T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

Nothing fires up the disco balls like sexual assault. When you want to get the cops out quickly, lights all the way, you don’t report a murder. Fun’s over. You don’t report a mugging unless you’re witnessing it. After a mugging, they’ll take a report over the phone if you let them. And burglary? Depending on where you live, those barely get house calls these days. If you want the police to come out quickly, ASAP, you report a rape. They fly to a rape, some for the wrong reasons, but they fly. They go code blue-and-white all the way. They might get to be a hero. And unlike bank robberies, no officer has ever died investigating a rape or been shot after walking in on a rape. The other thing about reporting a rape is that it involves lots of people. Needs cops, counselors, investigators, an ambulance, rape kits, EMTs, emergency room doctors. It’s more than just taking a report and driving off. You only got two EMTs. So that’s your message to me. I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say. But you called for help and no one came. I’m here now. You can tell me. ’Cause the thing is, D’aron, I think you knew all this already.

Daron mouthed a noncommittal O.

They were in the crowded lot of the big cold box, where even the parking spaces were bigger than in Berzerkeley. Daron had taken to frequenting stores that allowed him anonymous interactions, not that he needed to shop. His parents bought everything, but there were some items he didn’t want to ask them for, purchases that he’d rather make himself. With their money, of course. He didn’t need his mother commenting on his penchant for gourmet chips or his father hawking about him spending five burritos on a teakettle catalogue, as he called fashion magazines. Not that his father didn’t have a point about the cost, but since coming home, Daron sought out Details or Esquire or GQ, one per week, an exercise in secrecy he now understood to be rivaled only by his clandestine acquisition of dick slappers during his younger years. The exhilaration of those moonlit sorties to the trash bin had withered not one bit the winter night he ventured into the backyard too early and found his father carefully wrapping three girlie mags in a plastic bag before tossing them. GQ and Esquire and Details ? How could he explain that he read these like they held the key to his future as surely as those Playboy s? And so he snuck out, but apparently wasn’t sneaky enough because today Denver’s shadow had fallen over him before he could unlock the trunk, and the agent launched into his speech on rape without so much as a hello.

Families ambled past, some with two shopping carts — each loaded like Santa’s sleigh. Daron felt a moment of superiority, like an expat come to the village market to procure specialty items undervalued by the natives. In fact, the only time he had seen anyone else perusing one of those three magazines, a rivet of jealousy pinched him right in the belly button until the tourist — and he was clearly a tourist, in that green felt Peterbilt hat — walked off empty-handed. Daron survived that, but perhaps not this. He was embarrassed to be seen here, and the fact of his embarrassment embarrassed him even more. There was a big box every two towns, so he’d find another, not that he expected to be in Braggsville much longer. He wanted to be away from all of it, FBI included.

A gust of wind swept Denver’s windbreaker up under his arms. He smoothed it out and buttoned it, while scanning passersby as if to see if anyone had noticed. Why don’t we get in? After Daron paused, he added, Your car.

No. Yours.

The usual laptop and electronics were installed, though the FBI cruiser was more luxurious than expected. The seats were leather, the dash all digital. But it was cluttered like a bachelor pad with newspapers, Barq’s cans, and fast food wrappers on the floorboards. Plus the agent used those beaded seat covers usually seen in cabs. Denver buckled himself in, registered the alarm on Daron’s face, and unbuckled. Habit. He settled back into his seat. Cal, they call it, right? Top public school in the world. So, I don’t know how much of this is new to you. None I think. Why the call?

It was what I thought. Daron leaned back and struck the metal grate partitioning the backseat. At least he wasn’t back there. Was this a strategy? Invite suspects into the front seat, and let the backseat silently threaten with its presence alone? (Good seat, bad seat?)

You want to take a drive? Afraid of being seen?

No.

Denver placed his phone on the console between them and scrolled through it with an awkward pawing motion before turning it toward Daron with an almost regretful look. Listen:

The voice was uneven, the tone carved by a black urgency, the cadence staggering, almost serrated, the words tumbling over themselves like racing piglets as the 911 operator repeated his questions, his attitude even and professional, as the caller howled that there had been a rape! Someone else had reported it, too? But who? Daron thought he recognized the edge of dread, could imagine the pacing, hear the slogging steps, the hand slapping the counter or wall or table — Listen! — picture the jolting arms, the winding jaw, the thumping that punctuated each repetition, the mantled face, which at last he knew as his own.

Well?

Well?

Who wouldn’t come after that call? Who would have the heart? Only someone who already knew there wasn’t any rape. I’ve spoken to Miss Chelsea. I’m convinced she’s not hiding anything. She says she wasn’t raped. You said she was. Usually it’s the other way around, women making accusations, men denying them. How would they all know that she wasn’t raped? They were all there. And you wanted to make sure someone knew it, that I knew it, or whoever would eventually come from the outside world would know it. Why? And you knew that after this fiasco, someone was coming from outside Braggsville, whether it was the GBI, FBI, or the real county sheriff. So, why?

You should have seen her.

I have. I’ve seen the photos. She was dressed like a slave.

I was confused. And I hadn’t seen the outfit.

But you knew she was dressed as a slave. You dropped her off that morning.

They changed into their slave outfits after we dropped them off.

Charlie called too, but he didn’t report a rape. Sounds like something else happened between those two calls, like you figured out what really happened back there and knew you couldn’t report it because you’d be calling the cops to report the cops, so you blamed it on the Gully, knowing the cops wouldn’t investigate because they knew damn well where every player on the field was, every one of them. Everyone. You didn’t say a kidnapping, which is more what appeared to have happened, with Louis still missing, as far as you knew. Candice was fine but you reported her raped. At that point, Louis was in trouble. Even Charlie says that in his call, says something in the background, repeats it, says they took Louis. But you don’t mention Louis at all. I think you realized that they knew where Louis was. Couldn’t sound an alarm about that. It sounds like you were trying to raise a lynch mob, except they all had a previous engagement.

Daron uh-huhed and mm-hmmed.

Is there a chance anyone had it out for you, thought that it was you hanging up there?

No. Daron laughed. That might be true now.

What’s in the Holler?

Nothing.

You have to travel through the Holler to get to the Gully, don’t you? You know that. First you say Holler, then you say Gully. You add that like a slap to the side of a TV. Then you start to use them interchangeably. Why?

Daron thought about it. Had he? Even though he wasn’t sure he believed it, he didn’t want to listen to the call again. He blew his cheeks out like bellows. That was a mistake.