In the chap­ter titled “Gone,” the atmos­phere inside the Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly when the over­head bulb flick­ers, sig­nal­ing the entrance of a vis­i­tor. Dodo, who is hid­ing on a trap­door lad­der, wit­ness­es Miss Chona’s ini­tial calm demeanor turn to alarm as she con­fronts the new­com­er, a man dressed in a fedo­ra and black coat—Doc Roberts. While Miss Chona usu­al­ly han­dles her dis­abil­i­ty with grace, the unset­tling pres­ence of Doc, feared with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, exac­er­bates her con­di­tion.

As ten­sions rise, Miss Chona and Doc engage in a heat­ed con­ver­sa­tion, which esca­lates into a con­flict regard­ing social issues, lead­ing to Miss Chona’s even­tu­al seizure. Dodo, over­whelmed by fear and uncer­tain­ty, watch­es as she col­laps­es. His instinct to pro­tect her clash­es with the teach­ings of Aunt Addie, who had warned him to stay close and qui­et, fear­ing for his safe­ty in the pres­ence of state offi­cials who might take him away to a spe­cial school.

A moment of pan­ic grips Dodo as he real­izes his beloved Miss Chona is in dan­ger. Unable to restrain him­self, he leaps over the butcher’s counter to con­front Doc, who is inap­pro­pri­ate­ly han­dling Miss Chona after her fall. Dodo’s actions spark a chaot­ic strug­gle; he unex­pect­ed­ly finds strength in defend­ing her, launch­ing him­self at Doc in an attempt to save Miss Chona from fur­ther harm.

Just as Aunt Addie arrives, Doc push­es Dodo away, lead­ing to a fren­zied scene where both adults work to sta­bi­lize Miss Chona. Amidst the tumult, Dodo tries to help, but chaos con­tin­ues as the police, sum­moned by Doc, arrive at the store. Fear­ing the reper­cus­sions of his actions, Dodo flees, mak­ing a des­per­ate escape through the yard and up to the roof of the build­ing, elud­ing the police­men chas­ing him.

In a moment of des­per­a­tion, Dodo jumps from the roof to avoid cap­ture, but ulti­mate­ly los­es his bal­ance and is caught, result­ing in an abrupt black­out. This chap­ter encap­su­lates Dodo’s tur­bu­lent emo­tions and the tur­moil with­in his envi­ron­ment, mark­ing a piv­otal moment in his life filled with fear, loy­al­ty, and an urgent need for agency.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

I
11
Gone
t was close to 2 p.m. when the over­head bulb flick­ered in the mid­dle of
the Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store, sig­nal­ing to Dodo that some­one was
enter­ing. The light bulb was a lit­tle tricky. Some­times it flick­ered on its
own, or the shak­ing of the floor set it off. So when it flick­ered the first time,
he ignored it, because it was ear­ly afternoon—the usu­al slow time in the
store. Aunt Addie had gone to the ice­house for ice. Mr. Moshe had gone to
the the­ater. Few cus­tomers entered at that hour.
He was stand­ing on the trap­door lad­der lead­ing to the base­ment, his head
near­ly at floor lev­el, hid­den behind the butcher’s case from any­one who
entered the store. It was a good thing, too, for when the light flick­ered a
sec­ond time, he saw Miss Chona, seat­ed on a high chair behind the counter,
reach for her walk­ing stick and move around to the front of the counter. She
had her back to him when she walked a few steps to reach the far end of the
counter, but when she looped around the end and moved to the cen­ter of the
room to greet the vis­i­tor, he saw her face for the first time. The alarmed
look in her eyes caused him to freeze where he was.
Miss Chona was not a woman who lost her cool eas­i­ly. Despite the odd
tremors and occa­sion­al fright­en­ing seizures brought on by her dis­abil­i­ty, she
ram­bled around the store freely, doing all man­ner of tasks. If there was a
car­ton to be lift­ed, she would attempt to lift it her­self. If there were
gro­ceries to be stacked or veg­eta­bles to sort, she went at those things. She
did not like to be helped, and he’d learned to not help her unless asked. The
only time she let him do work that kept him free and ram­bling, because he
hat­ed sit­ting still, was if she was read­ing. Dodo nev­er saw some­one who
loved to read so much. She read all day. She remind­ed him of his moth­er.
But his moth­er most­ly read the Bible. Miss Chona read everything—books,
mag­a­zines, newspapers—and urged him to do the same. He had grown to
like read­ing in the past five months with her encour­age­ment but not as
much as he pre­tend­ed to. He faked it, most­ly, just for her. He reck­oned he
would one day, when he was all grown, sit and read one of the many books
she gave him instead of pre­tend­ing that he did. But not any day soon. He
pre­ferred work­ing in the store, and play­ing in the yard next door with Miss
Bernice’s chil­dren. It was the only place he was allowed to roam freely. He
had come to slight­ly resent that impris­on­ment. It wasn’t fair. He should be
free to roam around the Hill like before. But Miss Chona and Aunt Addie
had drilled it into his head. Stay close. Watch out for the man from the state.
He’s com­ing to take you to a spe­cial school. You don’t want to go there.
Dodo had no idea what the man from the state looked like, but a flash of
fear in Miss Chona’s eyes as the cus­tomer approached the oth­er side of the
butcher’s counter gave him pause, and he instinc­tive­ly low­ered his head a
few inch­es into the base­ment.
He couldn’t be seen from where he was unless some­one leaned over the
counter and looked direct­ly down into the trap­door open­ing. Nor could he
see clear­ly who was on the oth­er side of the counter. But he could feel, and
that was enough. Feel and smell. Vibra­tions, near­ly as good as sight and
sound. And the feel of mat­ters he could sense right away was wrong.
Still stand­ing on the lad­der, he pressed the back of his hand to the
floor­boards on his left. He rec­og­nized the uneven bounce of Miss Chona’s
clump­ing foot­steps as they approached the mid­dle of the floor. This was
fol­lowed by an unfa­mil­iar sound, an eerie clump-clump of a sim­i­lar gait
com­ing from the store entrance. The two thumps stopped in front of the
butcher’s case not five feet from his head.
He could see Miss Chona’s face just over the butcher’s counter. The look
of alarm in her eyes as she talked to the vis­i­tor, a man wear­ing a fedo­ra and
a black coat, was unset­tling.
Then the man turned his head slight­ly for a moment, and Dodo saw the
face from the side. Pan­ic rose in his throat when he saw who it was.
Doc Roberts.
To the white folks of Pottstown, Doc Roberts was the kind of man whose
bespeck­led coun­te­nance belonged on break­fast cere­al box­es. The kind,
gen­tle coun­try doc. Friend to all, deliv­er­er of babies, a won­der­ful man, a
Pres­by­ter­ian. But for the black folks of the Hill, Doc was a run­ning joke:
“Why go see Doc Roberts and pay to die?” He was a spe­cial fright for black
chil­dren of the Hill, cen­ter of a thou­sand night­mares shep­herd­ed by the
exhaust­ed moth­ers who need­ed sleep. Moth­ers whose chil­dren tum­bled
about rest­less­ly past their bed­times would burst into dark­ened bed­rooms
and warn, “If you don’t shut your eyes right now, I’m tak­ing you to Doc
Roberts,” which cut off the gig­gles and cack­ling imme­di­ate­ly. Young­sters
who refused to swal­low the awful-tast­ing cod-liv­er oil and ghast­ly coun­try
reme­dies used to cure colds, fever, and unknown mal­adies were met with
“Suck this med­i­cine down right now or I’ll fetch Doc Roberts. Old Doc’ll
give it to you—in jail,” and down the hatch the awful con­coc­tion would go.
Dodo was fright­ened of doc­tors. After the stove explod­ed in his face, his
moth­er wait­ed three long, painful days gath­er­ing mon­ey to take him by train
to a col­ored doc­tor in Read­ing. The col­ored doc­tor firm­ly and with­out
cer­e­mo­ny cov­ered his swollen face with goop and wrapped ban­dages
around his eyes and ears, which left him help­less. After the ban­dages were
removed, the trou­ble in his eyes had slow­ly cleared up, and Dodo watched
his moth­er weep bit­ter­ly, mouthing the words “infec­tion” and “doc” to
Uncle Nate and Aunt Addie. But nei­ther she nor Uncle Nate nor Aunt
Addie made any men­tion of tak­ing him to Doc Roberts for bet­ter results.
Doc Roberts was trou­ble.
And now he was four feet off, talk­ing with Miss Chona.
Miss Chona was lean­ing on the counter with her left hand, tap­ping it
ner­vous­ly. Doc’s back was to him, so he could not read the doctor’s lips.
But Dodo could see Miss Chona’s mouth, and from his van­tage point, he
saw the con­ver­sa­tion dete­ri­o­rate quick­ly from care­ful­ly polite to stormy.
“Won­der­ful weath­er … rain last week … has it been that long? … high
school … grad­u­a­tion … feel­ing well,” she said.
But she looked any­thing but well. Her face was pale, and he noticed her
left hand was trem­bling slight­ly. See­ing this, he grew pan­icked, for this was
a sign she was about to faint or, worse, have one of her seizures. He’d seen
those and they ter­ri­fied him. She’d been shaky and weak in her move­ments
the last week or so, and that, Aunt Addie had told him, was a sign. In fact,
just before Aunt Addie left for the ice­house not twen­ty min­utes before,
she’d made it a point to tell him to keep a care­ful eye on Miss Chona, don’t
let her pick up any­thing, and to watch her so she doesn’t fall. Stay close had
been her words. He’d gone to fetch the car­tons of cans from the base­ment
only because Miss Chona had insist­ed. He tried to do it quick­ly, but
obvi­ous­ly not quick­ly enough, for now he was stuck in the trap­door open­ing
behind the counter and unsure whether to show him­self, for he didn’t want
Miss Chona to fall while he was down there. The wrath of Aunt Addie if
that hap­pened would not be pleas­ant.
Just as he was about to poke his head out of the trap­door open­ing, Miss
Chona lift­ed her left hand off the counter and point­ed toward the front of
the store, which caused Doc to turn around and look toward the front door.
In that instant, with Doc’s face turned away, she shot a quick glance down
at him in the trap­door open­ing and stretched her left hand out, palm flat,
fin­gers spread, like a traf­fic cop’s, as if to say “Stay there!” so he stayed
where he was.
He felt the urge to scam­per down the lad­der to the rel­a­tive safe­ty of the
base­ment, but Doc had turned to her again, and the boy stared with alarm as
the con­ver­sa­tion heat­ed up quick­ly, see­ing only Miss Chona’s lips and face
from his perch below as she talked, her face red­den­ing in anger: “March­ing
in your parade … your prob­lem … shame­ful … tax­es … I’m Amer­i­can,
too,” the last she indi­cat­ed angri­ly, point­ing at Doc with a shaky hand. He
saw the back of the doctor’s neck red­den and his shoul­ders hunch up as he
respond­ed. They were argu­ing full-out now, no ques­tion, and Miss Chona’s
face, which had been sur­prised when the door opened, was now tight­ened in
rage, her eye­brows arched as she went on. “Col­ored peo­ple … Negroes …
don’t know what you’re talk­ing about … police.” He watched Doc respond,
his head mov­ing as he yam­mered some­thing, cut­ting her off.
She was about to respond, but just as she opened her mouth to speak,
Miss Chona whitened, gasped, and her eyes rolled upward; she shook
vio­lent­ly for a sec­ond and sud­den­ly dropped out of sight, her face
dis­ap­pear­ing on the oth­er side of the butcher’s case. It was as if some­one
had snatched her from a hole in the floor.
Dodo didn’t need to hear to know what hap­pened. The thump of the
shak­ing floor told him she’d dropped like a sack of pota­toes.
He slapped a hand to his mouth instinc­tive­ly, know­ing from expe­ri­ence
that even his small­est utter­ances caused noises—he learned that from Uncle
Nate when they went hunt­ing. No noise. Cov­er your mouth or you’ll scare
off the game. But this was no hunt­ing trip with Uncle Nate’s old rifle that
knocked you off your feet when it spit fire out of its eye toward a deer or
squir­rel. This explo­sion came from inside, as the fear explod­ed through his
body with the shud­der­ing of the floor, and for a moment, he could not
remem­ber where he was. Many months lat­er, he would recall the omi­nous,
life-chang­ing thump that ran through his left hand held beneath the
floor­board, and how that same left hand had smacked over his mouth so
hard he bit his own lip, hang­ing on to the trap­door lad­der with his right arm
wrapped around the rungs, for had that arm not been there, he would have
fall­en off alto­geth­er, as his legs gave way at that moment and he became
over­whelmed with the same feel­ing he’d had when he was kneel­ing before
the stove in his mother’s house three years before and the stove explod­ed,
send­ing shards of hot iron into his chest, arms, and head that felt like a
thou­sand knives with a heat so intense that he felt cold for weeks after­ward.
The pain in his head then was so great that it had grown into a liv­ing thing;
the burn­ing in his eyes so unbear­able that his ears, he rea­soned, had shut
down to defend them­selves, so that by the time the ban­dages were removed,
he was forced to stag­ger about wear­ing sun­glass­es for months, which he
hat­ed; the busi­ness of sound hav­ing been removed from the world felt
almost sec­ondary to the real prob­lem: his mother’s sud­den ill­ness, her life
ebbing away as his own ears grad­u­al­ly closed. Then Uncle Nate, Aunt
Addie, then what? Noth­ing but Miss Chona and his ears. He could faint­ly
hear a few things some­times. A car back­fir­ing. The veg­etable man’s horse
as the cart clomped past. But sight and sound were replaced by sight and
vibration—noises com­ing from inside. Inside his heart. Thus, as Miss
Chona fell, he thought he heard the sound of his own heart crack­ing, as if
there were a sound to it at all, break­ing off, deep inside, for part of him
knew he would nev­er see her the same again, if ever. Going … going …
gone. Just like his moth­er. Just like every­thing.
That thought pushed pow­er back into his quak­ing legs and he surged
upward, braced him­self quick­ly, and pulled him­self out of the trap­door
open­ing, leap­ing cat­like onto the floor, where he crouched behind the
butcher’s counter. The counter’s face was glass. Dodo peered through the
glass case silent­ly, breath­ing heav­i­ly. What he saw over the neat­ly
assem­bled pigs’ feet, sliced meats, ham hocks, cow parts, and ground beef
in the case would change the rest of his life: Doc Roberts, his back to him,
crouch­ing over the prone fig­ure of Miss Chona.
Every sin­gle road Dodo had tak­en up to that point, every turn, every
crevice, every move­ment, had been divid­ed into the rules of adults from his
world that he trusted—his late moth­er, his uncle Nate and aunt Addie, his
cousin Rusty, Miss Paper, even the grim Miss Ber­nice next door. To the
out­side world, he was a col­ored boy who was “slow” or “fee­ble­mind­ed” by
those who knew no bet­ter. Only care­ful drilling in the months before by
those same peo­ple, includ­ing Miss Chona, kept him in place at that
moment: Stay close. Play dumb. Do not leave the store. Do not ven­ture past
Miss Bernice’s yard next door. Do not run about. Pre­tend you don’t
under­stand. To do oth­er­wise, he under­stood, would be a dis­as­ter for him.
Even Miss Chona had repeat­ed those same instruc­tions just now, before
she’d fall­en, with her out­stretched hand. “Stay there,” she’d said. Stay there.
Just keep qui­et. The trou­ble will pass.
But now …
It was the thought of Aunt Addie, her fury—even worse, her
disappointment—that caused him to place his foot on top of the counter and
leap over it.
He was only twelve, so sex had more to do with odd pic­tures in his mind
and an occa­sion­al curios­i­ty about one of Miss Bernice’s daugh­ters he
favored for rea­sons he wasn’t quite sure of. His under­stand­ing of girls was
that they were nec­es­sary, would one day be women, would be required in
his life some­how and vice ver­sa; but in the mean­time, they were
imped­i­ments in his dai­ly quest to gath­er mar­bles, rocks, and stones, and
send them skip­ping across the creek that ran behind both the yards of the
Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store and Miss Bernice’s house. Girls were not
impor­tant. Appar­ent­ly, Doc did not agree, because he was run­ning his hands
through Miss Chona’s hair and inside her clothes in a way that made the
boy suck wind and lose his breath.
Miss Chona had faint­ed com­plete­ly. She’d obvi­ous­ly had one of her
seizures—they last­ed only a few seconds—but after­ward she was nor­mal­ly
placed on her side by Aunt Addie, who wiped her face, and after a few
min­utes, she got bet­ter and usu­al­ly sat up. But Doc didn’t wait for her to sit
up. He’d turned her over, and when the seizure quit, he pushed her so that
she lay flat on her back. He quick­ly ran his right hand across her chest and
squeezed. Then he held her there with his left hand and squeezed her chest
with the oth­er, the hand work­ing into her blouse, hold­ing her in place while
he ran his oth­er hand across her stom­ach, then down to her groin, pulling up
her dress, her legs exposed to the thigh, the boot she wore lying awk­ward­ly
exposed, her blouse rum­pled where Doc had run his hands so freely. It was
a mem­o­ry that would last much longer than the boy would have liked.
Dodo didn’t remem­ber yelling. And lat­er, when asked about it, insist­ed
he did not yell, say­ing if he had, he would have known it. “I know how to
keep qui­et,” he told his Aunt Addie. But that was lat­er, long after­ward.
Now, with­out think­ing, he jumped off the counter and leaped across the
room, knock­ing Doc into the shelves of cans and crack­ers behind him.
He’d nev­er touched a white man before, not in his whole life, and was
sur­prised at how soft and fat Doc felt, and how eas­i­ly Doc flew back­ward
when he piled into him, knock­ing him off Miss Chona and dri­ving him into
the shelves that cas­cad­ed gro­ceries down on all three of them.
Doc recov­ered and shoved him off, but before he could rise, Dodo was
on his feet and piled into him again like a foot­ball play­er; Dodo was thin
but strong, and his weight and strength kept Doc in place. Whether he beat
Doc with his fists like they said, the boy was uncer­tain, for Miss Chona had
a sec­ond seizure at that moment, and while they usu­al­ly last­ed sec­onds, this
one was worse than the first and last­ed much longer.
The sight of her strug­gle seemed to awak­en a strength in Doc, and the
boy could feel him vibrat­ing and knew he was shout­ing. Dodo ignored the
shouts, pin­ning him against the shelf with his head and shoul­ders, glanc­ing
behind him as Miss Chona shook vig­or­ous­ly now, her body spas­ming
wild­ly. He felt hands on his neck. Doc was stran­gling him and Dodo’s
strug­gle for life became real now. He could feel Doc’s fury and wig­gled free
of Doc’s hands and pushed him against the shelf hard­er, but Doc had his
wind, and the boy raised his head just in time to feel Doc strik­ing him. He
instinc­tive­ly struck back twice, hard in the face, and Doc’s mouth ceased
mov­ing for a moment and blood burst from his lips, and at that moment, the
boy real­ized he was in deep trou­ble.
Out of the cor­ner of his eye, Dodo saw the light over­head blink,
indi­cat­ing that the front door had opened, and then Aunt Addie was rush­ing
toward Miss Chona. His glance at her caused him to light­en his press on
Doc, who flung him off onto the floor and crawled toward Miss Chona,
who was shak­ing vio­lent­ly, her head pound­ing the floor. Aunt Addie placed
her hand under Miss Chona’s head. Miss Chona’s mouth was wide open. He
saw Aunt Addie glance at the coun­ter­top, and with­out being told, Dodo
leaped over the counter, grabbed a spoon, and hand­ed it to Aunt Addie. “I
tried to help,” he cried.
Aunt Addie ignored him, cram­ming the spoon into Miss Chona’s mouth
as Doc moved in. Both crouched over Miss Chona now, try­ing to keep her
from shak­ing so vio­lent­ly, Doc plac­ing his hands under­neath her back. She
seemed to shake for­ev­er.
Aunt Addie, still hold­ing Miss Chona on her side, turned to Dodo and he
saw her lips move, say­ing calm­ly, “Get some water. Hur­ry.” He com­plied.
Sev­er­al long sec­onds lat­er, Miss Chona quit strug­gling and lay qui­et, her
eyes closed, seem­ing­ly dead, sur­round­ed by Addie and sev­er­al neigh­bors
who had now entered and were swathing her face with tow­els. Dodo
glanced anx­ious­ly at the door. Doc was gone. He noticed the neigh­bors
there clean­ing up, eye­ing him ner­vous­ly, reright­ing the shelves and
restack­ing the fall­en items. Sev­er­al Hill res­i­dents were peer­ing through the
front win­dow of the store as well.
Aunt Addie wiped Miss Chona’s face and stroked her hair and
straight­ened her cloth­ing, and a quick glance at him from her told Dodo she
was furi­ous. He stepped to her and tapped her shoul­der. He want­ed to
explain, but she ignored him, speak­ing to a neigh­bor. He could see her lips
mov­ing. What was she say­ing?
Then some­one tapped him on the shoul­der and point­ed toward the front
door.
He looked up.
Doc was back, two police­men behind him. Over their shoul­ders, he
could see sev­er­al neigh­bors star­ing at all of it grim­ly.
Doc point­ed to him. Dodo read his lips clear­ly. “There he is,” he said.
There was noth­ing to do but run. He leaped up and tore into the back
room of the store, burst­ing out the back door, a police offi­cer hot on his tail.
He sprint­ed through the yard, dodg­ing the soli­tary cow that Miss Chona
kept to sell kosher milk, but when he reached the creek embank­ment at the
end of the yard, there was nowhere left to run. But he was a fast boy, quick
and lithe, and when he spun about, he quick­ly ducked and dodged under the
officer’s grasp, then dodged the sec­ond offi­cer behind him and sprint­ed
back toward the build­ing.
He knew he couldn’t run back inside. Instead, he made for the fire
escape lad­der that hung from the sec­ond-floor win­dow. It was six feet off
the ground, above his reach, but there was a crate he kept beneath it just for
that pur­pose. With one smooth leap, he swung him­self on it, grabbed a rung
with one hand, then the oth­er, pulled him­self up, and scur­ried up the rungs
toward the roof.