T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

Rheanne shook her head and picked up the microphone, We need a price check.

Those two were still fighting like it was high school. Daron walked off in frustration, leaving Charlie chatting with his mom. He hadn’t wanted to come in here anyway. They’d made a stop for gas as well, which really irked him. Why couldn’t his mom have done all this before picking them up? She knew how far away the airport was. But she didn’t plan and they had ended up in a gas station with Candice and Louis gasping and pulling out their phones to snap photos of little jigaboo dolls and bumper stickers with slogans like ARIZONA: DOING THE JOB THE FEDS WON’T DO… BLIND JUSTICE IS EQUAL / SOCIAL JUSTICE IS RACIST… GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, DANGEROUS MINORITIES DO… I DON’T LIKE HIS WHITE HALF EITHER… IF YOU’RE ANY ’CAN, EXCEPT AMERI–CAN — GO HOME… IF I’D KNOWN IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS, I WOULD HAVE PICKED MY OWN COTTON. By tomorrow this time, the slogans would be all over Facebook and Instagram. Worse yet, Louis might method tweet, which was his form of method acting. He certainly had enough inspiration.

When Lou rearranged the store, he’d tucked away the bumper stickers in the back corner, but after the last stop, Candice knew what to look for. AMERICAN BY BIRTH, SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD announced the one Louis and Candice were reading aloud, working over the words like kids sounding out the list of puzzling ingredients on the side panel of their favorite sugary cereal.

Rheanne was on the phone now. Was she staring at them? He couldn’t tell, but suspected it. She must have been because for just a moment her eyes met his, and they both quickly looked away.

Louis and Candice read the rest of the stickers, each of which bore the Confederate flag and a slogan: THESE COLORS DON’T RUN… HUNTING IS THE BEST ANGER MANAGEMENT… THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN… KEEP HONKING — I’M RELOADING. Lou’s selection, fortunately, was not as obnoxious as the gas station’s. Daron had never thought much about them, his attention from a young age drawn to the sign over the register: YOU WANT CREDIT, COME BACK TOMORROW.

What’s tomorrow? asked Candice when they were checking out.

The reenactment. Rheanne blinked once, slowly, as if in disbelief, as if the question were an affront.

You get credit for the reenactment?

That’s only if you come tomorrow.

Wednesdays?

On Wednesday, tomorrow will be Thursday.

Oh. That’s funny. She gave a frenzied, feverish laugh, so unrestrained that Daron worried she was mocking Rheanne, but Rheanne joined in, too. Candice picked up a pamphlet entitled History of Braggsville . How much is this? Rheanne shrugged and picked up the microphone, We need a price check.

Lou’s was a few blocks from the edge of town, and from there it was barely a ten-minute drive to Daron’s house. The rest of the way home, it seemed that everyone was on their front porch. If they didn’t have a porch, they were in the window. Daron called out their names and waved as they passed. There was Mary Jo, Bobby, Kevin, Dennis, Raymond, Lucille, Frankie, Coddles, Lyle, John, Andy, Miss Ursula, Jim, Lonnie, Postmaster Jones, William, Travis, Todd, Tony, Dennis M. .. They all waved back.

Will there be a quiz? You know, it’s hella creepy, all those waving bingo wings, Louis slapped his triceps.

We drive everywhere here. It’s too hot for old people to walk. Daron went back to listing names, hoping to distract them from The Charlies — a legion theyselves — guarding driveways, gracing lawns, standing sentinel on porches with wide-eyed accusation. Not to mention the Hobarts, who were shoe-footing it in the single lane ahead of them with I DON’T LIKE HIS WHITE HALF EITHER pasted dead center below their license plate.

Candice leaned over and whispered to Daron, Where do all the black people live?

In the front yards. Louis pointed randomly.

Charlie laughed, followed by Daron’s mom.

Daron slapped Louis’s hand. No, in the Gully.

The gutter!

No, the Gully, the Gully, repeated Daron, flushed from Candice’s whisper, her arm against his, her strawberry breath at his ear. Their neighborhood is called the Gully. It’s right behind my house, on the other side of the hill, on the other side of the Holler, then walk a little ways. My nana — grandma — nearly got lost back there and she was from the woods.

Can we walk there?

I don’t exactly know how to get there on foot.

Isn’t it behind your house?

Sort of. I know how to get there. It’s just you don’t walk it. After you cross the hill, the Gully is still behind the Holler, but no one actually walks through the Holler. To get to the Gully, you drive back to the highway and around.

She made her life-is-unfair face, angry and sad all at once, like a child who had paid her quarter but received no bubble gum ball from the globe, a look he hated because it made him feel protective but powerless and swelled a sudden urge to cup her breasts. He tried explaining that the Gully wasn’t worse off or hidden. They had it good for work because they were actually closer to the mill, and upwind. They had their own houses and their own store and their own mechanic. It was just that no one walked through the Holler. Nobody. You didn’t have to be Methuselah to know that.

His mom’s backyard rivaled Berkeley’s best. The entire plot was five acres, as were most along their road, but his father was one of the few who’d cordoned off a portion of his land, erecting a solid six-foot wood dog-ear fence behind the house to create a sizable yard, almost the dimensions of a basketball court, in which over the years his mother had planted a small herb garden, ivy to dress the gazebo, a flower bed along the house, and several rows of dwarf pear trees. She planned well. When all the planting was finally finished, bounded on each side by colorful flowers or edible fruit was a neatly cropped, lush lawn in the center of which the gazebo sat like a paperweight.

When they entered the backyard, his mom gesturing as though announcing dignitaries to the royal court, a cheer sounded across the crowd. Daron cringed when he heard Jungle Boogie playing. His family was dangerously drunk when they started playing soul, and it was only eight P.M. Almost thirty people danced, sang, chatted, smoked, or swapped stories in various corners of the yard, all waiting to ambush him with embarrassment. His fifty-seven-year-old aunt Boo would soon be dropping it like it was hot, his uncle Lance would soon be doing the funky chicken clogging routine, and his seven-year-old cousin Ashley would soon be doing her Beyoncé Single Ladies impersonation, complete with a body suit, stockings, and high heels.

Then there were his older female cousins — the stripper, the trucker, and the elementary school teacher — referred to as no-count because they’d never married. The stripper and teacher were twins, and rumor had it they occasionally played switcheroo. At most gatherings, one started a fire and the other a fight. But there was no telling who because they switched roles for each party.

Of course there was Uncle Roy, who resembled Don Knotts and chanted nigger like it would cure his pancreatic cancer. His wife, Aunt Chester, never knew where to put the needle down in the conversation and couldn’t meet people without making fun of their names, if she liked them. Daron couldn’t blame her. Her Christian name was Anna, but Uncle Roy always introduced her as his wife, Chester, and often added, nodding at her bosom, You’ll never guess how she got that nickname or why I married her. Quint, more a brother than a cousin, had the Confederate flag tattooed on his left forearm, in case you didn’t see the one on his right, Balance, his only explanation.