Welcome to Braggsville (22 page)

No, sir.

I'm having a hard time understanding why some kids from Berkeley would put on blackface and stage a lynching. Even as a performance. I have a hard time believing that was your idea.

It was my idea.

Has anyone threatened you?

No, sir.

One last question. What about this rape? Rescinded almost immediately after being reported. Tell me about that.

D'aron explained that he had seen her in costume and overreacted.

Denver then wrote in his notebook for so long that he could have been adding a chapter to the Bible. As he left, he shook D'aron's hand vigorously and thanked him profusely for his help. After he drove off, D'aron's father asked what he'd wanted.

He kept asking about militias.

And you told him?

I don't know nothing about a militia. We got no militia here. He's been watching too many movies. I told him that.

What was he thanking you for, then?

Probably saving him the time of walking all through those woods looking for a militia or an old church that's ate to ash.

We're getting you an attorney. I don't want you talking to no one else without an attorney, even that Hirschfield fella. He's a shark all right, we never know when he's gonna get hungry.

That's right, added his mom, stirring a pan of cocoa. She wore capris today, which she usually wore only on vacation. She had taken a few days off from the mill to keep D'aron company. He thought she'd irritate him, but he found her presence soothing.

I didn't trust him, she added. And I don't want you telling people about that old church. I told you that. I thought you forgot about it. Don't mention it anymore, you make us sound all—she waved the pot top like a fan—crazy!

What was that place anyway?

She gave him a stare, slamming the lid on the saucepan. Ha-ha. College makes you smart. It doesn't make other people stupid. I'm not so sure it makes you so smart, to have a second say. She wiped a spot off the stove and sucked on her finger.

Seriously, Mom.

You were sick, and I told your Nana. No one can ever say we have nothing against black people. Nana knew all that root stuff, learned it from the best, but even she couldn't lick this pickle. You had the
colic so bad you didn't eat for three days in the winter, then you got the pleurisy, and old Tag took you out for a spell and you come back fine.

Old Tag? There were rumors about Tag. She was her own mother and grandmother. She never died. She was really the midwife Nanny Tag and still lived back in there. Whoever crossed her suffered unspeakably. She knew all them like that? asked D'aron. Nana went to the Holler that much?

Sometimes. This time she made a call, someone else makes a call and someone else raises a flag and someone else starts a fire and someone else lets a cat aloose, and all that stuff they did back then, and the next morning at sunup, tapping at the back door, is this old lady shiny as a black cherry and smelling of wax and vinegar. Old Tag. It was your Nana's doing and I raised hell about it, but it worked. So can't no one say we have anything against black people.

And that ain't the only reason, added his father.

D'aron considered that for a minute. He never thought his parents had anything against black people, but did they run that line on Charlie? Guilt a confession out of him? Who told you what we were doing? The night you called me in here. Who told you?

You were acting so strange. Every man is Sherlock Holmes to his son. His father laughed. That was a bluff. I had a pinch you were up to something.

That his father could so easily bluff him gave D'aron an unexpectedly sharp sense of security. Later, try as he might, he could remember nothing of the supposed early sojourn with Tag, though he did remember, and would always remember, the deacon there who chained himself to an anchor. How he dragged his burden along the aisle, splintering the floorboard, speaking in tongues for what felt like hours before collapsing in a heap, his sweaty suit shimmering like sharkskin, the heavy chain biting his ankle, tears streaming as he beat at his face with his fists, his hands finally going limp and the
miniature crucifixes he held all that time tumbling to the floor, their tips red, all while his Nana gripped D'aron's sweaty neck muttering her Amens. He and Jo-Jo once went out there on a dare. The church was burned down, but the chain remained. D'aron walked it, arms outstretched like an acrobat, from one low singed wall to the other, but never admitted to Jo-Jo that he'd been there before.

G
rits and hash browns, bacon and sausage, eggs and toast. Two double portions scattered, smothered, and covered. No spice. Two cheesy egg breakfasts. Three waffles. Sheriff flipped over the ticket. Growing boys. Got the whole thing here. The waitress remembers y'all huddling like Comanches. Wasteful, too. Y'all shook Rick's seeds good, leaving most of the food uneaten as you done. D'aron was again in Sheriff's office, with the same gunmetal desk and same painted cinder-block walls and same sticky square-tube vinyl chairs and same photos of Chuck Norris and Buford Pusser sitting in judgment, exactly as they did when sixteen-year-old D'aron was brought in for driving like a choirboy who'd broken into the wine cabinet. The deputy made him sit in the cell for a few hours, where D'aron paced madly, as one did when fear and boredom peaked unendurable, and etched no less than seven hash marks in the wall, thinking at the time it was what hardened criminals did. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving vacation. Who was to say he hadn't spent a week in jail? Back then, after an interminable lecture in this very office, Sheriff released D'aron into his father's custody without booking him, expecting his father would do D'aron right. He'd since looked back on that occasion with laughter, but now felt the same again—terrified. Today, D'aron's father was outside in the
waiting room because Sheriff said D'aron might want some privacy in light of possible delicate subjects.

After the welcome home barbecue, Candice had said, People here aren't that different, they just have accents. But if she could hear this, how their plan was being twisted, it would rock her little white-girl world, as Louis had always called it.

Everyone's entitled to be an idiot, but a few folks 'round here figure you is abusing the privilege. Sheriff sighed dramatically and finger-raked his comb-over. You done showed your ass at the Waffle House, it seems, Little D.

That surprised D'aron because, first, they were scared, if anything; second, they tipped well; and third, at every interaction they were polite. True, someone did comment on one server's alarming proportions, but mostly his friends found the place quaint. Charlie at one point nodded toward the waitress, a blue-haired Mabel with a charred-tip cigarette behind her ear, and said, She's so sweet you need to brush and floss after you talk to her. Whispering, Charlie leaned in to say it, and they all followed suit to hear. He added, My mom says that about people and usually means the opposite, but this lady is the real deal.

D'aron had been proud of the Southern hospitality that morning, and for a moment it had given him hope against hope that the day would go well. The service
could
give you a cavity—
Honey
this and
Sugar
that. You want coffee, hon? Toast, sweetie? Juice, honey? Now you know you gotta git a waffle, sugar. Read the signs.

Even Candice ordered a waffle after the cook echoed the order in a deep voice, almost threatening, That's right. Read the signs.

D'aron evidently had not read the signs, because Sheriff next mentioned the staff at Lou Davis's.

The staff? What staff?

Lee Anne and Rheanne.

Those are his grandkids. I went to school with Lee Anne for a
spell. I dated Rheanne. They're crazy. Jealous. And they're not exactly staff.

You must think California made you slicker than snot. You're already in a bad odor with hell-all everybody else, so you best stop exercising me, D'aron Little May Davenport. Sheriff spun an old penny, the orb of flashing edges hummed across the blotter, lurching erratically off the desk before teetering to a stop on the industrial tile floor, camouflaged by grime. It wasn't a penny, but a dirty dime marked by verdigris. Sheriff raised his eyebrows at D'aron. Lee Anne said, They took pictures and acted suspicious. I repeat, They took pictures and acted suspicious. These's her words, Sheriff pointed. They looked mighty suspicious, like they were up to something, but I couldn't figure out what because I knew they wouldn't be shoplifting, not in front of Miss Janice, but they were scheming all right. He shuffled the papers. I also got reports from some of the festival participants.

Festival participants?

The local citizens who voluntarily participate in our annual celebration of our American heritage.

Lee Anne and Rheanne were informants? The reenactors were festival participants? The reenactment was our American heritage? Or was it: Our America? Daron stifled a laugh.

Sheriff planted his elbows on the desk, scowling, making the drill-sergeant face he used to intimidate them throughout their childhood. He was a big slice of cop, one of those people no one could imagine as anything else. Had never been anything else. You're in this up to the elbows, and you disgraced us, so I figure you best pay better attention. I'm trying to help you here, D. For your family's sake.

At that Daron straightened up.

I'ma need you to go around the way and meet with Otis, the mayor of Gully, and make a statement.

What?

This Nubian fella already met with Otis, and he's Twittering and Facebooking and Yahooing and YouTubeing and Googling and what all and what have you.

In the past few days, one protester had emerged from the crowd as the de facto leader, Francis Mohammed, a self-proclaimed high priest of the so-called Nubian Fellowship, which the followers called a spiritual liberation army and everyone else called a three-legged jackass black separatist cult. Mohammed issued a nightly statement on the status of the Braggsville Four. Yesterday, he said that this proved how dangerous it was to be a black male, a strong black male. Even impersonating one could get you killed. Mohammed didn't wear a kufi or dashiki, but he nevertheless struck Daron as violent and unpredictable, like the crazy guy in
Invisible Man,
the one that Ellison obviously despised.

You know this joker I'm talking about, Francis Mohammed?

Yessir.

Right now he's getting more press than anyone else in town. He can't be our spokesman. Listen up good now. I heard from the participants who saw the whole event and none of them recall seeing anyone get beaten. When these participants got there, your friend was already dead and the young lady was screaming. They cut him down and laid him out on a makeshift gurney, which they then placed on one of their personal vehicles, disregarding their paint job, mind you, and rushed into town where they met the ambulance. Are you with me? This is their report. He snapped the paper. Nod if you understand.

Daron nodded.

I also heard from people at the Git-n-Go gas station. Them and the crew at Lou's and everyone says the same thing. Y'all was acting funny.

Wait a minute, Sheriff, my friends were looking at bumper stickers.

Keep it buckled. Sheriff lifted one finger. If you would be patient,
I will be coming to that momentarily. As I was fixing to tell you, I done talked to everyone everyplace you stopped between Hartsfield and here. That Agent Denver has heard from them, too. Problem is Denver. Big problem. I'ma be straight with you, Little D. Between the festival witnesses, the Waffle House, Lou's staff, and all the rest . . . I'll just be honest here . . . With all those photos on Facebook and all of these bumper stickers and slogans your friends all tweeted and posted and whatnot, well, D'aron, I hate to say it, but I gotta be straight with you, D, I think this FBI fellow might have a case against you.

You found the guy with the tattoo?

You're not listening, D'aron. Ain't no tattoo. No one remembers no tattoo, and even Miss Candice says she wasn't sure. You got a bigger problem here. It appears to the United States federal government, and it would to me, if I didn't know you so well, but I remember when you wasn't but yea high—he held his hand out at desk level for emphasis—but it appears to the United States federal government that you orchestrated a hate crime. We're fixing to have paper airplanes flying in every direction in a New York minute, all the legal eagles, and the culture vultures, too. Everyone suing everyone. And judging by your black friend, y'all had a special relationship. Each of you liking the other. Some might say could be motives there. His voice dropped to a whisper. I know California's different. I'm not judging you. I'm just letting you know it's gonna get real ugly for everybody the longer it drags out, and this office, in an effort to keep the peace, and adhere to our duties, is obligated to recommend to the Feds that they escalate this hate crime investigation. That's an obligation, not a wish. If you make an appearance with Otis, and explain what you were doing, and that you didn't mean it, maybe you can beat them to the pass. You could win the public over, and it would be a good thing, 'cause, frankly, right now, most everyone is hot with you.

Those bumper stickers were a joke.

Hunting is the best anger management? Don't sound too funny to me. Sheriff handed him several pages of screen captures from Louis's and Candice's Facebook pages and a few Twitter feeds. Candice had tweeted several of the bumper sticker slogans, sans explanation.

They didn't write those. Daron pointed at the Facebook screen shots. This isn't serious. They don't mean this. Those tweets are slogans from the bumper stickers at Lou's. You can see right there in the photos. The tweets are from those bumper stickers in the photos.

Look closer. Look again at the Instant-gram one. If you're caught up in a cult, Little D, I might could help you, but only if you're honest.