I do not drink that night, and I do not fall back asleep. Instead, I watch the numerical counter at the top of the header, which marks each page view.
1 reader.
6 readers.
37 readers.
409 readers.
By the time the sun comes up, more than thirteen thousand people know Davis’s name.
I make coffee, and scroll through the comments section as I drink my first cup.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Your boy was a race warrior.
Goddamned blue gum shouldn’t have been allowed to work in a White hospital anyhow.
I’ve made a donation in your son’s name to the American Freedom Party.
But one of them stops me cold:
Romans 12:19,it read.Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
—
THETHURSDAY AFTERBrit dodged my ax, I had dinner with her and her father. We were well into dessert before Brit looked up, as if she’d just remembered something she needed to tell us. “I hit a nigger with my car today,” she announced.
Francis reared back in his seat. “Well, what was he doing in front of your car?”
“I have no idea. Walking, I guess. But he dented the front fender.”
“I can take a look at it,” I said. “I’ve done some bodywork.”
A smile played around Brit’s mouth. “I bet you have.”
I turned thirty shades of red while Brit told her dad that she’d convinced me to take her to see a movie after dinner, some chick flick. Francis clapped me on the back. “Better you than me, son,” he said, and then we were in my car, about to make a night of it.
Brit was like a live wire, buzzing in the passenger seat. She couldn’t stop talking; she couldn’t stop asking questions: Where were we going? Who would we target? Had I been there before?
The way I figured it, either tonight went well and that earned me Brit’s undying respect, or tonight went poorly and her father broke my neck for putting her in danger.
I took her to an abandoned parking lot near a hot dog stand that was pretty popular with faggots, who sometimes met here to hook up in the bushes behind. (Seriously, though, could there be any greater cliché than gay guys meeting at a wiener stand? They deserved to be beaten up for that alone.) I had thought about messing up some coons, but they were basically animals and could be pretty strong in a fight, whereas even Brit could pound a pansy.
“Are the other guys meeting us here?” she asked.
“There are no other guys,” I admitted. “I used to have a crew, but after one of them turned on me, I realized I like working alone. That’s how the rumor started about the bikers. The only reason I took down a whole gang by myself is because I can’t trust anyone else.”
“I get it,” Brit said. “It sucks to be abandoned by the people who are supposed to support you.”
I glanced at her. “Somehow I think you’ve lived a pretty privileged life.”
“Yeah, except for the part where my mother up and left me behind when I was a baby, like I was just…trash.”
I knew Francis didn’t have a wife, but I didn’t know what had happened. “Man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”
To my surprise, Brit wasn’t upset. She was furious. “I’mnot.” Her eyes burned like coals in a fire. “Daddy said she ran off with a nigger.”
