Summary

Part 2 began with “An Alley Marriage.” Joe isolated himself in his apartment above Truitt’s Alleys after news that an ex-lover, Virgil Fraser, had also died in the molasses flood. He remembered when he first met Virgil as a young man and the romantic passion that he felt for him. Every month, Joe visited his Aunt Rose. One visit, she noticed the splinters in his hands, and he felt ashamed that he may have gotten them from sex with Virgil, not from “pinsetting" alone (99). Working at Les Misérables, Joe could not distinguish between the burn of his passion or shame. That day, he left his job at Les Misérables and started guarding the Salford Cemetery, where he found Bertha. He used Bertha’s offer to run away from Virgil, and Virgil’s memory slowly faded over time.

After...