1. Paul's Epistle to the New Confederacy (Pt.1) Anger Has Been In My Thoughts

Anger has been in my thoughts. My anger, and everybody else's too.

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The land of Faulkner. Heat holds a hand across your forehead while you crunch through dusty cicada skins. So blessed. So blessed. Ocean wets your flanks and thighs. Soil and oil and cattle and catfish pump through your gut. God and courtesy build families and walls. Anger throbs deep in your heart. So much love for Jesus. So much hate for me. Why?

Now that the Confederacy has re-fought and won the civil war, what do you want? What did we actually do besides remove the ability to own a human being? Are you still angry over the fact that slavery was ended? Because I really don't understand why you're still so angry. All that we asked of you was to treat a human as a human being.

I claim a southern heritage by birth: Texas born, August,1958, eight-bed hospital, no air conditioning. Dad drove a truck so my sisters and I moved four times before I was 6. Mom was a great organizer and at the age of 16 had given her life to Jesus. Dad was pretty religious too; they met in church. Up until I turned 17, I went to church a lot.

I have many relatives in Texas that I do not visit. I should. And I know that I should. They love their children and when it's time, they want to die in their sleep whispering "Jesus." I avoid them because I know that we would argue (I know that I would argue). Why? Is it because slaves no longer have masters?

I was about 10 when my PaPaw came and found me bored in the Texas heat. My cousin played baseball and I did not, so when he wasn't around, I had myself for company. PaPaw went searching for his city grandson because he had a present for me. A handsome man when he turned twenty-seven in 1927, PaPaw had been scarred by years of Texas sun eating at his fair skin. An axe handle of a man, thin, with field-cut cheekbones planted with crystal blue eyes, he wore a sweat-banded felt Stetson and tattered overalls. His ears were shredded from decades of having the cancer cut off. PaPaw pulled a slingshot out of his pocket and gave it to me. I wish I still had that work of art. A Y-joint of oak was smoothed, and notched; truck tire inner tube strips fastened to the outstretched limbs, a pouch of glove leather ready for rocks. Handing it to me, his advice: don't shoot the chickens or I'm going to have to whip you. I took my whipping out by the railroad tracks. One of four people to ever spank me.

Dixie, oh Dixie! Why are you still so angry? Is it because white and brown children sit in the same classroom? Die from the same neglect?