Summary

‘Holy Science’ begins with the sub-section ‘James Malachai Greene Confessions.’ Jimmy sits in the hospital room of his 73-year-old relative Margurette Honeyblue, who tells him stories of his grandparents and great-grandparents. She asks her daughter Viola Honeyblue Stone to bring beer with her pills, and in response to Viola’s protestations replies, “the way I look at it, it don’t make no difference if I drinks piss-weak orange juice or gut-rottening stumphole liquor. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go” (109). Jimmy does not question Viola’s request, thinking, “I was not, did not want to be the holy and pious dictator of a pastor they had been used to for all their lives” (110).

Jimmy recalls one Sunday at First Baptist Church on June 10, 1983. Jimmy has recently become a reverend, and Horace asks to speak with him. Horace says...