This chapter starts with Invisible Man's walking down the riot-filled street. Landing in the street, he leaps out of the way of four on-coming rioters who are pushing a safe down the sidewalk as police are shooting at them. Invisible Man (IM) notices the men speed away as the police chase after him, shooting their guns. He tries to crawl onto the curb to get out of the street, and in doing so, finds that he has been shot in the head as he feels "a sudden wet warmth upon [his] face" (536). People, witnesses come to help IM, one of whom declares that the "hole in his head" is actually only a nick and should be fine. As he struggles to stand, someone from the crowd gives him his brief case back, which he snatches in panic.

He sees the dead man resting beside him, realizing that it might have been he. He can still hear the sounds of the riots nearby, including a "burglar alarm [that] went off, a meaningless blangy soud, followed by the joyful shouts of looters" (537).

Soon they meet up with Dupre, who comes from the rioting crowd. After checking IM's bleeding, the man gives him a drink of Scotch. They watch the crowd, several of whom are taking away overwhelming amounts of food/meat. Dupre later emerges from the crowd with hats and suspenders, and they then leave the scene.

As they walk on, IM brings up the question, "How did all this get started?" which initiates an argument among the men. They all basically agree that it was a white woman, but no one can determine which one, or under what exact circumstances.

They continue on, this time to the hardware store, where they find flashlights and batteries. They form a line to start filling buckets with coal oil with the intention of burning down their tenement building. They walk, running into a drunken woman riding atop a milk wagon, dropping bottles as the wagon is pulled, finally reaching the building. Dupre instructs everyone in the building to leave as quickly as possible so that they can start pouring the oil. Soon, the building is ablaze; IM retrieves his brief case before the flames overflow, and he finds himself being called "brother" by an unknown voice as he stumbles out from the wreckage.

There are severals examples of dreams being used as symbols and in descriptive measures. Ellison, the author, also uses blue during the first phases of IM's dizziness to set the mood. Sporadically the motif of light is used to set mood and portray feelings of the character, or perhaps the overall feel of the scene.