Free Stones in the Road by Nick Wilgus Page B

else be rude to me. I don’t care how much money she has or who her father was or how many forks it takes for her to eat a goddamn salad. Noah and I will walk home. You have fun.”
    “Don’t be an ass,” Jackson said.
    “She started it, not me.”
    “Don’t do this, Wiley.”
    “You’re going to stop me?”
    “If I have to.”
    “You and what Union army?”
    “Stop it with the bullcrap, Wiley. This is important!”
    “If it was so important, why didn’t you tell me any of this before they got here?”
    “I had my reasons.”
    “Well, why don’t you and your reasons and your eighteen forks and your cornpone wine list go have dinner with your hoity-toity mommy and daddy? Noah and I are going home.”
    “Be reasonable, Wiley. Please!”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am, Jack, but I can’t take any more of your mom right now. I’m not a violent guy, but if she says one more word to me, I’m going to jump over that table and bash her brains in. Tell them Noah was feeling sick or something.”
    “Please come back inside.”
    “I can’t.”
    He made a face, turned on his heel, and stalked off.
    Noah looked up at me, frowned.

16) SOS
     
    W E CROSSED the street to the park in front of city hall, our footsteps taking us quite naturally to the park’s crown jewel, a statue of Elvis in his shiny, metallic glory. Elvis was perched on a large pedestal, microphone in hand, frozen in the act of telling Tupelo, Mississippi, not to be cruel. Kids played on swings, and a young black couple sat on the grass having a late picnic.
    You don’t like her, do you ? Noah signed as we stood before the King like supplicants before a throne.
    I made a face.
    She doesn’t like me , he added.
    Yes, she does , I signed.
    She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t see me.
    Give her some time.
    She’s pretty .
    A pretty pain in the ass, I thought.
    But she doesn’t like me , he added . I can tell.
    That’s not true.
    It is .
    We wandered from Elvis to the swings, and I sat on a bench and watched Noah, my stomach rumbling because I was hungry but too mad to eat. Noah grinned as he pumped his feet and legs, propelling himself higher and higher, leaning back in the swing until his head was almost striking the ground.
    I sent a text to Tonya, Keke’s mother and my best friend:
    OMG !

17) You’ve got to deal
     
    “S O LET me get this straight,” Tonya said after she’d picked us up and we had installed ourselves at a booth in Burger King. “Jackson’s parents are rich, and you’ve got a problem with that? And you’re worrying about this when you’ve got a DHS visit tomorrow? Can you spell moron ?”
    “His mother is so mean,” I said in my defense.
    “She can’t be that bad.”
    “She could be the bride of the Antichrist.”
    “Oh, please,” Tonya said dismissively. “The rich are different. Just ask Mitt Romney—she can’t be worse than that pasty white nightmare. And you’ve got more important things to worry about.”
    “The DHS isn’t going to do anything,” I said dismissively.
    “They can make your life hell, Wiley,” she said in a low voice. “They sit there writing shit down on their forms and looking at you and judging you, and God only knows what they might do if they decide they don’t like what they see. And now he’s failing a grade at school. You’d better get a clue.”
    Tonya Humphries delivered these words in her no-bullshit tone of voice—and I smiled. She was an Amazon, all arms and legs, head crowned by glorious, bushy curls that said I’m all woman, and baby, you gon’ hear me roar.
    Sitting together as we were, a white man and a black woman with kids, we got the usual looks, reminding me that miscegenation was a crime in the state of Mississippi until some point in the 1980s. Intermarriage with the Children of Ham was, how shall we say, frowned upon in the Land of Dixie. Not that Tonya and I would ever miscegenate.
    I glanced at Keke, who was signing vigorously at Noah,