Chapter 3

Meredith Stokes, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Antaeus College, was grateful and honored, sure, but mostly relieved when Roscoe Alolo accepted a one-year visiting scholar appointment and agreed to serve as director of the 2016 Antaeus College Emerging Writers Summer Literary Arts Residency and Workshop. The trilogy of dystopian novels—Impossible to Underestimate, Defenders of Virginity, and Head in Search of a Brain—that he wrote during the 1970s had been very popular at the time. They were perhaps most famous for being thrown into the fires at innumerable Reagan-era book burnings. For that reason, as much as for their literary value, they had influenced a whole generation of young activists. Above all, Meredith needed his quasi-celebrity appeal to satisfy the board of directors that she could deliver on her promise to attract big names to Antaeus College.

In Meredith’s first year at the college, after a series of cancellations and apologetic refusals from several somewhat prominent writers, she’d worried she might have to cancel the whole summer writing program before she finally recruited a friend who owed her a favor: Francesca Pembroke, author of the self-published Hergasm series of erotic lesbian steampunk science-fiction novels. Meredith had read them all, and although she loved them, she had to admit they weren’t for everybody. During the first class, Madame Pembroke advised her students to always masturbate before writing to get into the mood. Upon hearing about this recommendation, one elderly donor to the college remarked to Dean Stokes, “Personally, I don’t have anything against masturbation, but I don’t think that it should be part of the curriculum.”

That was not an easy promise to keep. Due to sinking enrollments, budgetary shortfalls, and programmatic cuts, Antaeus College’s status as a hot literary destination had declined in recent years. Try as she might, she could not entice any A-list writer to commit to the program. Although more contrite about refusing her, B-listers were also reluctant. Desperate, she scoured the literature section in the library, searching for ideas. There, she stumbled across the name “ALOLO” on the spines of a row of dusty books. Roscoe Alolo? Hmmm. Back in college, she’d read his books in a graduate course in Structural Dissent in American Literature. But was he even still alive?

It took several calls and emails to confirm that indeed he was. When she contacted him to ask if he would direct the program, he seemed suspicious, but didn’t say no. Meredith used pie to persuade Roscoe to come to Antaeus College. It was a hunch. Pie imagery and symbolism figured prominently in Alolo’s body of literature. In Impossible to Underestimate, the falsely-accused main character requested sweet potato pie for his last meal before being executed by stoning; the long suffering heroine of Defenders of Virginity got her revenge on God when she seduced the Messiah by serving him a hot, gooey wedge of cherry pie; and, perhaps most notably, on the final page of his PEN Bellwether Prize-winning book, Head in Search of a Brain, the leader of the slave revolution administered justice by smooshing a banana cream pie into his former master’s face. Dean Stokes gambled that Alolo’s fondness for pies was more than just a literary device, and that he loved pies on his plate as much as in his books.

So, at a reception in his honor, Meredith presented him with a locally baked, blue-ribbon-winning pecan pie that folks drove from as far away as Louisville or Indianapolis to procure. She crossed her fingers and assured him that it would be the best pecan pie he’d ever tasted. It was. One bite and he was hooked. High on pie, he not only agreed to direct the summer residency program, but also consented to represent the college at the Golden Springs Independence Day Festival of Lights. All he asked in return was a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

On the evening after the first day of class, Meredith went to the alumni house, where Professor Alolo was living, to check on him and see how it had gone. She found him chest deep in the refrigerator, mumbling “mmmmwf” and “aaaahump” to himself.

Roscoe raised his head above the refrigerator door. He popped a peeled kiwi into his mouth, shifted it to his cheek, and said, “Call me Roscoe.”

Meredith watched the kiwi pass down his esophagus; it looked like he’d swallowed it whole. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she apologized.

“No worries. If you were interrupting, I’d just ignore you. Nothing personal—but if I didn’t ignore people, I’d never get anything done.”

Shabazz, who’d been dozing on an embroidered sofa in the parlor, awakened and flew across the room at Meredith, jamming his nose into her crotch. He flapped his tongue, and drool rained from side to side. She tried to shield herself with her purse.

Shabazz continued to slather Meredith’s thighs with sloppy kisses, leaving a conspicuous wet mark on her slacks between the legs.

Roscoe grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled him, nails scraping the floor, into the pantry and shut the door behind him. Shabazz pawed at the door and whined to be let out.

Meredith had thought it peculiar when Professor Alolo made bringing his dog a condition of accepting the residency, and even though having a dog clearly violated the alumni house’s policy, she approved it under loose interpretation of an allowance for service animals.

“Not at all. I love dogs,” she lied. “But I just came by to ask how your first class went.”

“Oh?” Meredith shrugged off the abrupt change of subject. “Well then, let’s grab a bite to eat. There’s a vegan restaurant I really like in downtown Golden Springs.”

“Where can you get those scrumptious pecan pies? I’ve been craving a piece ever since I got here.”

“Sure. No problem,” Meredith said, mentally rearranging her evening’s schedule. “Pie is the specialty at a diner in a small town not far from here. It’s kind of a roundabout trip to get there, though. It takes about half an hour to drive.”

“Thirty minutes,” Roscoe repeated and rolled his eyes, as if recoiling from the inconvenience. “Then we should leave now. Do you mind driving?”

“I suppose. I mean, sure. My Smart car is all charged up, so we should be able to make it there and back.”

Burl Slocum sat in a lawn chair, admiring his handiwork. Actually, Justin did all the work, but the project was entirely Burl’s idea. It looked righteous, all right. It still lacked something, though.

“It needs more than just a question mark. Add an exclamation point, then put another question mark at the end,” he instructed.

On the catwalk in front of the billboard, Justin rummaged through the assorted characters in a box he’d dragged up there until he found the prescribed punctuation marks. He suctioned each in turn onto the end of a letter-changer pole, stood on a step stool to reach the line of text, and then placed them as Burl had indicated.

Burl was proud of his billboard. It was the first thing drivers approaching from the west via State Route 343 saw when they hit Coon Creek city limits. For years his father had leased that billboard to Edith Doody—his father always had a sweet spot for Edith, or maybe just for her pies. The billboard had depicted a raccoon wearing a bib, gazing at a slice of apple pie, and licking its chops, with a caption that read, “Keep your eyes on the pies. Hungry Coon Diner, serving hungry coons since 1975.” When the old man died, though, Burl had revoked Edith’s billboard privileges; he had his own idea about what to do with it.

Burl Slocum owned six hundred acres outside of town, including a parcel of land in a pasture along the state route, where the dominant feature on the landscape was his billboard. It rose at a bend in the road above a barbed wire fence, so as drivers rounded the curve it appeared smack dab in front them. When they saw it, drivers often slammed their brakes, thinking the billboard was closer than it actually was, and that if they didn’t stop immediately, they’d crash through it. Burl liked that, for it all but ensured they had to read it. The billboard was his soapbox to stand on, from which he could promulgate his unfiltered ideas and opinions.

Burl had lots of opinions: the best opinions in Coon Creek, in his own opinion. The billboard was a perfect canvas for his wit, warnings, and proclamations. Some years ago he’d purchased a life-size cutout of Uncle Sam from an army surplus store. With a little acrylic finish, super glue, and suction cups, he rigged old US so that he stood proudly in the corner of the billboard, his hand extended with a finger pointing to whatever patriotic words of wisdom Burl felt inclined to display there. Often, he borrowed popular slogans like “Your mother was pro life,” “When they pry it from my cold dead fingers, that’s when I’ll give up my gun,” and “My kid beat up your black gay Muslim honor student.” He fancied that his pithy, eye-catching catchphrases might stick in somebody’s head and—maybe—change some minds.

Hence, playing off a currently popular rallying cry of that summer, his latest billboard testimonial read, “What about Make American Great Again don’t you understand!?!”

Burl closed his eyes tight, then snapped them open suddenly to simulate the impression that a driver would get when rounding the bend.

“Hmmm,” he pondered. “How about spelling out the word GREAT in all capital letters?”

Burl believed that his billboard performed a public service by exposing the un-American activities of so-called intellectuals and their lackeys in the media, the arts, and even in professional sports. Whenever a passing motorist honked or gave him a thumbs up, Burl congratulated himself on a job well done. Still, he knew that his billboard mostly reaffirmed the sentiments of folks who already agreed with him. In order to extend his reach, he was looking into renting billboards in the liberal enclaves of the cities—Columbus, Indianapolis, Cincinnati—even Louisville was getting a little pink around the edges. City folks needed a wake-up call. Their problem was that they devoured a steady diet of left-wing propaganda coming from mainstream media, rather than consuming the raw facts, like those from Burl’s favorite sources, including Fox News, Breitbart, and Infowars.

Burl watched as one of those dwarfish, so-called “smart” cars, which looked like a rolling suppository, rounded the bend, hit the brakes, and pulled over to the side of the road in front of the billboard. On its rear bumper was a sticker that read Coexist, with each of the letters fashioned out of some world religious symbol, and its rear window was tinted with a rainbow flag. The driver and passenger—a woman and man “of color,” as it was politically correct to say—got out of the car. They stood there looking at the billboard long enough that Burl surmised they must be giving it serious thought. Good! Maybe a light bulb of truth was clicking on in their heads.

Justin scrambled down the ladder and hopped off three rungs from the bottom. He wobbled when he landed but righted himself and clicked his heels as if he’d meant to do that.

“Careful, kid. If you break your neck, it’s your own damn fault for being stupid.”

Burl stretched to retrieve the wallet from the back pocket of his overalls. Damnation, he thought. If I get any fatter, I won’t be able to reach around myself.

“So, I owe you for twenty hours of work, and that comes to two hundred bucks. This $40 is for you to keep. And this....” he opened a lunch box by his feet and took out a small sealed envelope, “is worth $160. Mind, now, that it’s for your pappy. I don’t want to hear you’ve pinched any of the product.”

“No, sir,” Justin said, taking the money and the envelope. “My pappy said I should tell you thanks and that I can work as much as you need me to.”

Burl patted Justin on his shoulder. “You’re welcome, kid. Tell your pappy that I thank him for his service.”

“Yessir. So, then, I’ll be back to finish painting the barn Thursday after school.”

Before Justin could get away, Burl asked, “By the way, do you ever hear from your Aunt Mazie? What’s she up to these days?”

“I don’t hear much of nothin’ ‘bout her ever since she left for Columbus.”

He meant it. Most teenagers just didn’t have any drive or work ethic anymore. As an entrepreneur, Burl found it encouraging to find a young man who was willing, even eager, to put in an honest day’s work for a fair day’s pay, instead of begging, thieving, or—worse—going on the government dole.

No direct route connected Golden Springs to Coon Creek. To get from one to the other, you had to drive around the nature preserve and cross the river on a steel bridge south of the Clifton Gorge. While Meredith drove, she pointed out landmarks and points of interest along the way, although Roscoe seemed only to care about how long it was taking to get there. Since he wasn’t listening to her, she turned on the radio to NPR. Terry Gross was interviewing a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Meredith said, “It makes my blood boil to hear such racist bullshit,” expecting that Roscoe would have something contemptuous to say. Instead, she heard snoring. He had nodded off.

The Hungry Coon Diner was at the only stoplight in town. Meredith parked in a far corner of the lot, away from the motorcycles, pickup trucks, and assorted candidates for the junkyard that occupied spaces nearer the entrance. The door squeaked as if in pain when they entered. Meredith positioned herself between Roscoe and the seating area so he would not see the turning heads, and led him to the case where the pies were displayed. Roscoe placed both hands on the top of the case and sniffed in deep spurts, as if chewing with his nose.

“What can I get yah for?” the woman behind the counter asked. Her name tag read “Howdy, my name is Edith.”

“Sure as shootin’ I am. And I got blue ribbons from the county fair to prove it.” Edith pointed at the regally decorated wall behind her. “What can I get yah for?”

Unable to settle upon any single pie, Roscoe bought four to take home: a dutch apple pie with a lattice top, fresh out of the oven; a rhubarb pie, because he’d never had one before; a key lime pie, because it reminded him of summer; and of course a pecan pie, because in his informed opinion there was no finer dessert made in America.

Meredith was relieved when they left the café. She could ignore the stares, but worried that Roscoe might blow his top if he saw them. They each carried two boxed pies, which fit tight in the space beneath her car’s hatchback. When she walked around to the driver’s side, Roscoe took a step back, onto the sidewalk.

Meredith was reluctant to spend any more time than necessary in Coon Creek. Traversing the downtown area gave her the heebie-jeebies. It wasn’t just that people stopped in their tracks to look at her, but they held their gaze, as if they’d never seen a black woman before. On the surface, most were polite. Folks passing by wished her good afternoon, or sometimes even attempted superficial small talk, but their conviviality seemed contrived. She imagined them sticking out their tongues as soon as she turned her back.

The feeling was nothing like walking the streets of Golden Springs. There, the citizens and shopkeepers had welcomed her with such ardor that it made her feel self-conscious. When she’d started at Antaeus College, she couldn’t so much as go to the grocery store without somebody accosting her to proclaim how much they cherished inclusion and thanked her for making Golden Springs a more diverse community. It made her feel as if she checked off some imaginary box labeled “black lesbian.” Vanessa had warned her she might feel that way, so, of course, she had to deny it when they talked on the phone.

Downtown Cook Creek encompassed both sides of Main Street for five blocks, up one side and down the other. Roscoe and Meredith started walking at the town square, which had a small park, a gazebo, a couple of benches, a fountain that never worked, and the statue of the town’s founding father, Philander Fink. From there, they walked past the Drink Here Tavern, the Sleeping In mattress shop, a Goodwill store, 7-Eleven, the Fair Deal pawn shop, the Second Chance used-tire store, the Stay in Your Lane bowling alley, the Cut Above barbershop, Henshaw’s IGA grocery story, a US Army recruiting office, a nonspecific repairs shop, and several shuttered storefronts.

Roscoe paused to tear down a flyer stapled to a telephone pole. He read aloud from it: “Come one and all. Patriotic Fourth of July fireworks Boom-a-Thon, Coon Creek High School stadium, sponsored by the city of Coon Creek and Life Eternal Funeral Services.” He then observed, “Sounds pretty white to me.”

Meredith and Roscoe crossed the street and walked back in the direction from whence they’d come. They passed Joe’s Sunoco, where four men stood looking under the hood of a Subaru, baffled. They paused to allow a pale woman pushing a double stroller with two fussy infants to cross in front of them and enter the Dream On beauty salon.

“Not many,” Meredith replied. “But, once I was here on a Sunday morning, and I heard some soul singing at the Hallelujah Church of God in Christ.”

They continued. Two teenagers standing in a narrow niche between a drug store and a vacant florist shop vaped huge cumulus clouds of sweet-smelling smoke. Roscoe sneezed in their direction. A tattered flag flew in front of the US Post Office. A man wearing a Chief Wahoo baseball cap sat in a parked car and drank from a brown paper bag. Roscoe looked in the window of Boog’s Tattoo Parlor, where a burly man wearing dog tags was sitting in the client’s chair, reading Guns ‘n’ Ammo magazine, with a sidearm pistol strapped to his hip. Roscoe stopped and stared; the man looked up from his magazine and stared back. Meredith, who’d kept walking, doubled back to fetch Roscoe and diverted his attention by saying, “Look at that.”

Meredith pointed at the nearest storefront, which was the campaign headquarters for “Reverend Belvedere for mayor: have faith in government, for a change.”

“Outrageous,” Roscoe declared. “Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Only atheists are fit for political office.”

At length they completed their circuit of Coon Creek’s core by returning to the town square. There, Roscoe stepped in front of the life-sized bronze statue of Philander Fink and stared it in the eye. Fink had his knees slightly bent but his back straight, held a musket in one hand, and had the other shielding his brow, as if gazing toward the horizon. He wore a coonskin cap, which was home to a nest of starlings. Bird droppings splattered his shoulders.

Meredith had never really paid any attention to the statue. She read from a plaque embedded in a stone behind it:

Philander Fink, 1772–1812, an early explorer of the untamed lands north of the Ohio River, built a cabin at the confluence of Coon Creek and the Little Miami River. This monument is dedicated to him and the spirit of discovery that his memory still inspires in the citizens of Coon Creek.

Meredith wondered what he meant by that but wasn’t about to ask. “Are you ready to drive back to Golden Springs?” she asked.

“Let’s get out of this place,” he said. “I don’t want to be here after dark.”