Summary: Chapter 16
Byron finds Reverend Hightower sleeping in the yard when
he arrives to tell his friend of Joe Christmas’s capture. The minister accuses
Byron of using the situation to his advantage and that his kindness
and charity toward Lena mask less selfless and more carnal and insidious
desires.
Hightower muses that, since being defrocked, he has slowly slipped
out of conventional time and entered an existence of his own making.
He believes that suffering is the lot of the wicked and good alike.
He also believes that joy and pleasure are complicated gifts that
most people do not know what to do with.
Byron leaves and returns with the Hineses, who are revealed
to be Joe’s grandparents. Mr. Hines, still in his detached coma-like state,
rants and raves about the weakness and sin of his daughter Milly,
Joe’s mother. Mrs. Hines then recounts the story of Joe’s conception,
birth, and first months. Milly became involved with a worker at
a circus passing through the town where they lived at the time.
Claiming he was Mexican, rather than part black, he seduced the
young girl, and the couple attempted to run off together. But they
were caught by Mr. Hines, who shot and killed the man and forced
his daughter to return home.
Mr. Hines then attempted to find a doctor willing to perform
an abortion, but his anger and religious zeal got the best of him
during his search, and he assaulted a physician before heading to
the next town. There, he took over the church service, trying to
convince the congregation of the inherent evil of blacks. When the
parishioners tried to coax him down from the pulpit, Mr. Hines pulled
out a gun and eventually found himself in jail. By the time he was
released and returned home, Milly was about to have the baby. When
Milly started going into labor, Mrs. Hines sent her husband off
to fetch the doctor. However, he refused and merely stood guard
on the porch with his shotgun, striking his wife with the barrel
of the gun. Milly died in labor, and Mr. Hines went off again, leaving
his wife to care for the infant. One day, Mrs. Hines found a note
and saw that the baby was gone.
Mr. Hines arranged a job at an orphanage in Memphis, where
he left the infant Joe on Christmas Eve. Joe was taken in and lived
in an atmosphere of racial taunts and slurs until the day he snuck
into the dietician’s room to steal the toothpaste and unknowingly
witnessed her having sex with the intern. Shortly thereafter, Mr.
Hines, knowing that the child was adopted and taken away, returned
home permanently, telling his wife the child was dead.
Reverend Hightower remains unclear what Byron and the
Hineses want him to do about the situation. Mrs. Hines says she
wishes only to see Joe freed from jail for one day, to suspend time
temporarily as though he had not committed the crime. Byron, however, wants
Hightower to claim falsely that Joe Christmas was with him at his
house on the night of the murder. Outraged, the reverend refuses
and orders the threesome out of his house.
