Instead of unloading it, she sets it so that it will run
through the three empty chambers before getting to a bullet, giving
her time to act in case he fires at her.
When Tea Cake returns, he becomes crazier,
accusing Janie of treating him wrongly. Janie sees that he is holding
the pistol. He pulls the trigger once, and it clicks on the empty
chamber. Janie grabs the rifle and hopes to scare him off. But he
pulls the trigger twice more, and as he is about to fire again,
Janie has no choice but to shoot him.
Janie is put on trial that same day. In the courtroom,
all of the black people of the muck have come to watch, and Janie
can feel that they, her former friends, have all turned against
her; they even offer to testify against her. Dr. Simmons takes the
stand in defense of Janie, but Janie gives the most powerful
testimony of all, telling the court about their story and her love
for Tea Cake. The all-white, all-male jury finds her innocent. The
white women watching the proceedings crowd around her in solidarity
while her former friends shuffle out, defeated. After the trial,
Janie gives Tea Cake a royal burial.
