Wise Blood: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Enoch Emery knows upon waking that today he will show someone his secret—the “wise blood” he inherited from his daddy told him so. That afternoon Enoch complains as usual to the guard relieving him at the zoo, who is always fifteen minutes late. As he does every day, Enoch goes to the park, where first he hides in the bushes by the pool to watch women swimming. He is shocked by what he sees as the shamelessness of the women, who often come to swim with ripped bathing suits. Enoch goes to the whorehouse occasionally, but he is shocked by these displays out in the open, and goes into the bushes out of a sense of propriety.

The park is at the heart of the city, and the “knowing” in Enoch’s blood led him there. He is stunned and awed by seeing the city’s heart every day, and especially by the mystery he has discovered at its center. This mystery is on display in a glass case, but Enoch knows its dark and terrible secret. He feels that he must show it to someone, but only someone special, someone he will be shown by his wise blood. He is growing impatient, feeling impulses to steal, rob, or rape mounting in him, but he feels that today that special person will come.

Enoch leaves his post and takes the path to the pool. He sees a woman with two little boys approaching. She is one of the regular visitors to the pool, who wears a stained white bathing suit that fits her “like a sack.” She is one of Enoch’s favorites. He crawls through a dirt tunnel under some abelia bushes, where, red-faced, he peeks out like a devil.

Enoch thinks of his routine—he never goes immediately to the “dark secret center” of the park. First he goes to the pool, and then to a hotdog stand called The Frosty Bottle, where he harasses the waitress and drinks a chocolate shake. Then he goes to the line of animal cages, which hold a dark fascination for him.

His reverie is interrupted by the sound of the noisy, rat-colored car passing back and forth, looking for something. Enoch cranes to see it, and recognizes Hazel emerging stiffly from the car in his suit and hat. Hazel sits down on the grass. “Well I’ll be dog,” Enoch says, and scrambles out of the bushes, his heart racing. On all fours, he stares across the pool at Hazel, who looks as if he is being held there, expressionless, by some invisible hand. As the woman enters the pool, Hazel’s head slowly turns to watch her swimming. Enoch stealthily sneaks up behind Hazel, sitting on the slope ten feet above him.

Hazel and Enoch watch as the woman pulls herself out of the pool, seeing first her “cadaverous” head and sharp teeth, then her large feet and legs as she squats, panting and dripping. She faces them and grins, then moves into a patch of sunlight and removes her bathing cap, revealing short, matted hair. She grins up at Hazel again, who does not respond, and stretches out in the sun. Her two little boys are knocking heads on the other side of the pool. The woman removes the straps of her suit from her shoulder, and Enoch whispers “King Jesus,” as Hazel springs up and heads back to his car. Enoch follows him, shouting.

Hazel sits sourly in his car, tensed as if about to shout. Enoch asks him how he is, and Hazel responds that the guard told him he would find Enoch here, hiding in the bushes. Enoch blushes, but is flattered that Hazel came to see him. Hazel asks him where the blind man, Asa Hawks, lives. Enoch tells him he has something to show him, gripping him, but Hazel only repeats his question. Enoch promises to tell Hazel where they live, but only if he comes to see something, insisting on the trade. Enoch’s blood pounds, anticipating the struggle of getting Hazel through the daily rituals ahead, but he is deadly determined.

Enoch’s brain is in two parts—the first part, in connection with his blood, does “the figuring” but never says anything, while the second part is full of words and phrases. This part engages Hazel in small talk about the car, or tries to. Hazel is totally unresponsive, as Enoch tells him about a yellow Ford his father once won. They stop at the Frosty Bottle, where a cow dressed as a housewife advertises ice cream.

Hazel is impatient as Enoch orders his milkshake from the muscled waitress. Enoch tells her that his friend “ain’t hungry but for just to see you” as Hazel stands woodenly, and she glares at them both. Enoch tells Hazel that he has “changed some.” He begins to suspect that the police are after Hazel, and that is why he is acting strangely—perhaps the car is stolen. He wonders if this is why he fled the pool. When the waitress delivers the milkshake and asks for payment, he jokes that she is worth more than fifteen cents, and then he blows bubbles into the shake.

The waitress, Maude, walks over to Hazel and asks him why a nice quiet boy like him is spending time with a “son of a bitch” like Enoch. She goes on, telling Hazel that she always knows a clean boy when she sees one, facing Enoch and shouting so he can hear. Hazel tenses further, winding up. Enoch’s blood tells him to hurry, and he slurps the milkshake. Maude continues to tell Hazel that a clean boy like him needs better company. Suddenly Hazel leans over the counter toward the woman and says “I AM clean.” He then tells her blankly that if Jesus existed, he (Hazel) wouldn’t be clean. She is startled, and yells at him, asking why she should give a goddamn what he is.

Enoch rushes Hazel out the door and into the car, desperate to get him to the dark secret. Hazel has snapped, and wants to leave, but Enoch insists, shuddering, that he had a sign this morning that he had to show Hazel this thing. Hazel is stubborn, but finally relents and follows Enoch’s directions, still hoping to find out the Hawks’ address. They go to the animals first, Enoch whining desperately as Hazel protests. Enoch shows Hazel the animals, and Enoch spits into the wolf cage, since he has no use for “hyenas.” He forgets Hazel for a moment as he glares down at the wolf. Enoch is convinced the police are coming for Hazel. He hurries through his usual routine, stopping only at the cage of an ape to insult its shamelessly exposed ass.

Enoch hurries on, eager to get to their final destination, but Hazel has stopped by a cage. Enoch yells at him wildly that the cage is empty, but then sees an eye in the corner. It is a mop-like owl with one eye opened, staring at Hazel. Enoch tries to get him to follow, but Hazel addresses the eye, saying “I AM clean,” as he did in the Frosty Bottle. As Enoch hustles him away, Hazel sees the distant figure of the woman with two little boys, and he stops protesting. Enoch is sweaty and tense, on the verge of something he doesn’t understand. They start down a slippery hill, and Hazel shakes off Enoch’s supportive arm. Enoch stops in front of the gray building and pronounces its name for the first time: “Muvseevum,” or MVSEVM. He shivers, afraid to say it again.

Hazel and Enoch go up the front stairs and sneak through the front door past the sleeping guard, who is old like a dried-up spider. The dark hall smells of linoleum, creosote, and an unnamable “undersmell.” Enoch looks at Hazel to see if he too smells this third smell. His blood urges him forward, and he leads Hazel stealthily forward into a second hall, and then to a glass case like a coffin, where he stops with his neck thrust out and hands clasped together. Hazel looks and sees a shriveled corpse, three feet long, which Enoch explains was shrunk down by “some A-rabs.” Enoch watches as Hazel stands frozen, staring at the corpse, his eyes empty. Enoch prays to Jesus that whatever is going to happen might happen now, as he hears someone coming.

The woman with two little boys enters the room and comes to stand by the case, across from Hazel. She grins, and her reflection merges with Hazel’s in the glass of the coffin case. When Hazel sees her he starts, and a noise escapes from his mouth. Enoch thinks it has come from the figure in the case. He dashes out after the fleeing Hazel, screaming for him to wait. Hazel shakes him, demanding the Hawks’ address, but Enoch is not sure he knows it, and couldn’t say it now at any rate. He falls over, slumped against a white tree, with an exalted look on his face, and watches hazily as Hazel throws a rock at his head, knocking him out. When Enoch comes to, he feels the blood on his forehead, and watches as it seems to widen into a little spring on the ground. He knows that his secret blood, here in the heart of the city, has only just begun its work.