The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

December brings heavy rain for days on end. On the first clear day of the month, the neighborhood kids rejoice in the nice weather—but Mick does not join them outside to play. She’s been staying after school an hour each day to play piano, and pays another student named Delores Brown 50 cents a week to give her lessons. Mick takes the 50 cents out of her own lunch money, and, as a result, is always hungry.

After eating, Mick goes outside to join the other kids. Bubber and his friend Spareribs are playing with a gun Spareribs has inherited from his recently deceased father. Mick spots Harry Minowitz on the porch next door and makes a Nazi salute at him as a joke—in response, he goes inside and shuts the door. Mick instantly feels badly for hurting his feelings. Over the last few months Mick and Harry, who have a few classes together, have gotten closer. Mick sits down on the porch and goes into her “inside room”—a private place in her mind that’s just for her.

Mick soon gets annoyed with the kids’ chatter and decides to go the library. Bubber is playing with Spareribs’s rifle, and she warns him to be careful and not let anything happen to Ralph. As Mick heads down the steps, however, she spots Baby Wilson across the street dressed in a fancy pink outfit. Bubber calls Baby over, but instead of answering him, she does a handspring. He continues calling to Baby, but she ignores him. Bubber pretends to shoot Baby with the rifle—but the safety isn’t on, and the gun goes off. Baby falls to the sidewalk in a heap. Mick and the others all run over to her—she is covered in blood. Bubber runs away.

The next several minutes pass by in a strange blur. Mick feels her mouth and body move in slow motion as her father comes out to help carry Baby inside the house. Baby’s mother Lucile comes hurrying over, and together, she and Mr. Kelly ride in an ambulance with Baby to the hospital. As all the commotion slows, Mick realizes Bubber is nowhere to be found. Later that evening, Mick’s father comes home and reports that Baby has a skull fracture but won’t die. He asks where Bubber is. 

Mick knows exactly where to find Bubber—he is in their old tree house in the yard. She goes up to talk to him. Bubber is crying, full of regret over hurting Baby. Rather than comforting him, Mick decides to trick him. She tells him that Baby is dead and that the whole town is out hunting for him. Mick says she thinks Bubber’s bound for the electric chair. She tells Bubber to stay in the treehouse—in a few days, she promises, she’ll bring him something to eat. Mick climbs down from the tree house and heads back inside, proud of herself for teaching Bubber a lesson.

There is an anxious air inside the house and the whole family is discussing the shame and hardship this incident stands to bring them. At one point in the evening, Lucile Wilson calls the house and says she’s coming over to have a talk with the Kellys. Mr. Kelly says he’s worried that Mrs. Wilson will sue them. Mick suddenly feels terrible for Bubber and worries that something bad actually will happen to him. Mick longs to run back out to the tree house and comfort Bubber but soon Mrs. Wilson arrives in a taxi.  

Lucile Wilson comes inside—Biff Brannon is with her. The two of them sit in the living room and explain that while she isn’t planning on suing the Kellys or pressing charges against Bubber, she’s only refraining from doing either because she doesn’t want Baby swept up in a “common lawsuit” that could damage her reputation. Mrs. Wilson says that she does want them to pay for Baby’s care and convalescence. The Kellys agree to pay, and Mrs. Wilson departs, promising to be in touch with a total soon.

Mick runs out to the tree house and climbs up to find Bubber—but he isn’t there. Mick realizes he must be running away. Mick runs back inside and tells the others that Bubber has run away from his hiding place. Biff Brannon, who has stayed behind, takes a search party including Portia, Mick, Mr. Kelly, and John Singer out in his car to look at Portia’s house, but Bubber isn’t there. He has, however, been to the house, and has left a note explaining that he’s bound for “Florada.” Mick suspects that the note is a ruse, and that Bubber is really headed for Atlanta. The group gets back in the car and, together, they drive down the highway in search of Bubber.

After they drive half a mile out of town, Mick spots Bubber on the side of the road. He has a butcher knife on him, and Mr. Kelly gets out of the car to wrestle it away from him. Bubber kicks and screams the whole way home and has to be dragged inside. At the house, Bubber throws a tantrum and cries on his bed for hours. Mick sleeps in Bubber’s bed and tries to hug and comfort him in the night, but when she wakes up in the morning, he is not in bed.

As the days go by and Christmas approaches, Mick notices a change in Bubber. He insists on going by his given name, George—even as kids in the neighborhood cruelly start calling him “Baby-Killer Kelly.” Once outgoing and genial, Bubber becomes quiet and lonesome. At Christmas, Mick sleeps in Bubber’s room again. She begs him to stop acting so strangely, and though they enjoy a nice morning opening presents the next day, Mick can’t shake the sense that things will never be the same.