She points directly at the judge. “Sir? Want to tell everyone about your mathematical adventure? Or should I read your blood alcohol level from that night?”
The crowd turns collectively toward the corn dogstand, and the judge emerges slowly, looking like a man walking to his execution. Sweat is running down his temples and he’s wringing his hands.
“Tell them,” Callie commands. “Tell them the truth.”
He approaches the stage like each step costs him years off his life. Someone hands him a mic, a backup one from the church. His hands are shaking so badly, the mic keeps picking up the rustling of his shirt.
“I was drunk,” he admits, his voice cracking. The crowd leans forward. “Completely plastered on that blasted punch. You all know the punch I’m talking about. We pretend we don’t know it’s basically grain alcohol with food coloring, but we know.”
Several people nod.
“That night, I couldn’t count to ten, let alone score chili. I made up the numbers. Your family got 27, McCoys got 29. Or maybe it was the other way around. Or maybe I gave someone negative points. I honestly don’t remember because I was seeing three of everything and at one point, I thought the chili was talking to me.”
The crowd gasps. This is it.
The moment Cedar Ridge’s founding myth crumbles.
“Now about the mayonnaise,”Callie calls out sweetly, pointing at the guilty party. “Would you like to share your contribution to thirty years of unnecessary violence?”
A small woman climbs the stage cautiously, as if expecting rotten vegetables to be heaved her way. Herchurch dress, light blue with flowers, makes her look like someone’s grandmother, which I suppose she probably is.
“The mayonnaise was expired!” she blurts into the crowd before anyone can hand her a microphone. Her voice carries anyway, powered by three decades of suppressed guilt. “Three months expired! I thought expiration dates were suggestions, like speed limits or serving sizes! Everyone got sick because of my potato salad, not some McCoy poison!”
The crowd ripples with shock. Someone’s child asks loudly, “Mommy, what’s mayo?”
“I’ve been living with this guilt for years!” she continues, now on a roll. “I haven’t made potato salad since! I can’t even look at mayonnaise without feeling guilty!”
“Doctor?” Callie’s voice cuts through Mrs. Abernathy’s mayo-related breakdown, and she turns to the vet. “The bull?”
The old vet stands up from his lawn chair with the eagerness of someone who’s been waiting three decades for vindication. He’s prepared visual aids, actual poster boards with graphs and charts drawn in marker. They’re color-coded. He’s laminated them. He came prepared.
“That bull had grain poisoning!” He holds up his first chart, which shows a badly drawn bull with X’s for eyes. “Bad feed! The supplier was cutting corners with urea content!” Second chart: a graph that might be showing toxicity levels or might be his attempt at abstract art. “Nothing to do with sabotage!” Third chart: just the word “INNOCENT” in red marker. “I have documentation!”
The crowd is in full uproar now. People are shouting over each other. Some are laughing, the nervous kind oflaughter that happens when you realize people are full of shit. Others are angry, but they can’t figure out who to be angry at.
“So there you have it,” Callie says, taking back control of the narrative. Her voice cuts through the chaos with the precision of someone who’s practiced this moment. “Thirty years of hate over expired condiments, bad math, and a sick cow. Thirty years of teaching kids to hate kids they’ve never met. Thirty years of splitting this town in half. All for nothing.”
Our father stands up in the crowd, his face purple as an eggplant. He’s wearing his dress shirt, the one he saves for funerals and now for family humiliations. He looks ready to explode.
“This doesn’t change anything!” he shouts. “Thompsons and McCoys don’t mix! It’s tradition!”
“Why?” Callie challenges, leaning forward on the stage. “Because that’s how it’s always been? Because we’ve been doing it so long, we forgot why we started?”
“Because that’s the natural order!”
“The natural order? Based on what? Expired mayo? That’s your natural order? That’s the hill you want to die on?”
Some of the younger crowd members laugh. The older ones look torn between tradition and the absurdity of what they just learned.
“You know what?” Callie continues, her voice carrying even more weight. “I’m done with how it’s always been. Done with letting dead grudges dictate my choices. Done with sneaking around because people can’t do basic math or check expiration dates.”
She looks directly at my brothers and me. The crowd follows her gaze.
This is it. This is the moment.
Jesse straightens his tie one more time. Wyatt cracks his knuckles, a nervous habit he claims he doesn’t have. I just remain upright.
“So if we’re done worshiping old grudges,” she says into the mic, “I’d like to worship something worthwhile.”
