The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

Fatty Davis is the only person from Chicken Hill who doesn’t attend Chona’s funeral. He appreciates what her family did for him after his father’s death, but he hasn’t attended a funeral since his father’s. Paper asks Fatty to help Nate and Addie break Dodo out of Pennhurst, and he agrees, largely because he’s in love with Paper. The next day, Paper, Fatty, and Big Soap drive to Hemlock Row, “a claptrap group of shacks located three miles west of Pottstown” (232). Its residents are all members of the Lowgod family from South Carolina, and the Black communities of Hemlock Row and Chicken Hill tend to regard each other with distrust. Fatty and Soap keep watch while Paper goes into one of the shacks. Fatty brushes off his friend’s attempts to talk about Chona, but he laments, “Of all the white people in town, why her?” (240).

Inside the clapboard shack, Paper joins a group of men and women presided over by Miggy Fludd, Paper’s friend and Dodo’s best hope. The men and women ask Miggy questions about their families and relationships, and she types their fortunes on index cards. After her clients leave, Miggy tells Paper that a person who works at Pennhurst and calls himself Son of Man may be able to help free Dodo but warns her that the man is twisted.