Chapter 1

     A seafoam green convertible, top down, rips by a stalled Greyhound bus from which a bus driver is helping passengers down onto the dusty roadside. The driver of the convertible, his wind-thrashed Mohawk ruffling furiously, throws back his head and laughs maniacally. He beats the car’s horn and sings along with the customized honk:
      “Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton,
      Old times there are not forgotten,
      Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land!”
      The convertible turns off the highway onto a narrow dirt road, dust billowing behind. The driver blows the horn again and belts another verse:
      “I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray!
      In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie.
      Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
      Away, away, away down south ...”
      The convertible, hell-bent on its arrival, plows over tall weeds and barren bushes; it only slows upon nearing a ramshackle country store with a Confederate flag hanging from the porch awning. Double-wide, dilapidated mobile homes flank both sides of the grocery; beer cans, riddled with .22 rimfire rifle bullet holes, litter the lawn; in the rear, a rusty school bus displays a cardboard sign —$50—on the windshield; a spent 1979 Trans-Am perches on cement blocks, hood yawing; scattered tools and exhausted tires strew the yard in drifts, like autumn leaves, as do decades-worth of broken home appliances and many a generation of rusted bicycle.
      The driver parks beside a plastic swimming pool but keeps the motor idling. He slings a backpack over his shoulder and gets out. He stops to look into a plastic swimming pool filled with muddy water and a mess of dead catfish, the whites of their bellies in stark contrast with the brown water. He walks toward the country store, stumbling over a yellow Wiffle Ball bat. He picks up the plastic bat and pauses, tapping it against his head. A wry grin inflates his face, the bat triggering a not-so-distant memory. He drops it and proceeds toward the front steps of the grocery.
      Two dirty young brothers in overalls and trucker caps sit on buckled wooden steps and whittle away at tree bark. An old hound dog, snoring unevenly, lies at their feet; they spit tobacco juice, arguing over whose brown mucous travels furthest. The driver approaches the steps, and the men quit whittling; they squint in awe at his shiny convertible then gape at his Mohawk.
      “Mighty fine ride you got there,” one brother remarks.
      “Thanks,” the driver replies. “Used to be my father’s.”
      “Reckon that’s a 1968 Ford Galaxie XL, ain’t it?”
      The driver nods.
      “Betcha gotta 398 up unda ‘at hood with 350 horsepowa.”
      The driver nods again.
      “Kind with a police engine.”
      The driver nods one final time and proceeds up the wooden steps. He pauses before entering the grocery and turns back to the brothers.
      “Say,” the driver says, “how’s the ‘nilla ice cream today?” The brothers glance at one another, then back down to the shaved wood in their hands.
      “Hell kinda question is ‘at?” says one of the men, spitting and prompting the other to surpass the distance.
      “I beat y’at time, Rex.”
      “Hell you did, Fink.”
      “Hell I did what⎯yaw greasy-grizzy grandmammy last night?”
      The driver enters the store. Nothing has changed since last week, he thinks. Time has stood still. The same old man leans against the cash register, talking in the same whisper—it barely competes with the rusty fan—while two younger men, settled against a soda-pop cooler, nod their heads.
      “Excuse me, gentlemen,” the driver says, “but I hear y’all got the best Fudgcicles in Dixie. Reckon there be any truth to that?”
      The older man quits talking; the only sound in the room now seethes from the rusty, bent blades of the fan. The old man studies the driver with the eyes of one attempting to recall a name or face. Before the old man can speak, the whittlers walk in and block the doorway; they look like carbon copies of the old man, only in a younger day, the driver thinks.
      “Hey, Fink,” says one of the men, “don’t he look like the boy come in here with the nigga girl last week and done cause ‘at ruckus?” The old man points his finger at the driver and shakes it several times.
      “Why it shor hellfire is,” says the father. “You the boy brung ‘at spade into my store, aincha?”
      “He done wised up this time,” says the other man. “Took ‘at slave girl back yonder down riva someplace, on back ‘at auction block where she done come from.”
      ‘If you askin’ me,” another man says, “I reckon he done come in here lookin’ fer trouble. Awful dumb ‘em comin’ back heya by hisself, don’t you reckon, Paw?”
      “I do reckon, son, ‘cause didn’t we tell him we was all out ‘em Fudgcicles?” says the old man, ambling out from behind the counter toward the driver.
      “‘At’s right, Paw. You done told him we don’t much care fer ‘at flava in these heya parts.”
      The driver backpedals, the others sniggering at what they interpret as retreat.
      “All I ‘memba’s ‘at lil’ boy tellin’ me y’all didn’t carry none ‘em Es-kee-mo pies,” the driver answers. “‘At’s a real shame, ‘cause I bet they’d sell just fine to all those stranded Greyhound passengers come in heya.”
      “I do believe he’s smart-assin’ us, boys,” the old man says, his hand moving slowly behind the cash register. “What y’all reckon we ought do ‘bout it
      The driver reaches calmly into his backpack and pulls out a M9 Beretta pistol.
      “I suggest you hold your white-trash asses right there,” he says, pointing the pistol at the old man, “you stupid, inbred-racist-motherfuckers!”
      The driver walks toward the old man.
      “Put your hands up, Paw.”
      The old man obeys. The driver turns the pistol on his sons.
      “Drop your knives or I drop the old man.”
      The knives clatter to the woodplank floor.
      “Now, I want each of you to line up next to the freezer. And don’t try to be a hero unless you think it’s worth your life. If you do, come at me right now. Maybe I’ll miss one or two of you.”
      The men stand paralyzed.
      “Chickenshits! Come on, let’s go. Line up.”
      The driver waves the pistol. The men line up against the ice cream freezer. Terror floods every man’s face, except the father’s, which trembles in rage. The driver takes a seat on the ground opposite his hostages, his back against a freezer shelved with TV dinners.
      “What I want y’all to do for me now is whistle Dixie. Don’t be bashful now. I know you good-ole boys know it by heart.”
      All attempt a whistle but the old man. The driver slowly rises to his feet and aims the pistol at his pursed lips.
      “Say, what kind of Southern stalwart are you? Don’t you know the tune, Paw?”
      The old man spits a stream of tobacco juice into the driver’s face. His sons close their eyes and whistle louder, all but the one they call Rex; he only blows air.
      “You shouldn’t have done that, Paw.”
      The driver approaches Rex and gets in his face; he shoves all 4.92 inches of the pistol into Rex’s groin area.
      “And what about you, Rex. What is it? You don’t know the tune or you can’t whistle? You truly are a pathetic excuse for a son of the South, aincha?”
      The driver presses the pistol harder into Rex’s groin, causing him to stand on his toes.
      “You boys better pick up your brother’s slack, else you’ll be picking up his balls.”
      The old man finally manages to muster up a whistle.
      “That a way, Paw! Now y’all march in a circle.”
      The driver steps back from Rex and salutes the whistling men, now marching in a circle.
      “Raise those legs and march, boys.” They continue whistling, legs pumping.
      “Louder, ‘cause I still can’t here Rex.”
      Rex, marching ardently with the others, still can’t whistle; all he can manage is the sound of wet lips and tongue mashed against teeth. The driver gets back in his face again, the barrel of the pistol now pressed against his temple.
      “I’m cocked and ready, Rex. If I pull this trigger, 15 rounds gonna rip through your entire body. You’ll look like one of those moth-eaten soda cans from out front y’all used for target practice. Now whistle, boy!”
      Rex quits blowing all together and sobs.
      “Oh, I see,” the driver says in a condoling tone, “you can’t whistle⎯you got a harelip. That’s too bad. Here, let me help you out.”
      The driver turns Rex’s head with the pistol so he faces his family.
      He pulls the trigger.