Chapter V Summary

In chapter five, Jake lives with Rose and enjoys her company and her body. Nevertheless, he still dreams of the woman that he met when first returning to New York, at the Baltimore cabaret. Jake works as a longshoreman and spends his free time gambling. He refuses to take money from Rose, and sometimes borrows money from Nije Gridley. Nije has some money and makes more by loaning money at a high interest rate.

Zeddy gets Jake a high paying job unloading fruit at a dock. Then Jake finds out that there is a strike of white workers going on and that he is a scab. Jake meets a white union organizer who tells Jake about the strike and offers to let Jake join the union. Zeddy disagrees with Jake and says he does not care if he scabs, because he...