Free Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson Page A

full-on shadow box, noun and verb, so he dropped to one knee right as the wind scooped Ishi up and along the sidewalk and to the wider world.
    Ishi, Candice yelled, Ishi, we commend you to the wind.
    Tweety, hand to her temple as if compressing a wound, caterwauled as if she tawt she taw a putty cat, stirring the crowd out of their enchantment. The audience politely danced the ashes off their feet and applauded. Tweety, hand still to mouth, scurried off as best she could, knees cycling as if pushing pedals, those canary clodhoppers working the ground like snowshoes.

Chapter Nine
    A t the San Francisco airport Charlie discreetly pulled Daron aside and asked if there was anything he needed to know, if he should expect more crazy-Colonel-Sanders types of people in Braggsville. After the Ishi Incident, the 4 Little Indians had been invited to eat with a charming Southern couple who, as promised, made the best fried chicken west of the Mississippi. The couple, by Daron’s mind, had exemplified Southern hospitality by sharing with the hungry Indians what food they had, by making space at their dining table for strangers. Was Charlie offended because that table had been plastic and they’d sat on metal folding chairs? Daron hoped Charlie wouldn’t be so particular when meeting his relations. My mother, warned Daron, despises people who wear shoes without socks, and anyone who eats non-finger-foods with their fingers, like picking up the last pea. They had a good laugh over that, at least Charlie did.
    While Charlie, Candice, and Louis were fastening seat belts and returning chair trays to the upright and locked position, it dawned on Daron that though he’d asked his mom to move The Charlies, he’d neglected to mention the mammies from New Orleans, Salt and Pepper Climb on Cucumber, as well as the Bibinba, Zwarte Pieten, and Hajji Firuz dolls his cousins had picked up whilestationed abroad, not to mention the Blackface Soap and Watermelon Whistler tins. And that strange guy with the big grin dressed in only a loincloth and turban. That they were antiques, that they were valuable, that they were gifts wasn’t going to make Candice feel any better about them.
    It’s not that the Davenports had never had black people around their house before, or even a Chinese guy once, but never a Malaysian who looked Chinese to some and Indian to others, fancied himself black at times, and wanted to be the next Lenny Bruce Lee; a preppy black football player who sounded like the president and read Plato in Latin; and a white woman who occasionally claimed to be Native American. They were like an overconstructed novel, each representative of some cul-de-sac of idiolect and stereotype, missing only a handicapped person—No! At Berkeley we say handi- capable person—and a Jew and a Hispanic, and an Asian not of the subcontinent, Louis always said. He had once placed a personals ad on Craigslist to recruit for those positions: Diverse social club seeking to make quota requires the services of East Asian, Jew, Hispanic, and handicapable individuals to round out the Multicultural Brady Bunch Troupe. All applicants must be visibly identifiable as members of said group. Reform Jews and ADHDers need not apply. Daron felt now as he had when people had started responding to that ad, that he couldn’t help but expect a spectacular disaster.
    H ARTSFIELD -J ACKSON A TLANTA I NTERNATIONAL A IRPORT was among the most active transportation hubs in the world, in some years ranked the busiest. Daron never claimed Atlanta as his own, nor did anyone at home, but when they landed, he acted as tour guide, sharing all he had read online, and there was much to tell, see, and do on the long journey from Terminal E to baggage claim. Modern art graced the terminals and African sculptures lined the underground walkway. Any kind of food could be found, or moviesrented, or prayers proffered, but that’s not what captivated them, not