Tea Cake contracted rabies when he was bitten by a rabid dog. This happened during the hurricane that destroyed Tea Cake and Janie's home in the Everglades. In chapter 18, Tea Cake and Janie are fighting the storm. Tea Cake, exhausted, stops to rest, and Janie, looking for something to cover him, finds a piece of tar paper that the storm has blown off a roof. When she goes to get it, the wind lifts her and carries her out over the storm waters. She falls and has to swim.

She is close to a cow, which is also swimming through the water, but on the cow is "massive built" dog. Tea Cake tells her to grab the cow's tail, but as she does so the dog, growling fiercely and obviously mad, tries to attack her. Tea Cake, seeing her danger, shakes off his fatigue and swims out to her defense. Tea Cake kills the dog with his knife, but not before the dog can bite him on the side of his face.

The fact that Tea Cake contracted rabies while trying to save Janie's life gives added poignancy to what happens to him over the next few months as the disease takes hold of him. Tea Cake could protect her from the dog, but not, ultimately, from himself.