T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

Daron smiled weakly when Quint poked him in the ribs. He didn’t think it was funny, and didn’t know why the residents of the Gully would, either. Weren’t people always complaining that Mexicans were just new niggers? Taking away all the shit jobs and driving down wages? He’d heard that half the blacks were laid off when the Mexicans moved into the area, but a lot of the whites got raises. He heard that’s when some of the Gulls moved to Doeville for a spell, but soon came home. Yet he watched them laugh to a man, including Otis, and the children as well, mimicking the adults.

A few minutes later, unbidden, Otis apologized if he’d caused Daron any trouble.

Having only moments before witnessed a man allowing his daughter to stick her finger in his mug of shine, Daron was at the height of his disgust. Trouble? he asked Otis. Trouble? Not at all, not at all.

You sure now? I’m retired, but I remember what it was like. I’d hate to see you or your folks getting the squeeze. Short hours. Cemetery shifts. Hairy eyes. I know how it can be over there.

How’s that? How is it over there?

Otis took a small step back. I didn’t aim to offend, Mr. Davenport, especially not after what you’ve done. I was just hoping we didn’t cause you any trouble back in the Holler.

Daron didn’t know what the Holler had to do with it, but he nodded lavish reassurance. Like he once overheard his father say, No nigger’ll ever get the satisfaction of thinking they can cause me some trouble.

Well, we appreciate what you did.

I didn’t do it for you.

I never thought you did, Mr. Davenport, it just turned out mighty fine for us. If you will excuse me, I’ll dance with my wife. Otis snapped his fingers and the band picked up the tempo.

The song he vaguely recognized as John Lee Hooker. Or B.B. King. Or Albert King. One of them. Definitely. Otis’s wife was a head taller, the perfect height for Otis to rest his head on her bosom and go dreamy-eyed. She was dark, darker than Otis by far, but her high cheekbones and almond eyes gave her a regal look. Daron couldn’t tell if she had been beautiful as a young woman, but even in her sixties she was by far the most put-together of the Gully women who were out that night. Otis and the missus danced that song and the next, Otis at one point catching Daron’s eye and winking.

Still more food came out, and shine, and before he knew it, dawn crept through the brush. At sunup, a little girl gave him a bouquet while Otis oversaw from the sidelines, nodding his approval from several feet away. She then handed Daron a locket. You are an honorary citizen of the Gully. Our doors are always open to you.

They were open before, but this is an official invitation, yelled someone from the shadow of the tree line, sparking riotous, carnivorous laughter.

On the way home, Quint clapped Daron’s shoulder and offered, Maybe you done a good thing and we can’t see it yet. They always say that in the vo-tech circle-jerks. It didn’t work none inside, and I don’t much believe it works out here. Sure don’t work none inside. That’s my problem there, D. I always been a rough cub. I couldn’t never keep the two straight. My thing is I do what my rules say no matter where I am. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t. I ain’t no restaurant Tabasco. But I ain’t changing, see. The world is. I’m just me. Seems like you got the same problem, in a way. He paused. But, for the opposite. Quint took a toke off his pipe and held his breath for several paces, exhaling as he sang, Some days it feels like my body is a cage. You know what I mean, Li’l D?

Daron waited for the punch line, but none came, and so he relished for some long moment that warm blanket of belonging he felt when his cousin called him Li’l D, the Li’l symbolizing for Daron his position as one to be protected. Quint spun his hat around backward. Immigration Control! It wasn’t a Louis joke, but it would have been funny if it had been. Instead all it did was make Daron uncomfortable, and feel, frankly, disappointed in the Gulls. Six A.M. and two smokers plus a grill were going. And a band. Pork and chicken piled across the table, steaming bowls of yams and greens, and theyselves all laughing and joking and feeding their faces. A kid in cutoffs with a rack of ribs larger than his own. The heavyset lady with her plate resting on her tits like they were a TV tray. Any excuse for a shindig. That’s why they couldn’t get anywhere. Partying all night, of course they wouldn’t be able to keep a job. A crisis was going on right now and the blacks were celebrating. Here, so deep in the woods no cars go, Negro fiddled. He bet it was quiet as church over in Ridgetown where the Mexicans lived.

VEXED. VEXED, HIS FATHER WAS. Very. He arrived home at about the same time Daron did, and had already heard tell at the mill about a midnight party, a pig slaughtered, shine, dinner by wick and wax. They can’t afford to slaughter a pig like that, but you obligated them by visiting. Worse yet, word’s out making it sound like you’s in cahoots with them. Gave you a damned hero’s feast. A welcome for a prodigal son. Shit, D’aron. Everyone knows it’s bad luck to eat in the Gully after dark. I never paid much attention to that. But it looks like it’s true in your case. Don’t go back up in there until this is done. Daron thought it was done. It was, wasn’t it? But he didn’t object or ask for clarification. His father had been cranky and edgy lately. Daron attributed it to fatigue. He’d spent the last few weeks on the night shift.

Through the phone Daron feels her strawberry breath at ear, so that he can yield and not buckle, a kind of warning, her kindness of announcing his every emotion only moments before he perceives it, her throat making new shapes, the miracle of blowing electronic bubbles through the tower — crackling — through the layer cake atmosphere above where they glisten enigmatic in the uppermost dark like shy stars before the satellite cups gently these lovely trophies — can’t begrudge such loyal lonely an earful — then sending them on their way with a hush back to earth, back to Daron, who receives gratefully these divine meteors, paying for each with his tears, until his face below eye is a bandit’s mask of sorrow, drawing tight his own voice until even to murmur sears like sudden loss and he can only nod, only nod, nod heavy against the stubble, when she calls for response, only nod when her gifts burn, when the meteorite singes his heart, when she tells him, They used us all. Don’t you see? You think they were protecting you by not making you testify because you weren’t there? By not making me testify to, Save me the horror. It’s like rolling dice under river water, ma’am, trying to get facts straight, ma’am, they said, under those lights, in front of all those people. To relive it all. To make the poor boy’s family relive it all. For your folks to hear you say what you told me? Miss, save the people you care about the horror of seeing you take that stand. Take, miss. They say take for a reason, young miss — take — because it’s somethin’ you’ll always carry with you. Are you there? [Nod. God, hope she hears.] They’re laughing, and I can hear it all the way from there to here, hear it here in Iowa. I thought the inquest was to find the truth, not to write it. Are you there? [Nod. God, hope she hears the phone graze his chin, each pass hungrier.] They made me feel safe, like one of them. One of us, they said, one of us. They spoke with arms open wide as wishes. Like one of them. I didn’t believe it. One of us, they said. I wanted to, to belong, but I didn’t believe it. My parents believed it, but I didn’t believe. I was wrong not to testify. Just like backing down with Vandenburg. Are you there? [God, hope she hears my heart.] I believe it, now. They made me believe. I believe. [Was this how Siddhartha felt when he left the palace?]