Chapter Eight Summary

Rondal wishes he could go back to when he was seventeen years old. One night when Rondal is seventeen, he and Isom arrive at C.J.'s drunk after spending time at the Hotel Alhambra. Rondal and C.J. argue about whether Rondal will soon go off to medical school or if he will go to work in the mines. Rondal says that a doctor cannot help the miners the way that a union organizer can because a doctor will always be an outsider to the miners. C.J. mentions the work that he and Dr. Booker do with their newspapers and Rondal says that even they are outsiders according the miners. This hurts C.J.'s feelings.

Rondal has a casual affair with a woman named Ruby Day. Isom is seeing a local black woman and Talcott is in love...