Light in August Chapter 9 Summary

  • Back in the present, McEachern sees Joe sneak out of the house and get into a car.
  • McEachern gets on his horse and follows the car to a school house where a dance is being held.
  • McEachern storms onto the dance floor and calls the waitress a harlot and a Jezebel. Joe hits McEachern over the head with a chair and he falls to the floor.
  • Joe grabs McEachern's horse and heads back home. Laughing, Joe tells Mrs. McEachern that her husband is at a dance. He steals all the money she has hidden in a tin can in his room and heads back to the waitress's house.
  • Max asks Joe if he killed McEachern, and Bobbie, the waitress, wants nothing to do with him.
  • Bobbie tells everyone in the house that Joe has black blood. A man in the house punches Joe in the face to "see if his blood is black." The man continues to beat Christmas up, looking at his blood.