Long Division(77)

“Gimme the hood,” Baize said. She was sitting at the base of a magnolia tree. The color in Baize’s face was fading. Part of me thought she was gonna put the sheet on her head just for fun. That’s kinda what I wanted to do.

Evan handed it to her and she put the hood on her little left hand like a huge glove. “Don’t you think it’s crazy how all the Klan members are always boys?” Baize asked. “I mean, what would a Klansgirl even say? If I was white and messed up in the head, I’d be the first Klansgirl in Mississippi. Then I’d change the whole Klan style, too. I wouldn’t be messin’ with no fire or lynching nobody. My Klan would go town to town with coloring books asking folks who didn’t get along to color together. If they didn’t color right, they’d have to spit a sixteen-bar freestyle about sheets. I’m for real.”

Baize took out her phone and snapped a few pictures of the hood like it was a puppet. After she was done, she threw the hood in the hole and started coughing. With Evan’s brother begging and pleading, all four of us pushed the door to the past, present, and future shut. Well, two of us did. Evan and Shalaya Crump acted like they were pushing but I saw them both keep their eyes closed, gritting their teeth, just going through a motion.


After a minute of silence, I opened the hole and looked in. We couldn’t see anyone, but none of us knelt down and really looked all the way in. “I wonder where he went?” I said. “You think y’all would’ve sent him away if you were by yourself?”

“I know I wouldn’t,” Shalaya Crump said.

“Me either,” Evan said and looked at Baize. “Is she okay?”

Baize, who was already on her knees, put her head in the hole to make sure he was gone. “I’m telling you,” she said. “I would’ve done it by myself. Ride or die. You think that dude can just come back tomorrow, though? Or like, do you think he’s gonna just fuck up whatever time he lands in?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Anyone who says they really know anything about yesterday or tomorrow is a liar. Look, we need to get you some help.”

Baize turned her head to me, forced a smile, and said, “You’re too worried. Don’t worry. I’ma be fine.”


We were all lying on the ground outside the hole. I was on the end next to Baize; Shalaya Crump was next to her; Evan was on the other end. The whole time I’d been in those woods, I’d never stopped and looked up. The tops of the pine trees swayed in tiny circles like long green index fingers. Behind those fingers, the sky was changing from faded-blue-jean blue to new-Levi’s blue, and drunk-looking lightning bugs were starting to, as Baize said, get their wink on. “Baize?”

“Yeah?”

“So you knew all the time, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I knew.”

“When did you know?”

“After you stole my computer, I kept wondering why your eyes seemed so familiar.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t all the way sure, and I didn’t want you to disappear again. I figured if I played along, we would all be friends. All of us. That’s the most I was hoping for. We ain’t got to be family again, but I at least wanted us to be friends.”

Shalaya Crump turned her head toward Evan, then looked back at Baize, who was still looking up at the sky. Then Shalaya Crump slowly turned back toward Evan. “Do you even care about how the time travel works?” she asked him. “I mean really care.”

“I care,” he said, “but, like I said, I think I know.”

I grabbed Baize’s hand. “Forget them,” I said under my breath because I didn’t know what else to do. “You think the sky changes when people jump from time to time?”

“No,” Baize said. “Do you?”

“If it don’t change, can you imagine what the sky sees? Like the sky, it probably knows how the time tunnel really works.” I looked at Evan. “The sky probably knows what’s gonna happen next. It probably knows what’s happening in the Freedom School and the Shephard house and that community center right now. I bet no one else knows how truth can change except the sky.”

“Yeah, but what’s the point in knowing if you can’t change it?” Shalaya Crump said. “I’d rather be able to change it than to know it.”

“I guess you’re right, huh? That’s kinda worse than even watching a bad television show you’ve already seen. Then at least you can change the channel when you know exactly what’s gonna happen next. The sky, it’s gotta just watch everything and sit there changing from dark to day to dark to day no matter what.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Baize said.

“But I still wonder.”

“Wonder what?” Baize asked me.

“Well, if you could ask the sky anything about change and time, what would you ask it?”

We were all quiet, listening to the wind, blowing at the lightning bugs, and squeezing the hand in our hand whenever we heard a car or footsteps move down Old Ryle Road.

“I’d want to know who my parents were,” Shalaya Crump said, “and why they left when they did. And can I have two questions?”

“Yeah,” Baize said and coughed nastier than she had all day. “Some people are the sky, though.”