Cholly’s rejection by his father

Cholly’s rejection by his father is the failed reunion at the center of Cholly’s search for Samson Fuller: prompted by the possibility that he might abandon a pregnant girl as his father had abandoned him, Cholly goes looking for Fuller and is met not with recognition or understanding but with a command to leave. The encounter ends in tears he tries to suppress and a flight toward the Ocmulgee River, making the hoped-for recovery of family connection another decisive experience of loss.

Causes and Background

Cholly’s search begins with a painful resemblance between generations. Faced with the prospect of running out on a pregnant girl, he recalls that his father had done exactly that. The recollection does not make him excuse the abandonment; it gives him a reason to seek the man who left. Cholly decides that his father would understand, turning the memory of paternal failure into an expectation that Fuller might still offer recognition or counsel.

Aunt Jimmy tells him that Fuller has gone to Macon. Cholly steps off the porch with little hesitation, as if crossing a threshold into a new possibility. He is not simply trying to locate a name from his past: he hopes that the man who abandoned him can make sense of the choice now facing him. That hope gives the journey its emotional stakes, even before Cholly and Fuller meet.

Finding Samson Fuller

Cholly reaches Fuller in the company of men gathered around a game. There is laughter and a release of tension, and some of the men exchange money. Cholly taps an old, white-haired man on the back and asks whether Samson Fuller is nearby. The question places his private search inside an ordinary social scene, where gambling and conversation continue around the reunion he has traveled to make.

When Cholly sees Fuller, he recognizes him through resemblance: this is a man like other men, yet Cholly sees his own father in the familiar eyes, mouth, and whole head. The recognition makes the encounter bodily and immediate. Cholly is also struck by the neglected patches of wool around the clean space on Fuller’s head, a small, particular detail that fixes his attention before Fuller answers him.

Rejection and Flight

Fuller turns a hard, belligerent face toward Cholly and asks what he wants. Cholly hesitates as he identifies himself, asking whether the man is Samson Fuller. Fuller asks who sent him and whether he is Melba’s boy; Cholly begins to explain that he is not, then falters. The questions do not open a path toward the understanding Cholly expected. Instead, they leave him struggling to establish who he is to the father he has finally found.

Fuller returns to the game. He bends down to toss a bill on the ground and waits for a throw before telling Cholly to tell a woman she will get her money and ordering him out of his face. The rejection is not a considered exchange between father and son: Fuller treats Cholly as an interruption and dismisses him while resuming the game. Cholly remains standing, taking a long time to lift his foot from the ground.

Afterward, Cholly tries to stop himself from crying. Sitting in the dripping sun, he keeps his eyes on one thing and draws every nerve and muscle into the effort of holding the tears back. The narration gives the response a physical form: the emotional blow becomes bodily strain rather than speech or confrontation. His effort to remain still cannot contain the distress, and he eventually runs, seeing only silent moving things.

Consequences and Significance

Cholly runs past the end of the buildings toward open space and sees the Ocmulgee River winding ahead. He descends a gravelly slope to a pier over shallow water, carrying the rejection away from the crowd and into a landscape of separation. The scene closes not with reconciliation or an answer to the problem that sent him looking, but with Cholly moving alone toward the river.

The episode sharply reverses the expectation that finding his father will repair the old abandonment. Cholly seeks Fuller because he imagines that shared experience might produce understanding; instead, Fuller refuses even the basic recognition Cholly is trying to claim. The remembered pattern of abandonment therefore becomes present again at the moment Cholly is considering what he will do about a pregnant girl. The scene shows the force of that repetition without making the father’s rejection an explanation that erases Cholly’s own choices.