Welcome to Braggsville

by T. Geronimo Johnson

  The porter directed them to reception directed them to emergency directed them back to reception directed them to triage; all the clogs knew who, but none knew where. While his father talked to the triage supervisor, an embarrassed Daron meandered over to Charlie, who picked up a retirement magazine and busied himself reading. They had not shared a sentence since the paramedics arrived at the Davenport home and Daron’s mom informed them there was no rape (cutting her eyes at Daron), though the EMTs wanted to bring Candice in for X-rays and to let a doctor look at her feet. By that point, Candice was calm enough to explain that Louis had not been taken by Gulls but carried off by Confederate soldiers after passing out. But, when Daron thought about it, Charlie had stopped speaking before then, before the ambulance, before Daron charged into the wood only to be recalled by sirens. Charlie had stopped talking when he saw the gun. Daron extended his hand. Charlie flipped the magazine page with a snap.

  I’m sorry. I just freaked out.

  I know, answered Charlie. I was there.

  You know I’m not . . . I just panicked.

  I know, answered Charlie. I was there. I heard you.

  You were there? You heard me? That’s it?

  Don’t get hot with me, no suh. Please don’t shoot me suh, no suh. I’s sorry, Mr. Security Guard suh. Mr. Neighborhood Watch suh.

  You sound like a white dude trying to do a black dude.

  Daron! His father gave him the hairy eyeball.

  Daron repeated himself in a hushed tone, adding, Louis does a better black voice than you.

  Hopefully, that means you won’t shoot me, whispered Charlie. Suh.

  I never said I was going to . . . I never meant . . . You saw her. Her pants. The zipper. His hands fanned the air before his groin. Her underwear was showing through. He pressed his hands to his chest. Her shirt all out of sorts. What else could I think?

  I don’t know, Daron. She wasn’t in the same outfit she was wearing when we dropped her off. Maybe she was dressed like a slave? Did you think about that? You stupid motherfucker. Charlie sat back and crossed his arms, head cocked to the side. Dressed like a slave. Think of that? Did you?

  Daron hadn’t. He had jumped to a conclusion, or as Nana always accused him of doing, jumped to a confusion. Deep shame blood-hounded him, not because he had thought Candice was raped. He still contended he had good reason to suspect that. What troubled him, though, was a moment of faint suspicion, too faint, tenuous even in hindsight, when he had doubted Charlie, when he wondered if Charlie’s reluctance to enter the Holler was a twisted allegiance to his race. Daron didn’t even know why he would think such a thing about his friend, and for that reason accepted Charlie’s scorn as deserved. He expected Charlie to calm down in a few hours. Louis, on the other foot, was never going to let Daron live this down. Don’t tell Loose, okay? Do you have to tell Loose?

  Daron’s father finished his conversation with the triage supervisor and came and stood near the boys, which was just as well. The crumpled magazine like a bow tie in his fist, Charlie was now sitting with his chin to his chest like a bull ready to charge, tapping his incisor with his fingernail. According to Daron’s father, no Chang had been checked in, but who knew with all the chaos. Fortunately, one of the Braggsville deputies recognized them and waved them through the confusion.

  Real sorry ’bout your friend there, Daron. He put a hand on Daron’s shoulder. Didn’t get checked in up here. He’s downstairs. You want to see him?

  Which way?

  The order reversed. His father lagged behind while Daron and Charlie walked abreast of the deputy, nearly ahead of him, and would have run had they known the way. After taking the elevator down one floor, traveling through a wide service passage with multicolored pipes lining the wall on either side, they climbed stairs back to a ground-level hallway and found themselves facing a wooden door with a green pebbled window across which was written: CORONER.

  Charlie patted his face with his open hands, audibly.

  Confused, Daron looked at his father, and then at the deputy.

  We came around to avoid the crowd up there. You didn’t know what I meant by downstairs? The deputy looked distressed. Shit, Daron. I thought you knew what I meant, but just not how to get here. No one told you? The deputy looked at Mr. Davenport for help.

  Mr. Davenport offered his hand. Thank you, Tom. Let me get a minute with the boys.

  Of course. I’ll just inform the coroner now that y’all here. The deputy opened the door a crack and whispered to someone on the other side, listened a moment. And whispered again, louder, It’s his friends. That wouldn’t be right. He gently closed the door, nodded to Daron’s father, and leaned against the far wall.

  Daron. Charlie. Mr. Davenport. All three stood facing the door. As if trying to make out the meaning of the letters etched in the glass. C-O-R-O-N-E-R. Certainly a misunderstanding, a case of mistaken identity. Certainly. No one died in Braggsville unexpectedly. Not because of a joke. Unless it was a sick joke on Louis’s part. Daron’d heard the deputy, heard his father, heard the coroner, but Daron knew it was a mistake—certainly—until his father turned so that he was between Daron and Charlie and the door, turned with a certain determination, as if to shield them, turned with the resolution of the sentenced, faced Daron and Charlie, palmed their necks, squeezed once, swallowed, nodded as if he had rehearsed this speech, as if he knew beforehand what to expect, and Daron rolled his shoulder back and pulled away from his father, away from the unwelcome awareness that his father had rehearsed this speech, performed this speech in Iraq, oh how many times, Daron didn’t know, but often enough to have an expression on his face that Daron had never before seen but knew with certainty meant this is no mistake, that meant, Son, your friend is dead. That much is certain. Now you must go through that door there and identify his body. You invited him here and you owe him that much. That much is certain, as unthinkable as it is, that much is certain.

  Daron had felt his legs shaking ever so slightly at the sight of the door; at the thought of going in, both legs now shook uncontrollably. I can’t do it, Dad.

  His father hugged him close, cradling his head in his hand. It’s your friend. You owe it to him. Here might be your only chance to be alone with him again.

  Charlie, looking at the floor, whispered, I’m going in. Could have been me.

  At that, Daron cried aloud, sobbing fully now. The deputy moved farther away, kindly taking a seat on the stairs at the opposite end of the hall, his back to them.

  Charlie knocked, and the door swung open. A few minutes later, he came back out, pulling the door shut silently behind him with a restrained twist of the knob, sniffing, eyes red, lips quivering, breath in sharp bursts.

  You come in with me, Dad, please. I can’t go alone, Daron whispered. Bail bondsmen’s and undertakers’ and attorneys’ business cards were affixed by straight pins to a small cork board. On the wall beside it, flyers for bereavement support groups, grief counselors, a local pizza parlor. He studied them all, staring away, away, away from the door, from the deputy, who was turning to leave, away from Charlie, now weeping, and away from his father, whose gaze remained locked on Daron even as he inched closer to pat Charlie on the back, flinching away from his face reflected in his father’s eyes. Please, Dad, he mouthed. Don’t make me.

  His father said nothing, but Daron felt his eyes on him. Charlie’s weeping increased in volume. The deputy returned with a cup of water, which he handed to Charlie along with a fistful of paper towels. Charlie drank the water in one gulp.

  Asked if he wanted more, Charlie nodded affirmatively but crumpled the cup, regarding his hand as if it were alien to him, then the other hand, then both, turning them back and forth like a baby who has discovered how unimaginably far the body extends beyond the self.

  As Daron prepared to knock, the sound of a saw shrieked through the thin door, and he shrank back.

  Sorry, muttered the deputy as he squeezed by Daron and into the morgue, the shrill of the saw risi
ng strident as he opened the door enough to stick his head into the room. A moment later it was silent again. The deputy stepped back from the door and nodded at Daron.

  Though it was ajar, Daron knocked softly on the door. He thought he heard someone say come in, but waited to be sure. He didn’t want to walk in on people in a place like this. The coroner who leaned into the threshold to motion him in looked familiar. That was a strange sensation. On campus he often saw people who reminded him of other people he knew—especially the Asians—but the campus was so large he rarely ran into people he knew unless he was in the dorm or at one of the buildings where their classes met. But back in Braggsville, everyone knew him, and he had forgotten that feeling of never being anonymous.

  You JT’s uncle?

  That’s right. You Janice’s boy.

  Yes, sir.

  My condolences. I don’t know what all the scheme was, but it’s a sad ending.

  Louis was on a gurney with the sheet still over him. The coroner paused. You ready, young man?

  Daron shook his head, No, even as he mouthed, Yes. The coroner peeled back the sheet.

  Sorry he ain’t been cleaned up yet.

  Louis lay on his back, his open eyes staring straight ahead, like when he was drunk or playing possum. His legs were knotted and twisted. Black polish stained his face, starting in a neat line halfway down his forehead where the wig had once been and spreading in a web of rivulets under his eyes. On his chin was one quarter-sized spot where the makeup was wiped clean and Daron could see a few hairs of that thin, patchy beard. Adding to the surrealism was the wig cocked like a baseball cap. It had managed to stay on even as they removed the noose, but it was pushed back the way one pushed back a ball cap at the end of a long day, or when taking a moment to think. That’s how Louis appeared, like he was in deep thought. Daron looked closely at Louis’s legs and saw that he was wearing the pants of a muscle suit. Louis’s bag was on a nearby gurney. Daron picked it up. It was now so light, unlike the day they’d arrived in Atlanta.

  Don’t think you can take that. Evidence. The rest of the muscle suit is in there. The EMT cut him out of the top. They tried, but seems he’d been gone for a while before they got there. What was he doing out there anyhow? What were the lot of them up to?

  Protesting the reenactment.

  The coroner gave a humorless guffaw. Protest? Isn’t the reenactment already a protest? No one pays them two cents. Can’t get a buffalo nickel out of a donkey hide. Guess that’s gonna change, now. Y’all stirred up a mess for Braggsville. Real Wile E. Coyote move, pissing on your own shoes there. Won’t be able to call it Draggsville no more. With a quick nod he replaced the sheet, jerked it straight so that it gently settled over Louis’s body, the big lump of the wig first, then the legs, the torso last.

  Replacing the sheet did nothing to abate Daron’s terror, to fade the horrid image floating still before his eyes, transforming the set of Louis’s mouth into a macabre grin. Louis rarely grinned. Laughed a lot, but rarely grinned. Daron once asked, How can you be a comedian if you never smile? Exactly! Louis had answered.

  You know how to contact his family? Phone number, anything?

  Daron silently backed away from the gurney and through the door.

  In the hall, the deputy asked Daron if he wouldn’t mind stopping off to see Sheriff on the way home. Charlie, too, if possible. He then repeated the coroner’s question: You know how to contact his family? The girl’s already down there, but apparently ain’t talking none. The deputy stared closely, searching, like he was looking to see if Daron was going to lie, the look the cops would give him when they pulled them over on weekends in high school, the looks teachers sometimes gave him as they handed back his papers. It asked, Are you really one of us?

  Chapter Sixteen

  —Miss, please, miss—

  —I am Candice Marianne Chelsea. My identification number is 20A30185. My date of birth is July third, 1992. I’m a sophomore. At UC Berkeley. I’m majoring in anthropology, with a minor in public health. I am—

  —Young miss, once again, you are not being interrogated—

  —I’m . . . I’m Candice Chelsea, a sophomore at Berkeley. My ID number is 20A30185. I’m an anthropology major minoring in public health—

  —Young lady, please—

  —I’m Candice Marianne Chelsea. My identification number is 20A30185. I’m a sophomore. At UC Berkeley—

  —Young miss, please. I’m only recording this to aid the old noggin. It’ll be the same when I meet with the other two. This is informal, miss. Tell me a little about yourself. That always helps to relax. Just talk about what you know.

  [long pause]

  We were curious about how people would react. There’s Epcot Center or Williamsburg, Virginia, but no one reenacts the Tet Offensive or dresses like Kim Phuc. So why the Civil War? Like Charlie says, let’s call a spade a spade. You don’t think it’s weird to reenact an ancient war?

  Yes. Sir. My name is Charles Roger Cole, born January fifteenth, 1994, Sir. I am originally from New York, but was raised in Chicago, specifically Chicago-Bronzeville. I currently reside at 45A Addison Way in Berkeley, California. I’m a sophomore at UC Berkeley. My major is business administration and my minor is accounting. My friends’ names are Candice Chelsea, Daron Davenport, and Louis Chang, the latter now deceased. I understand, Sir, that this statement is voluntary and I am not being charged with a crime, Sir.

  You can’t be serious. [pause] I’m D’aron Little May Davenport and I reside about five miles up the way at Gearheart Lane, about four and a half miles north of Lou Davis’s. I was born November thirtieth, 1992, in Braggsville, Georgia. You drove Ma to County ’cause Pa was stationed in Germany.

  How about telling me what all you can about this morning’s incident?

  We planned it a month or two ago, but everything changed when the troops arrived.

  It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Sir.

  This wasn’t what I reckoned on.

  How ’bout that. So you planned this out in advance?

  Yes.

  Yes. Sir.

  Kinda sorta. I didn’t think on it none a long time.

  How ’bout that. Call that a plan, do you? Whose idea was it?

  I don’t remember. We were all curious.

  I don’t remember? Everyone was curious, Sir.

  They was all curious about the reenactment. I shouldna said nothing. They just got curiouser and curiouser.

  How ’bout that. Curious? That’s curious. What was your plan?

  It was supposed to be a performative intervention. When Daron told us about the reenactment, what else could we do? At first, even Charlie thought it was a good idea. The first plan was that three of us would dress as slaves. One would be the master, cracking a whip and issuing random absurd orders. Whatever they used to do. We hoped there would be enough rocks or sticks to form a pile that the slaves could move back and forth. You know, like work. While this was happening, we would use a hidden camera to record the reenactors’ reactions and ask a few questions about the war, local history, and the reenactments.

  The action is known as a performative intervention, Sir. According to the initial plan, I was supposed to dress like a slave. Then Louis said that would be too obvious, and therefore too easy, Sir.

  I figured we would just dress like slaves, horse around a bit, and videotape it. I didn’t think anything could go wrong at home. Not like this.

  Mr. Chicago, you’re young for a sophomore. About two years younger than the others, it looks.

  I graduated early.

  That’s right. You went to one of them fancy stay-away schools. So you’re a smart one?

  No. I’ve mastered adaptive testing, which transforms the examination into an assessment of strategy more than knowledge.

  [long pause]

  [muffled]

  No, Sir. I’m good at taking tests, Sir.

  Gotta be a little smart for that, don’t you? Don’t you?

&nbs
p; Yes, Sir. I guess you do, Sir.

  But it never occurred to a smart fellow like you that this was a bad idea?

  Well, Sir, I did reverse my earlier decision, Sir.

  But you let the young lady go off on her own with the Chinese boy.

  No, Sir, well, yes, Sir. I didn’t want her to, though, Sir. He’s . . . was . . . Malaysian, though, Sir . . . In case you need that for the records, Sir.

  Says here your major is business administration and accounting. You topping that sundae with criminal justice?

  Understood, Sir.

  As I was readying to say, a big, strong fellow like you couldn’t stop them? So you sent that little girl and poor boy off to do this alone? Was that your original plan, Chicago? Do you hate the South?

  No, Sir. I’m quite unfamiliar with the South, Sir, except for the last twenty-four hours. And what I read in that brochure. But there’s no stopping Candice once her mind is set.

  So it’s the lady’s fault, now? You deserted her, and it’s her fault. That’s how you do things where you’re from?

  [Pause] No, Sir.

  So it’s not her fault?

  No, Sir. I do not hold Candice accountable, Sir.

  So, college boy, you want to explain how this performance protest procedure is supposed to work?

  Performative intervention, Sir?

  [muffled]

  Today’s change agents perform instead of picket, Sir, though a picket line is itself a performance, as any scholar will tell you. Some change agents play the role of pickets, others scabs, others managers, et cetera. These various roles are all enactments of concretized ideologies. Judith Butler, for example, says gender is a performance, Sir.

  But how is it supposed to work? What’s supposed to happen afterwards?

  I don’t know, Sir.

  Miss, where is that hidden camera you mentioned?

  We forgot it.

  Where?

  At Daron’s house.

  You don’t mind me looking none at it, do you, miss?

  We didn’t bring it. We forgot it at the Davenports’ house.