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Bynum Walker
A man who appears with his daughter, Zonia, at Seth and Bertha’s boarding house. Although Seth thinks he looks suspicious, he allows him to rent a room. While staying in the house, Herald searches for his wife, Martha, whom he’s apparently been looking for after many years, roaming from town to town with Zonia. Seth, for his part, realizes that the Martha Loomis that Herald is looking for actually lives just outside of town and goes by the name Martha Pentecost. Nonetheless, he keeps this information to himself, and so Herald continues searching for his wife, even paying Selig—the town “people finder”—to track her down. Selig promises to return the following Saturday with information, but while he waits, Herald falls further out of Seth’s good graces. For starters, he renounces Christianity one night, unzips his pants, speaks in tongues, and collapses whilst undergoing some kind of supernatural vision (which Bynum helps him narrate). Later, Loomis reveals that he was captured years ago by Joe Turner, the brother of the governor of Tennessee. Apparently, Joe Turner hunts down black men and forces them to labor for him for seven years at a time. When Herald was finally released, he discovered that Martha had left Zonia with the girl’s grandmother, and so he took his daughter and started searching for his wife. He tells Bynum and Seth that he just needs to see her face so that he can get a “starting place in the world.” When Selig finally brings Martha to him, he has a cathartic experience, cutting his chest and finally feeling like he can begin life again as an individual. As he walks out the door, Bynum yells after him, saying, “Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!”
Herald Loomis Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Herald Loomis or refer to Herald Loomis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One: Scene One
Quotes
I can’t promise anything but we been finders in my family for a long time. Bringers and finders. My great granddaddy used to bring Nigras across the ocean on ships. That wasn’t no easy job either. Sometimes the winds would blow so hard you’d think the hand of God was set against the sails. But it set him well in pay and he settled in this new land and found him a wife of good Christian charity with a mind for kids and the like and well…here I am, Rutherford Selig. You’re in good hands, mister. Me and my daddy have found plenty Nigras. My daddy, rest his soul, used to find runaway slaves for the plantation bosses. He was the best there was at it. […] Had him a reputation stretched clean across the country. After Abraham Lincoln give you all Nigras your freedom papers and with you all looking all over for each other…we started finding Nigras for Nigras. Of course, it don’t pay as much. But the People Finding business ain’t so bad.
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BYNUM: What you waiting on, Herald Loomis?
LOOMIS: I’m waiting on the breath to get into my body. I can feel it. I’m starting to breathe again.
BYNUM: The breath coming into you, Herald Loomis. What you gonna do now?
LOOMIS: The wind’s blowing the breath into my body. I can feel it. I’m starting to breathe again.
BYNUM: What you gonna do, Herald Loomis?
LOOMIS: I’m gonna stand up. I got to stand up. I can’t lay here no more. All the breath coming into my body and I got to stand up.
BYNUM: Everybody’s standing up at the same time.
LOOMIS: The ground’s starting to shake. There’s a great shaking. The world’s busting half in two. The sky’s splitting open. I got to stand up.
(LOOMIS attempts to stand up.)
My legs…my legs won’t stand up!
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Now, I can look at you, Mr. Loomis, and see you a man who done forgot his song. Forgot how to sing it. A fellow forget that and he forget who he is. Forget how he’s supposed to mark down life. Now, I used to travel all up and down this road and that…looking here and there. Searching. Just like you, Mr. Loomis. I didn’t know what I was searching for. The only thing I knew was something was keeping me dissatisfied. Something wasn’t making my heart smooth and easy. Then one day my daddy gave me a song. That song had a weight to it that was hard to handle. That song was hard to carry. I fought against it. Didn’t want to accept that song. I tried to find my daddy to give him back the song. But I found out it wasn’t his song. It was my song. It had come from way deep inside me. I looked long back in memory and gathered up pieces and snatches of things to make that song. I was making it up out of myself. And that song helped me on the road.
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(LOOMIS slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)
I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!
(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)
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Get the entire Joe Turner’s Come and Gone LitChart as a printable PDF.
Herald Loomis Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Herald Loomis or refer to Herald Loomis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One: Scene One
Quotes
I can’t promise anything but we been finders in my family for a long time. Bringers and finders. My great granddaddy used to bring Nigras across the ocean on ships. That wasn’t no easy job either. Sometimes the winds would blow so hard you’d think the hand of God was set against the sails. But it set him well in pay and he settled in this new land and found him a wife of good Christian charity with a mind for kids and the like and well…here I am, Rutherford Selig. You’re in good hands, mister. Me and my daddy have found plenty Nigras. My daddy, rest his soul, used to find runaway slaves for the plantation bosses. He was the best there was at it. […] Had him a reputation stretched clean across the country. After Abraham Lincoln give you all Nigras your freedom papers and with you all looking all over for each other…we started finding Nigras for Nigras. Of course, it don’t pay as much. But the People Finding business ain’t so bad.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
BYNUM: What you waiting on, Herald Loomis?
LOOMIS: I’m waiting on the breath to get into my body. I can feel it. I’m starting to breathe again.
BYNUM: The breath coming into you, Herald Loomis. What you gonna do now?
LOOMIS: The wind’s blowing the breath into my body. I can feel it. I’m starting to breathe again.
BYNUM: What you gonna do, Herald Loomis?
LOOMIS: I’m gonna stand up. I got to stand up. I can’t lay here no more. All the breath coming into my body and I got to stand up.
BYNUM: Everybody’s standing up at the same time.
LOOMIS: The ground’s starting to shake. There’s a great shaking. The world’s busting half in two. The sky’s splitting open. I got to stand up.
(LOOMIS attempts to stand up.)
My legs…my legs won’t stand up!
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Now, I can look at you, Mr. Loomis, and see you a man who done forgot his song. Forgot how to sing it. A fellow forget that and he forget who he is. Forget how he’s supposed to mark down life. Now, I used to travel all up and down this road and that…looking here and there. Searching. Just like you, Mr. Loomis. I didn’t know what I was searching for. The only thing I knew was something was keeping me dissatisfied. Something wasn’t making my heart smooth and easy. Then one day my daddy gave me a song. That song had a weight to it that was hard to handle. That song was hard to carry. I fought against it. Didn’t want to accept that song. I tried to find my daddy to give him back the song. But I found out it wasn’t his song. It was my song. It had come from way deep inside me. I looked long back in memory and gathered up pieces and snatches of things to make that song. I was making it up out of myself. And that song helped me on the road.
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(LOOMIS slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)
I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!
(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)
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