payment page
“Of course you won’t come."
She bends and picks up a stone embedded in the dirt above Given’s grave, and she untucks her shirt, holds the hem, and puts the rock into the pocket made by the hanging material. She stands and talks to the air, and the bird hops and flitters away.
“What did I expect?”
In this passage, which is told from Richie’s perspective, Leonie stands in the graveyard in Bois Sauvage collecting rocks for the ritual Mam’s trying to do before she does. Richie has watched her walk miserably down the road. She’s talking into thin air, but Richie knows that Leonie is actually addressing the ghost of her brother Given. Given only appears to Leonie when she’s high on drugs, but she seems to be calling to him specifically now to give her strength. In collecting these rocks, Leonie knows that she’s helping her mother to die with dignity and in the manner of her own choosing. She’s horribly saddened at the thought of losing Mam, so she tries to call on her deceased brother to hold her up. As is typical, however, Given doesn’t show up. Leonie is left alone. She doesn’t even have Richie for company, as she can’t see the ghost boy either.
"Hell, they half of her. Part of that boy Riv, too. All bad blood. Fuck the skin.” His voice is so high by the end of it that I can hardly hear him over the television, over an enthusiastic car salesperson whose prices are miraculously dropping.
Big Joseph says this to Michael as he and his family stand in their parlor. He refuses to accept his grandchildren because they are mixed-race. Big Joseph is a dyed-in-the-wool racist, and his voice escalates with venom as he discusses Leonie and Michael’s children. Although they are his son’s offspring, he refers to them as "half of her" and "part of that boy Riv, too." By mentioning her father Riv (Pop) here, Big Joseph indicates that it’s not just Leonie’s race he hates, but her entire lineage. He also diminishes Jojo and Kayla’s identities, reducing them to mere extensions of Leonie. The phrase "bad blood" drips with prejudice, implying Leonie and her children are inherently tainted by their race.
…I could see it on them: the way every damn one of them seemed to lean forward, eager as hounds to the hunt. And the laughing. They couldn’t stop. And I knew that when it came to the two of them, when it came to Blue and Richie, they wasn’t going to tell no difference. They was going to see two n******s, two beasts, who had touched a White woman.
Here, Pop is in the middle of telling Jojo the real story of what happened to Richie, and why he felt he had to kill the younger boy when he saw the mob. The townspeople are united in their vicious desire to get revenge on Blue for tearing a young white girl’s dress, and Pop knows Richie will receive the same treatment as Blue. The phrase "eager as hounds to the hunt" paints a disturbing picture of the approaching mob, their eagerness to commit violence against Richie and Blue making them seem inhuman and frightening. Pop's focus on "the laughing" of the crowd makes the situation seem even more chilling. These people have no hesitation or moral qualms about torturing and murdering Black men; horrifyingly, they’re actually excited about the prospect. The short, declarative sentences ("They couldn't stop. And I knew...") mirror Pop's own urgency and growing sense of dread. Pop recognizes the danger Richie is in is based solely on skin color. Because he’s Black, and he’s with Blue, the mob will tear him to pieces.
…He done sucked all the light and darkness over them miles, over them years, into him, until he’s burning black, and then he isn’t. There is soft air and yellow sunlight and drifting pollen where he was, and me and Pop embracing in the grass. The animals are quieting in grunts and snorts and yips. Thank you, they say. Thank you thank you thank you, they sing.
This passage—which describes Richie’s disappearance after he learns the truth of his death from Pop—is all about transformation. Before this, Richie had been a thin, knobby-kneed ghost. When Pop’s story doesn’t free Richie from the hold that earth has over him, he’s so distraught that his ghostly body “sucks” in all of the space and time around him. In this scene, he becomes a powerful vortex of anger, and then the hungry black void that he creates suddenly disappears.
The sentence structure, where Richie is there “and then he isn't", signals the suddenness of his disappearance. As soon as he’s gone, the air he leaves behind is immediately filled with "soft air and yellow sunlight" to replace his oppressive, furious presence. Pop’s bravery in revealing the story to Jojo has literally brought sunlight back into the world. A burden is lifted from Pop, and everything else around Jojo also seems to be grateful. Even the animals appear to be thanking his grandfather for allowing Richie to leave.
