3. Paul's Epistle to the New Confederacy (Pt.3) Splash Only

The Oldsmobile Toronado is parked on the road that runs the ridge spine of the low, earthen dam. The car’s golden color drains away in the desiccating blue of mercury vapor lights. The fixture’s loud buzzing is harmonized, absorbed into the vibrating cloud of insects crying “I’m here!” into the hopeful darkness. The air smells of old water and hay as I inhale another pipe hit. My cousin and his friend throw rocks into the reservoir. The Toronado is big car. I believe it is a 1970. It looks good for a seven-year old car. What is remarkable about the vehicle is that it’s front-wheel drive, an engineering marvel for the era. I like cars. I always have. Sitting in the back seat on the way to the reservoir, I pleasantly slide back and forth as my cousin whips the seventeen foot eight inch machine through cornfields cut with dark, gravel roads. The engine is a 455 cubic inch monster roaring with four hundred horsepower. My cousin drag races the car because it’s fast and people like to see the front wheels light up. My cousin’s friend rides shotgun. They are both stylishly attired in form-hugging, Friday-night-wear: puka shells chain muscular necks, leather bands hang on wrists at the end of ropy, veiny forearms. I am in loose, holey denim and tie-dye; my arms have no ropes, no visible veins. He and my cousin have grown up together. They’ve been on the same baseball and football teams for as long as their memories recall. We are all recent high school graduates. I am on ‘vacation’ with my parents. It is the last road trip I ever do with mom and dad. My cousin has informed his friend that I’m from Chicago. My long hair and pipe inform him of other things. On the way out of town we have stopped to buy a case of Lone Star beer. The front seat slurps canned beer. The back seat sucks cheap weed. Wiping his mouth with his hand, the friend turns to face me.

“I hear you have a lot of black people in Chicago.”

“Yes we do. But where we live [a southern suburb] is still mostly white. My high school was about a third black.”

“So you call them black too?”

“Yes, I guess.”

“So you don’t say ‘African American?’ Isn’t that what they want to be called now?”

“If they want to be called African American, that’s OK with me.”

My cousin has been quiet through this exchange. His beer is snugged into his crotch. He reaches down, pulls a long, noisy drink from the can, belches and returns the beer to his lap. He’s smiling.

“We don’t call them black, or African American, or negro, or anything like that.”

I don’t say anything.

“We call them niggers.”

I don’t say anything.

“But not to their faces.”

Laughter.

I don’t say anything.

My cousin gives his friend a look. The friend turns to face the windshield. My cousin turns the radio on. Rock music fills the silent, smoky car.

Splashes in the black, still water. Ripples waste their remnant energy at gravel’s edge. My cousin and his friend are getting in shape for baseball season. They take ball-sized rocks, and arc them into the darkness. I’m invited to join, and I do, but despite the fact that I’m six foot, one-eighty-five, I have a terrible throwing arm, and, after a few embarrassing kerplunks, leave the sending of rocks to my companions. The goal is to throw beyond the reach of the industrial light fading out into the black. If you can see the splash, it is an inferior throw. Only ripples are allowed. I never even came close. The others, however, heave igneous grapefruit deep into the black. This Texas night is warm and humid and my cousin and his friend start to shine. The case of beer is ritualistically returned to the reservoir. I don’t know what the water stretching out before me is intended for: Agriculture? Power? Consumption? It’s current use is sewer and target.

I don’t remember how long we stayed there. I don’t remember where we went afterwards. I do remember what my cousin’s friend’s face looked like.