BURNT UP ALL TO HELL

Smoke hung the city square's horseshoe. Smoke draped confederate statue hard right of county courthouse. Could only see his cutlass tip, raised as a dorsal out the smoke. Smoke set heavy about the store windows and street and stood solid and unmoving. Smoke smelt of pine and oak and pecan. Smoke stung eyes and set in throats and clung to clothes as claws. Smoke come up from north Florida, Dee Aubry said. It all them wildfires. Acres pun acres of Okeefenokee burnt all up to hell. She was trying to get me to come look at some war artifact she'd found in the attic. Said it could be a big story for me. Folks say that to me about everything I told her. And she said fine suit yourself. Go on outen the smoke and choke on it for all I care, Chrise. Laughed uneasily and told her I'd be there around eleven. You come for lunch, she said. Told her I didn't plan on it. She said I aint neither but if you're here at eleven you're here at lunchtime. So be it. Hung up the phone and walked out the office door and stood and watched the 18-wheelers bumper to bumper up 16 through town and watched them til I couldn't see them no more and listened to the gears turn over and whine and the engines idling thud and the stench of diesel sour in the air, the smoke not burning off in hot white sun. Not even nine o'clock and pushing 90 degrees.

Dee Aubry's house's near Monroe County line up close to High Falls. It's a small stone house with chimney stacked from Ocmulgee river rock. Big and brown and black and slick. Like turtle shells. Dee's husband Mackey met me at the door and he stood in faded and patched overalls with no shirt underneath and he was slicked with sweat and unshaven several days. Ow ooo ooin, he said. Mackey smiled toothless and took my hand and I could feel the bones in my fingers stressed under his grip. Mackey loss his tongue to Beech Nut, Dee said. If you can't make sense out of nothin he say I'll translate for you. She stood at the stove rolling a knob of butter around cast iron pan. She cut thick slices of meat off a chub of baloney and pressed them sizzling in the pan. She cut six slices of bread off the loaf and set it back in the breadbox. Get the mayonnaise out the fridge sugar, she said. Mackey grabbed jar of Duke's and set it on the counter and sat down at the formica table and lit a Winston and poured himself a glass of tea from a large bottom heavy pitcher. Mint vines torn up and set in the tea and halved lemons floated in it.

Eest ea ooo une eeer ink, Mackey said. Dee flipped the baloney and it sizzled. Hope you drink your tea sweet, she said. We drink it so sweet you can stan a spoon up in it. Mackey got up and got another glass and got a spoon out the drawer and handed it to me. I poured me a glass and stirred with the spoon and Mackey motioned for me to try and stand the spoon up in it and I could tell he was tired of tryin to talk and be understood. Must've been a helluva way to go through your day not bein understood by no one but your wife. I held the spoon in the middle of the tea and sure enough it stood without my help and Mackey laughed like hell. I took a sip and damn if it wasn't sweet. Like liquid sugar and thick as sorghum. It'll make your pulse run like a goddamn greyhound, Dee said. She set plates of fried baloney sandwiches down on the table and went to the cupboard and got a jar of homemade pickles and opened them. Help yourself. These bread n butter pickles. Can't stand dill pickles. Hope you like them. They were sweet as the tea and had a little heat to them from a finger pepper twisted about the jar. Baloney was crunchy and greasy and good between the sweet doughy white bread and heavy slather of mayonnaise.

Dee went into the den and came back out with what looked like a tablecloth and a leather book like a Bible. She unfolded the tablecloth. This' confederate battle flag, she said. A real one. Found it when we took down beaded board in the attic to put up new insulation. When Shermun come through on his march to the sea he burnt up everythin. Only houses he spare was Masonic residence. Daddy was a Mason. His daddy and his daddy's daddy was Mason. Story goes that Shermun sent killin crew over High Falls way and daddy met them out front with a torch. Said he aint gone let them burn his house an if they demand as much said most they could do was let him light it up his own damn self. An he meant it. Officer saw his Masonic ring and he give him some damn handshake and daddy return it and they ride off from where they came. But they run up on the Creeks and they open the whoopass can on em and the river run red with yankee blood. That's how come they call it Towaliga River. Towaliga's Creek for roasted scalp. Story goes that county folk fleein see them Creeks and they weighed down with yankee scalps hangin from they belts like squirrel pelts, blood runnin off em.

So them boys never return to Shermun and he go to see bout it his own self. When he come up on the home, daddy inside feedin johnny reb. He kilt off the last of his chickens and they had a big spread for the boys and then Death Himself ride up. Daddy get them up in the attic an try to hide em from Shermun and they watch out the tiny winder yonder at daddy and Death Himself parlay and see them shake on it and see Shermun's men come in and they dragged them out the attic like coons from they hollow log and beat them to death with the butts of their rifles and left them in the house to bleed out all over the floor. Said they aint waste no lead on them rebs. Story goes that daddy swore up an down Shermun had has blues decorated with the bleached out brain boxes of children and wore bracelets of teeth and vertebrae and cut his beard in angles and points as Satan Himself and left his hair to its own, wild and askew as his nature. Daddy said he smelt sour of blood and feces and his eyes jump round in his noggin like marbles.

Dee held up her daddy's journal. Thick leather bound book scarred by time. She held the flag up. Guess them boys aint want them to get the flag. You get the flag you get the confederacy I reckon. Aint that like that ol game of capture the flag. Eeeee ehhhhhh iiiiii, Mackey said and he smiled big and wide till his gums black like a dog's pushed out over his thin dry lips. Mackey'd put his Winston out in his last bite of sandwich and it'd burned a hole through the bread. Dee sucked her teeth. You like them pickles. Don't look like you even touched one. She shook a Winston from the pack and lit it and dragged on it and blew smoke all over the table. Aint gone even ask if yall mind if I smoke. It my house.