Yard War (19 page)

Roderick's parents took him out of Donelson right when I was getting to know him. Over the summer, some people blew up his dad's dental clinic one night, just like they said they'd do. Miss Hooper told me his family moved to Tupelo. Nancy and I talk about going up to see him one day.

Mama and Daddy say the schools are about to be completely integrated, along with restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, and everything else. They say it's going to happen fast, and whites will be slow to accept it.

Mama says she's learning not to care what people say, too, and she can't believe it has taken her this long. She doesn't go to Junior League and garden club meetings as much now. She's spending a lot of time tutoring Dee and some kids from his neighborhood who want to go to a better school. She says Dee's a whiz at math.

We don't eat Sunday dinner with Meemaw and Papaw that much anymore, and everybody seems to watch their words when we do. Meemaw never has told me she's sorry for what she said about Daddy. She wants to smile and act like it never happened and seems to expect me to do the same. But every time I look at her, I see that night. Daddy says he's about to convince Papaw to help him fund a new clinic near
where Willie Jane lives. It will be for women who can't always go to the doctor because they can't afford it.

Tomorrow is Saturday and Dee will be coming over. I told Willie Jane to be sure and wake me up early so we can make pancakes before the game. Stokes will be here after lunch. Andy finally ran out of excuses and admitted that his mom wouldn't drive him to my house. Guys from the new neighborhood have been showing up, though, and we usually have at least three-man teams. My yard is even better for football now, with hardly any trees.

I have more reasons than ever to live in this place that I love and hate and never will understand. Sometimes, when I think about everything Willie Jane and Dee and me and my family went through last fall, and what everybody in Mississippi will have to go through before things get much better, I feel pretty hopeless. Then I remember what Daddy said after the yard war: “The good guys won here today.” They just might win tomorrow.

The Jackson, Mississippi, of this novel is based on the one I remember from 1964, though characters, churches, neighborhoods, and schools have been fictionalized. There really was a Willie Jane, I did throw a football with her son in our front yard, and the neighbors did object. That would not happen today.

I have tried to give my characters language true to the time. When I was growing up, the terms
Negro
and
colored
were used by whites who wanted to separate themselves, at least superficially, from those who showed no respect for blacks and commonly tossed around the offensive
nigger.
I have made an effort to keep that word and other epithets to a minimum, using them only as signifiers of the racism this story deplores.

A younger, more creative and generous spirit enlivens the neighborhoods where I grew up. Some things, like passionate football rivalries and surpassingly delicious food, will never change and never should. But Jackson is different in a thousand ways from what it was in 1964, and incalculably better in one way: now it belongs to everybody.

Deepest gratitude to my brilliant, witty, and tireless agent, Molly Ker Hawn of the Bent Agency, who believed in this book and made it happen; to the incomparable Wendy Lamb, who pointed me in all the right directions, to assistant editor Dana Carey and readers Sarah Eckstein, Hannah Weverka, Teria Jennings, Alexandra West, and Alex Borbolla; to my wife, Beth, and my children, Mary Katherine and J.T., for changing the world from black-and-white to color; to Mama and Daddy for more than I can say or repay; to Min, Ken, Mabs, and Banana for love, forbearance, and dessert; to my beloved uncle Barry Hannah, constantly missed, who taught me about writing and laughing and yard ball; and to Willie Jane, wherever she may be.

Taylor Kitchings's roots in Mississippi run many generations deep, though it took him a while to circle back to them. As a college freshman, he recorded the original album
Clean Break,
now considered a collector's item. As a junior, he wrote music for mallet and giant Möbius strip, which was performed at Manhattan's Café La MaMa. In the years between earning his BA from Rhodes College and his MA from Ole Miss, he traveled from Memphis to New York to Europe, writing and performing songs on piano. He and his wife, Beth, have two children and live in Ridgeland, Mississippi, where he teaches English at St. Andrew's Episcopal School. His short story “Mr. Pinky Gone Fishing” was published in the collection
Tight Lines
from Yale University Press.
Yard War
is his first novel.