This Is My America(61)

I feel the temperature warm up, a crackling sound. I whip around to look out the busted windows.

Dean runs through the kitchen’s back door to go around the house while Steve goes through the front door. I’m stuck, staring. Confused why it’s so bright outside. Until I realize there’s a blazing cross, over ten feet tall, that’s staked into our dry grass. The flames are catching the ground on fire. Bright and flashing.

I cry out at the tall cross burning in our front yard. The fire is blazing; I look away. Shut my eyes, but the image of the cross stays even in darkness.



“Good Lord.” Mrs. Evans stands there, with shards of glass around her, fixated on the yard. My eyes lock on the brick on the ground, paper wrapped on with what must be rubber bands.

“Judy, you all right?” Mama wraps her arms around Mrs. Evans, since more of the glass hit her. Mrs. Evans’s face is as white as a ghost’s. She doesn’t speak, shaking, but shuffles along as Mama guides her, directing her closer to the kitchen while calling the police.

“Take Corinne upstairs, Tracy.” Mama waves her arm at me, and it breaks my gaze away from the glass-covered floor.

I head upstairs, ushering Corinne and leaving her door open. Grateful that her room is on the backside of the house. Corinne doesn’t speak; she goes silent, gripping one of her dolls. My adrenaline still up from the window blasting, but also at what this is doing to Corinne. She’s become numb to our nights evolving into terrifying disturbances. I worry about what this will do to her long-term.

“It’s gonna be all right.” I push her hair back.

Corinne nods. I look away, so she doesn’t know I’m afraid. I turn on her sleep noisemaker to drown the outside. Then leave.

On the porch, Mrs. Evans has a blanket wrapped around her, crying out that everyone needs to be careful. She’s shaking like they came for her, not us.

“You hurt? Any glass get you?” Mama tugs at my chin, checking my face. “How’s Corinne?”



“Shocked. This is too much for her, Mama.”

Mama nods. “Stay out here with them while I call the fire department. I’ll go check on her.”

Mr. Evans, Dean, and I stand behind the fiery cross, watching Steve hose it down. Our shadows elongating in the dark, hot night of Texas as the flames extinguish.

“See anyone?” I ask.

“They were gone by the time I got around,” Dean says.

“Where were the police?” I point down the street where they were parked for two weeks until now. “Is this what you meant when you said it was going to get ugly?”

Dean touches my back, shaking his head.

“I’m from Mississippi,” Steve says. “I’ve seen this before, but I didn’t expect it here. There’s definitely something bigger going on.”

My throat closes. I haven’t heard from Jamal in two days.

“What do we do?” I take a step closer to Steve.

“It means we’ve got more work to do. This something that happens around here often, Mr. Evans?”

Mr. Evans doesn’t answer right away. He watches the cross, then glances over at Mrs. Evans. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing as me. If Mrs. Evans considers this a part of stirring up trouble, or if it makes her realize that trouble was already here and we’re just trying to survive.

“Klan was here.” Mr. Evans hesitates. Like he wants me and Dean to leave so he can talk to Steve.



I’m not going anywhere.

“All this land from here to the Pike was seized twenty years ago by the FBI in a big bust. White supremacists had bought property and businesses so they could launder money in and out without the government knowing. Some lost property, money, and some went to jail.”

“Wait,” I say. “Daddy and Mr. Davidson were planning to build homes on land that had been owned by the Klan? Does my mama know?”

Mr. Evans doesn’t answer. I’m shocked. Why is this the first I’m hearing about it? All this time we’ve been looking at Daddy’s case all wrong. There could be more around Mr. Davidson choosing to do business with a Black man.

“Who could be involved?” Dean asks his dad.

“I don’t know.” Mr. Evans looks off in the distance. I think he’s avoiding eye contact, but then I hear the whirring sound of a fire truck and police cars.

With the sirens in the background, I rush to the house for the brick that broke the glass.

Dean follows. “Should you be touching that?”

“If we don’t read it, there’s no promise it’ll be shared with us,” I say.

I carefully pull off the rubber band with a napkin, brushing away any lingering glass, and read the note. Swallow hard as I take it in. The note flutters in my hand, and I almost drop it before Steve urges me to read it.



I bite the inside of my cheek, steady my shaky hands, then read it out loud.

NO MORE WHITE LIVES LOST AT THE HANDS OF A BEAUMONT. NEXT TIME IT’LL BE A BODY WE BURN.

—THE BROTHERHOOD





UNTHINKABLE


The world feels upside down, like I’ve been dropped—then left broken. Nevertheless, I need to flip that switch in my brain so I can believe these police officers are here to help.

I wish I could trust them automatically, but I can’t. History has a way of latching on to you. Like touching a hot stove—you only need to do it once before you know better.