James is the novel’s protagonist. Though his age is not given, he is likely a teenager, considering both his remembrances of childhood and his feeling, as the eldest son, that he take on the role of family patriarch. He is the son of Octavia, the nephew of Auntie, and the brother of Ty. He and his family work as sharecroppers on a cotton plantation in Louisiana. His sore tooth provides the impetus for going to Bayonne for a dentist’s appointment. The story is told in first-person omniscient from James’s point of view. He shares with the reader his feelings about his family, particularly his overwhelming love for his mother; his observations on the bus on the way to Bayonne; and his experiences in the waiting room of the dentist’s office. His loyalty to his mother is especially pronounced, particularly his desires to buy her a better coat and to pay her back for buying him what he knows she cannot afford, such as temporary access to heat in a café.