The Rockpile

“Though she said ‘children,’ she was looking at Roy, where he sat beside John on the fire escape.” 

Elizabeth tells both children not to play on the rockpile but mostly addresses this to Roy. This is the first inclination that John is different from Roy, but it also makes sense to warn only Roy because John is afraid of the rockpile and what will happen to him there. Elizabeth’s warning foreshadows the actions of the story, as Roy will visit the rockpile but John will nearly end up punished because of it.

“The passage of one of the redeemed made them consider, however vacantly, the wickedness of the street, their own latent wickedness in sitting where they sat; and made them think of their father, who came home early on Saturdays and would soon be turning this corner and entering the dark hall below them.” 

From the fire escape, John and Roy sense that the street is full of sinners and separate the walkers into categories of sinners and saved. In doing so, they feel that they are also sinners because there is sin in being a voyeur. Gabriel walks these sinful streets each day, and his return home through the darkness of the building’s lobby symbolizes the end of their fun and beginning of their fear, as well as the entry of sin into their apartment.

“Once a boy, whose name was Richard, drowned in the river.” 

The streets surrounding the Grimes’ apartment are filled with danger. Even the water is unsafe, as there is something evil that happens to boys in Harlem. Richard’s death also reinforces the rockpile’s power to John, as he watches Richard’s funeral procession disappear into the house adjacent to the rockpile.

“John watched in a kind of absent amazement—until he remembered that Roy was still downstairs, and that he was one of the boys on the rockpile.” 

John is usually transfixed by the violence of the boys playing in the rockpile, and the day Roy is wounded is no exception. Though John sees being a voyeur as something sinful, he cannot help himself. The distance between him and Roy is the greatest it ever is physically in the story at this point too, as John sees Roy as just another boy he is different from, though they are usually right next to each other. Gabriel’s treatment of them adds to the emotional distance between them when they are in the same apartment.

“He moved until he stood at the very top of the rockpile. Then, something, an empty tin can, flew out of the air and hit him on the forehead, just above the eye.”

On the rockpile, Black boys battle each other for supremacy. John sees Roy on top of the pile, like he’s conquered the other Black bodies, but his reward is simply more pain. On the rockpile, as in American society, Black men are often pitted against each other for temporary dominance which can be fun for a second, as it is for Roy, but ultimately ends in tragedy. 

“They bathed the blood away, to find, just above the left eyebrow, the jagged, superficial scar.”

After bringing Roy from the rockpile, Elizabeth and Sister McCandless wash the blood off Roy’s face. The cleansing by his mother and a woman of the church symbolically removes the sin from Roy’s face and reveals the relative lack of severity of his wounds—though Roy could’ve lost an eye, he didn’t get more than a small scar. But the wound’s severity makes no difference to Gabriel, who sees the proximity of the wound to Roy’s eye as a threat to the characteristic that most makes Roy his child, as he has his eyes and not the big eyes of Elizabeth.

“He looked at his mother. He repeated:

‘He said he’d be back in five minutes.’

‘He said he’d be back in five minutes,’ said Sister McCandless with scorn.” 

When Sister McCandless and Elizabeth ask John why he let Roy go downstairs, he tells the truth. But Sister McCandless does not believe him and tells him he’s failed his brother as the man of the house. She warns him that Gabriel will make him tell the truth. John believes telling the truth is a virtue yet is punished for doing so as though he sinned, suggesting that living sin free is not enough to avoid Gabriel’s wrath.

“Only John was nameless and a stranger, living, unalterable testimony to his mother’s days in sin.” 

When Gabriel comes home, Elizabeth picks up the three children she had with Gabriel, leaving John alone on the floor. John is seen as less-than and as a stranger because he is the product of one of Elizabeth’s relationships before she knew Gabriel. Because John was conceived in sin, he can never rise up to the level Gabriel requires, making him the target of most of Gabriel’s rage. John also is, apparently, not worthy of the Grimes last name in Gabriel’s view.

“The child stared at the man in fascination and terror—when a girl down home she had seen rabbits stand so paralyzed before the barking dog.” 

When Gabriel comes home, Elizabeth sees John underneath Gabriel’s powerful hand and shoes and sees John tremble, terrified of him. This reminds her of a sight from her childhood, hinting that she must’ve grown up in a rural area full of rabbits and dogs. Elizabeth likely participated in the Great Migration and fled the South for the supposedly better cities of the North. The comparison, though, implies that her life has not really improved and is still full of violent threats. This quotation also establishes that Elizabeth sees John as someone meek who needs to be protected from a mean predator.

“Hold still. Don’t cry. Daddy ain’t going to hurt you, he just wants to see this bandage, see what they’ve done to his little man.” 

When Gabriel reaches to touch the wounds on Roy’s face, Roy is afraid Gabriel will hurt him. He reassures him that he won’t; Roy, as the chosen son, will not be the victim of violence. His phrasing also indicates that he sees Roy not as the person who chose his path and was injured in a fight but rather a victim, someone who has had something “done” to him by others. 

“What you mean, you reckon? He ain’t got your big eyes for nothing, does he.” 

When Gabriel stops blaming Elizabeth for Roy’s wound, he turns his attention to John, insulting his and his mother’s appearance at the same time. He notes their similar “big eyes” because they are a reminder that John and Elizabeth are not his blood. The eyes serve as a direct reminder to Gabriel of Elizabeth’s sinful past and of John’s alien status in the household. He also implies that those big eyes are doubly worthless if they cannot even be used to see what happened to Roy, the only child worth protecting.  

“You ain’t going to take no strap to this boy, not today you ain’t. Ain’t a soul to blame for Roy’s lying up there now but you—you because you done spoiled him so that he thinks he can do just anything and get away with it.” 

In the climax of the story, Elizabeth defends John and blames Gabriel for Roy’s incident. This stops the violence from spreading but foreshadows other trouble for the family. She warns Gabriel to change so that Roy will not be the victim of something worse, but it is clear from Gabriel’s reaction that he will not change. This quotation also makes clear that the violence threatened to John is not unusual, as it is “today” only that he will not be hit with a strap.

“And she found in his face not fury alone, which would not have surprised her; but hatred so deep as to become insupportable in its lack of personality.” 

After Elizabeth stands up to Gabriel, he seems to hate his wife. He does not like being put in his place and shows his wrath until he recognizes her as the mother of his children again. Even then, though, he primarily sees her not as a person he loves but as something he is owed by God for help in providing and raising his children. Elizabeth sees his eyes change and then clouds over her vision, implying that her coping mechanism is to simply stop looking at her reality.