Rabbit, Run

Rabbit has an intense dream. He is in his childhood kitchen with his parents and others. A girl opens the icebox, revealing a large cake of ice with white veins and a star-shaped crack. The ice is alive, frightening Rabbit. His mother endlessly scolds the girl. The scene shifts; he is now with the girl, revealed to be Janice, behind the Mt. Judge Recreation Hall. She wears a pink dress and cries. As Rabbit holds Janice, her face begins to melt like wax. He tries to catch the melting flesh in his hands and screams himself awake.

He wakes in Ruth’s bed and kisses her sleeping face. She wakes, and they have sex again in morning light. He watches churchgoers enter the limestone church across the street, then says a silent prayer for Ruth, Janice, Nelson, his parents, the Springers, and Janice’s unborn baby. Later, Rabbit and Ruth discuss religion; he affirms belief in God while she declares herself an atheist. His faith annoys her.

Rabbit steps out to buy groceries for lunch. When he returns, he finds Ruth’s mystery novels and is reminded of an army buddy. A breeze through the curtains triggers a memory of childhood Sunday walks with his family, inspiring him to suggest they climb Mt. Judge that afternoon.

After lunch, he tells Ruth he needs to return the car to Janice and collect his clothes. She reluctantly agrees to let him go. Upon returning, Rabbit is overwhelmed by Janice’s lingering presence and the sense of desertion. In the kitchen, he finds the pork chops from Friday still in the pan. He quickly gathers clothes into a bundle, leaves the car keys on the television, and exits. As he descends the stairs, he remembers forgotten items: toothbrush, razor, and another pair of shoes.

Outside his apartment, Rabbit encounters Miss Arndt, a neighbor holding a palm frond, who mentions it is Palm Sunday. When she observes a clergyman in a slow-moving gray car, Rabbit realizes he is trapped. The driver is Jack Eccles, a young Episcopal minister who introduces himself and offers Rabbit a ride to Brewer. In the car, Eccles explains that Janice and her father attended church that morning and recounts Friday night’s events: Janice called her parents at two in the morning, and Mrs. Springer then called him.

Eccles reveals he spoke to Rabbit’s mother, who insists her son is too good to desert his wife. Rabbit explains he left because he felt trapped and realized how easy it was to walk out. He only came back because it felt was safe. They discuss religion and responsibility. Rabbit describes his past as a basketball star and the humiliation of his current job demonstrating the MagiPeeler. Despite the tensions between them, Rabbit accepts Eccles’ invitation to play golf on Tuesday.

Rabbit returns to Ruth and tells her about the encounter. He convinces her to walk up Mt. Judge. They walk through the city park and climb the old log steps on the mountain’s Brewer side. Ruth struggles in heels, eventually removing them; Rabbit removes his shoes in solidarity. Near the top, they reach the Pinnacle Hotel parking lot. At the cliff’s edge, Rabbit contemplates God and becomes certain someone is dying in the city below. Frightened, he asks Ruth to hold him. Feeling secure, he asks if she was really a sex worker. She angrily asks if he is really a rat. He answers ambiguously. They take a bus down.

On Tuesday afternoon, Rabbit takes a bus to Eccles’s house in Mt. Judge for their golf date. A woman named Lucy answers the door. She reveals she is Jack’s wife, not his babysitter, and that they have two daughters. She discusses Jack’s preference to have women compete for his attention, adding that a son would threaten Jack. When Jack calls down that their daughter Joyce is in bed with him, Lucy becomes irritated. She recognizes Rabbit as the Springers’ son-in-law who disappeared. As she turns away, Rabbit impulsively slaps her backside. She pivots in shock, and he makes a mocking show of penitence.

Eccles comes downstairs disheveled. Lucy rebukes him for playing golf instead of making parish calls. The argument between husband and wife becomes personal, touching on faith and duty. Joyce appears at the stairs in her underpants, claiming she had a scary dream about a lion. Lucy blames Jack for reading her Hilaire Belloc poems. Rabbit smells cake burning; Lucy runs to the kitchen.

Eccles and Rabbit leave for the golf course. In the car, they discuss Rabbit’s upbringing and their mutual social connections. Rabbit confides his belief that something wants him to find it; Eccles dismisses this as a vagrant’s delusion. Eccles offers Rabbit a gardening job for a parishioner, Mrs. Horace Smith, and reveals he knows about Ruth Leonard.

At the golf course, Rabbit plays terribly while Eccles plays cheerfully, though not especially well. Rabbit privately compares the women in his life to golf clubs: the irons are Janice and the woods are Ruth. Eccles asks why Rabbit left, challenging him on whether the thing he seeks really exists. Realizing Eccles wants reassurance, Rabbit grows angry. Eccles calls him monstrously selfish and a coward. Furious, Rabbit steps to the next tee and hits a perfect, soaring drive. He turns to Eccles triumphantly, asserting that the feeling associated with that drive is what he meant.

Time passes through spring. Rabbit works as a gardener on Mrs. Smith’s estate, planting annuals and tending the grounds. The garden blooms in succession: crocuses, daffodils, forsythia, and finally the rhododendrons, which crown the season. Mrs. Smith, an elderly woman, walks with Rabbit through the grounds. She tells stories about her late husband Horace, who loved the flowers though she would have preferred alfalfa. She shows him the Bianchi rhododendron, the only true pink in the nation, which she and Horace drove to New York to collect from a boat. She reveals their son was killed in World War II.

On Memorial Day, Rabbit and Ruth go to the public swimming pool in West Brewer. Ruth, self-conscious about her bathing suit, swims easily while Rabbit watches from the pool’s edge, feeling a sense of ownership over her body. Ruth describes the goodness of his life, citing their relationship, Eccles’ friendship, the flowers Rabbit tends to, and Mrs. Smith’s affection. This drives an argument in which Ruth wonders when Rabbit will pay the consequences of his actions. Rabbit claims that when a person is brave enough to be themselves, other people will have to pay the price for them.

Ruth reflects internally on her sexual history, her fears that she is pregnant with Rabbit’s child, and how Rabbit is different from other men. She wonders if she deliberately brought on the pregnancy. She thinks about crying easily at work, feeling sleepy and hungry, all of which are signs of pregnancy she recognizes but cannot yet acknowledge aloud.

The narrative shifts. Reverend Eccles visits Mrs. Springer on her screened porch. He watches Nelson and Billy Fasnacht play in the yard. When Nelson cries when Billy takes his truck, Eccles intervenes to retrieve it. Mrs. Springer urges him to let Billy learn to get it back himself. Mrs. Springer is bitter about Rabbit, criticizing Eccles for playing golf instead of helping him. She wishes she had called the police. Moved by a powerful feeling of pity for Mrs. Springer and Nelson, Eccles promises that she should get the law after Rabbit if he does not return when the baby is born. He leaves and drives toward the Angstroms’ house.