- Stage directions tells us that it's now 1965. It's the morning of Troy's funeral.
- There's a funeral plaque next to the door.
- Raynell, now seven years old, enters from the house, wearing a flannel nightgown. She stares at a small garden plot.
- Rose comes to the door and asks Raynell what she's doing.
- The girl says she's looking to see if her garden has grown.
- Rose tells her it won't grow overnight and that Raynell needs to come inside to get dressed.
- Rose goes back into the house.
- Cory enters, wearing a Marine corporal's uniform.
- Raynell calls to Rose, saying there's a man in the yard.
- Rose comes out and has a tearful reunion with Cory. She's so happy that he made it.
- Bono and Lyons enter wearing funeral clothes.
- Lyons is impressed that Cory is now a corporal.
- Bono says Cory reminds him of Troy when he first met him.
- Bono takes his leave, saying he's got to go get the pallbearers ready at the church.
- Rose offers everybody breakfast.
- Lyons says he'll have some, but Cory tells her he isn't hungry.
- She goes inside to whip something up.
- Lyons congratulates Cory on his upcoming marriage.
- He tells his brother he always knew he'd make something of himself.
- Things haven't gone as well for Lyons. Bonnie left him a few years ago and he got in trouble for cashing other people's checks.
- At first they sentenced him to three years in the workhouse, but now it's only nine months.
- He says it's not so bad.
- "You got to take the crookeds with the straights," Lyons tells Cory (2.5.57).
- Lyons says Troy used to say that whenever he struck out.
- He reminisces about a time when Troy struck out three times in a row, but on the fourth time at bat he knocked the ball out of the park.
- Cory asks his brother if he is still playing music.
- Lyons says he is, and that that's the only way he knows how to make sense of the world.
- Rose calls from inside the house, saying Lyons's eggs are ready.
- Before going to eat, Lyons asks Cory how he's doing with Troy's death.
- Stage directions tell us that the two brothers share a silent moment of grief.
- Lyons enters the house.
- Cory wanders around the yard.
- After a moment, Raynell approaches him.
- She asks Cory if he used to sleep in her room.
- He says, yeah.
- Raynell tells him that Troy used to always call it "Cory's room" and that Cory's football is still in the closet (2.5.67).
- Rose yells for Raynell to come inside and change her shoes.
- After some protesting, the girl goes inside.
- Rose comes out into the yard. She tells Cory that his father died while swinging the bat at the rag ball hanging from the tree.
- Rose says he died with a smile on his face.
- Hesitantly, Cory informs his mother that he won't be going to Troy's funeral.
- "I've got to say no to him. One time in my life I got to say no," Cory tells her (2.5.79).
- Rose goes off on him. She says being disrespectful to the memory of his father isn't going to make him a man.
- Cory says Troy was like a shadow haunting him all his life.
- Rose tells him that he's just like his father.
- That's the last thing Cory wants to hear.
- Rose says Troy tried to make sure Cory didn't turn out like him, but in the process he did just the opposite.
- She admits her husband was a big man who was sometimes too rough and sometimes took too much.
- Rose says that by the time Raynell came along, she and Troy had lost touch with each other.
- She says she's determined to raise Raynell like Troy raised Cory.
- The phone rings.
- Raynell comes out and says it's the Reverend.
- Rose goes to answer it.
- Raynell asks Cory if he knew Blue, the dog Troy always used to sing about.
- Cory and Raynell begin to sing the song together.
- Toward the end they sing "Blue laid down and died like a man/Now he's treeing possums in the Promised Land." It seems pretty clear that, in a way, they're singing about Troy (2.5.101).
- Gabriel comes down the alleyway shouting for Rose.
- Lyons and Rose come out on the porch; they're glad the people at the hospital let Gabe out for the funeral.
- Gabe announces that it's finally time for the gates of heaven to open.
- He puts his trumpet to his lips and tries as best he can to blow.
- No sound comes out.
- He tries again and again but nothing happens.
- Gabe begins to do a ritualistic dance and sings a strange song.
- Stage directions tell us that by the time he completes the dance, "the gates of heaven stand open as wide as God's closet" (2.5.113).