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Sheldon and his cousins in the back seat while Gladys the mother of the cousins went in the store. It was summer. They were in Gatesville. All four windows of the car were down in the hot day. They were parked under a Live Oak that looked to be a thousand years old, the sidewalk buckled up and cracked all around it. The car was aquamarine and white and shaped like a bulbous turtle. They were squealing and playing in the back seat, Sheldon and Christie and Beth, and the slither over him of these girl cousins, with bodies newly strange to him, felt somehow good, too, as it made him inwardly cringe, and now and again they popped one at a time their heads over the seat back, to look and see if Gladys was coming, but
Gladys was not, and they fell back wrestling and carrying on. It was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the Year of Our Lord Nineteen-hundred- fifty-six, and when they were done here Gladys had promised to go with them for fireworks, to the cluster of stands at the edge of town, on the way back to Fort Worth and the family gathering at Uncle Curtis’s house that evening and Christie said excitedly, — We can go nigger-knockin tonight at Curtis’s.

     —Nigger-knockin, nigger-knockin! said Beth.

     —What’s nigger-knockin? asked Sheldon.

     —You knock and run, said Christie. She snuggled down with him in the floorboard.

Beth on the seat bouncing up and down said, —Nigger-knockin, nigger-knockin!

      —You knock and when you hear them comin you run and you hide and they open the door and no one ain’t there and that’s nigger-knockin.

She leaned toward him and kissed him wetly and he stared at her,
stunned and in abrupt and uproarious shock, and not knowing quite what else to do he climbed back up in the seat and looked out the window and there, on the sidewalk, an ancient old black woman made inchwise progress with a cane and a handkerchief wadded in her hand that she dabbled at her face with for no reason Sheldon could see, and embarrassed though he could not have said why, he did say to her, —Hi.

She said, —Hello.

And Beth said, —Nigger-knockin, nigger-knockin!

Sheldon blushed and muttered again, —Hi.

And he would not meet the woman’s eyes, while Christie stared at the old woman staring back at her and finally said solemnly, —Poor black trash.

And as if fulfilling her part in some liturgy, the old woman wobbling on her cane down the sidewalk, obviously feeble, said back—Poor white trash—emphatically and with some spirit, and Christie in a voice dripping with petulance and cruelty said back at her, —Poor black trash. Poor black trash. Poor black trash.

And then Gladys come out of the store with a bag in her hands, her
salt-and-pepper hair an unruly pouf around her head, scowling ferociously, and slapped them all through squealing into severely ordered silence while the old black woman watched, not without satisfaction, dabbing at her face with her handkerchief. Gladys got in the car and they all rode in morose silence to the fireworks stand. The stand was set up discreetly at the edge of town, and there they got out in an unruly pile, spirits abruptly recovered as they will be with children, and joined a ragged waiting line. All around there were signs that read NO SMOKING and they all caterwauled and jumped, snarled at one another like the snarling cat face on the fireworks labeled BLACK CAT with Gladys now and then swatting at them in a kind of rote futility, until finally they reached the plywood counter and Gladys negotiated with the scowling, harried clerk.

Fireworks bought—fireworks to celebrate the independence of the
country, the victory over the British, the freedom of Americans everywhere ta-da-de—they drove on to Fort Worth, the southside of town not too far from Kennedale, where the cars were drawn up half in the street and half in the bar-ditch, just everywhere, and more coming with dishes and everywhere the smell of potato salad, barbecue, fried chicken, sweet pea salad, and they ate at noon and they ate at five, but in between, in the afternoon, they played baseball.

Sheldon walked in the bright sunlight with three gloves in his left hand
and two bats in his right and the sandy gravel of the diamond crunched under his feet. Tommy his mother’s nephew was wide across and short and his hair short and red and a scut of freckles over nose and cheeks, Scotch-Irish to the bone, with sharp blue eyes and a gentle mouth. Almost all the boy cousins dawdled along behind, and Tommy’s own son Daryl slouched beside him with three more gloves in hand and a day made for baseball, fireworks, and food opened up all around.

Tommy was a short man, but he looked tall with all the boys. Empty
bleachers and the wide scrubby ragged lawn of the park and distant beyond that the houses from the time just after the war, one of them Uncle Curtis’s with the sprawl of cars all around it, two bedroom with one-car garages and yards that had seemed large enough when they were laid out, but coming up on twenty years later, seemed small. The girl cousins waited for choosing up sides. In the distance, other figures of boys.

Tommy divided up the cousins into teams and set the batting order
and then took the mound and Daryl took the catcher’s mitt and hunkered behind home plate. Four cousins took the field—Joe David, Beth, Christie and the third sister Linda—and disposed themselves at first base, shortstop, third base and outfield. Three more cousins in the chain link box that was the dugout and one, Sheldon, swinging a bat in the batter’s box, cutting across the strike zone and full with visions of a homer, watching Tommy warm up. Tommy was a good enough pitcher, but Sheldon saw the ball tended to break inside, so at Tommy’s nod he took up his stance wide of the plate. The ball whizzed dead over the strike zone and Sheldon
caught his swing before his elbow broke and eyed Tommy sourly and Tommy laughed, serene in his adult sophistication, and Daryl laughed, too.

—Strike one, Tommy said.

—Is not.

Tommy smiled Arguing would do no good, he knew, so Sheldon stepped out of the box and swung the bat like a scythe, cut across his strike zone, stepped up to the plate and took his stance again and cut across with the bat twice more and settled his stance, staring straight at the ball in Tommy’s hand, and Tommy wound up and pitched. Sheldon popped up the ball toward second base and took out for first and the shortstop, Joe David, breezed under the arching ball and snagged it and Sheldon, blowing, rounded off from first and trotted toward the cage while his brother Dallas selected a bat and David Earl moved toward home plate, cutting at the air as he swung the bat with one hand.

The boys in the distance watched. They stood beside the concrete
pillar of a water fountain. Beside it, another fountain, broken, stuck up out of the ground like a jagged tooth, sprouting twisted threads of rebar from the broken tip like the nerve endings of a vast but somnolent beast. The smallest of the distant figures capered around it. As one, they started toward the diamond. Dallas popped one to center field. It was fast and it fell out slow; no one had reached it before it hit the ground and bounced once and kept on going. Cousin Ray Bob— Earline’s boy—snagged it at last, and threw it back infield where Donald Joe, David Earl’s brother, caught it on a jump. But Dallas had already tagged up at second base, and stood panting with his hands on his knees.

The approaching boys resolved out of the distance. They carried bats and balls. They reached the outfield and continued across. Tommy didn’t see them until they walked past him. One of them turned and stood in front of him. The others grouped at home plate and watched silently. Daryl rose from his squat behind home plate. Tommy stood looking down at the boy. Tommy had the ball in his hand. He tossed it up and caught it offhand; tossed and caught; tossed and caught. The smallest of them scampered around and around the group standing before Tommy. Sheldon couldn’t tell if they spoke or not, but Tommy gestured at Daryl and Daryl started gathering up bats.

—Let’s go, Tommy called.

The cousins all gathered up around Daryl and they followed Tommy as he walked past the end of the fence at first base. Sheldon lingered in the rear, looking at the black boys as the boy who had stood before Tommy slowly walked back to his fellows and then they all stood in a group watching the white people leave, faces blank, eyes like holes gouged with thumbs. Tommy looked over his shoulder and saw Sheldon and shouted,

—Let’s go!

Sheldon scurried after and they all walked back to Uncle Curtis’s house, where the women were once again spreading mounds and piles of food out on the tables made with planks and sawhorses. The sky was powder blue with single puffs of cloud. The hot sun a yellow white wafer in the sky that was the sky of the fourth of July, a special day in the life of the world, and the afternoon wore on into evening.

Christie and Sheldon and the other two sisters lagged behind on the
walk back from the park. Tommy and the others grew smaller in front of them. Christie and her sisters Beth and Linda whispered and giggled and Sheldon walked along kicking at the dust in the sun yellow duff along the bar-ditch. There were no curbs here, as there were where Sheldon lived, and he did not notice Christie running to the front door of a house until she was almost there. Linda grasped his arm and pulled him into the bushes at the next house over. Sheldon heard Christie knocking. A pause. He heard Christie knocking again.

She ran to join them and they all huddled in the bushes and Christie
shushed Linda and Beth giggling in their hands and they heard the front door open. Then someone’s voice with a lilt of puzzlement said —Hello—? and in the silence Christie pressed her hand on Beth’s mouth and Beth’s hand came up to Christie’s and the voice said again —Is someone there—? and Beth looked at hard at Christie and then they heard feet scuff along the porch and just before the door slammed the same voice muttered, — Damn niggers.

When the door closed Beth’s giggle was a shriek. They ran all the way to Curtis’s house.

                                              * *

And by and by it was evening, a billionth day in the life of the world,
and in the dusk at Uncle Curtis’s house Tommy and Donald Joe fixed ice cream. They set the shiny steel cylinders in the cedar buckets and loaded in the ice and salt. They piled blankets on the buckets, careful to keep the cranks clear. Donald Joe hollered up Joe David and David came and sat on the blankets while Donald Joe cranked. Tommy hollered up Daryl and likewise Daryl sat while Tommy cranked. The other adults sat at tables under the trees, smoking and talking, torpid with the enormous meal just finished. Squads of small cousins came by, phalanxes of would-be grenadiers
ready for the dark to bring the fireworks.

—I don’t know how you can put that thing out there, Lorraine said.

Uncle Curtis said, —I done any different my neighbors’d get mad.

—God forbid it.

Tommy changed places with Daryl. David changed places with Donald. The cousins ran and shouted. The back yard was fenced with chain link and the chain link sagged heavily with the honeysuckle bushes grown up into it and the green fleck lights of the lightning bugs floated in the bush and the yard was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle.

Sheldon picked a flower from the honeysuckle and carefully broke the stem end. He carefully pulled the stamen backwards out of the flower, ever the more carefully. The stamen came free and with it a delicate bubble of clear fluid surrounding the tip. Sheldon stuck the stamen in his mouth and the small sweet taste was there and he reached up and picked another flower. The dusk grown duskier and a lightning bug drifted past.

—green light—.
—green light—.
—green light—.
—and he watched it with big eyes.

Linda ran past and Christy and Beth behind her and Christy slapped
Linda on the thigh.

—You’re it! Christy shouted, and spun on her heel and ran, Beth laughing with her.

—I’m tired of catch, Linda wailed. It seemed she verged on tears. She saw Sheldon and came toward him and picked a flower and they both stood at the honeysuckle bush sucking on the honeysuckle.

—You’re not playing any more? Sheldon asked.

—Come on, she said.

They ran around the house to the front yard. Linda walked up to a sign staked there at the edge of the road. She gestured for Sheldon to follow and they both went up to the sign. It was blocked from the road by the many cars, hump-backed Fairlaines and Bel Aires. Linda pointed.

—Looky here, she said. Sheldon read:

   FOR SALE
WHITE ONLY

—So? he shrugged.

Linda said gravely, —We won’t have it here next year.

—Why won’t we?

She looked at him with pity, —Because of the niggers.

—Oh, he said.

She said, —Come on.

They went in a bush. The bushes around the house were as thick and
heavy as those on the fence and in the shade of them the honeysuckle smell seemed overpowering. They crept to the side of the house, in a darkest place, and Linda hiked up her dress and pulled down her panties and Sheldon stared, a little sick, but intensely fascinated.

—Show me yours, she ordered.

They examined one another closely, that sickish feeling somehow also so good, so desirable, but then they heard the shouting and they both jumped and hastily reordered themselves and then they heard the first firecracker go off. They both ducked out of the bushes and ran around the house. Someone had lit a whole pack and they were going off left and right, flash and pop and jumping all over, and it sounded for a second like a real gun battle. Sheldon felt a guilty thrill, part the noise, part the flash, part what he had been doing with Linda. Around the house there were all the cousins, with punks and sparklers and Daryl lit a firecracker from his punk and flung it and it popped with a bang and a flash in the air and Linda squealed.

Somewhere Christie said, —You want to go?

Sheldon saw Dallas get off the blankets on one of the ice cream makers and Joe David step away from the crank. Donald Joe opened the ice cream and they started serving it around with pie and cobbler on paper plates and the smell was like heaven and it mixed with the honeysuckle, heavier still in the darkened air, sickness and joy and excitement co-mmingled in Sheldon. Linda and Sheldon ate ice cream and peach cobbler on the grass under a table. Sheldon ate fast. He wanted at the firecrackers. He heard Christie say, —You want to go nigger-knockin?

He ran up to Tommy and Tommy reached in his bag and handed him a small string of firecrackers and an unlit punk. Sheldon tried to bolt and Tommy caught him and said:

—Whoa, now, Tex. You got to be careful.

Tommy lit the punk. It burned and Tommy blew it out and the tip
glowed cherry red. Sheldon danced impatiently from foot to foot. In the now-full dark the sparklers burned fiercely and the flash and pop of the firecrackers briefly lit the thoughtful tired faces of the grownups and the shrieking fierce faces of the kids and the sky beyond the trees was full of explosions now, the brief spurt and sparkfall of flying rockets as all over town people set off the fireworks they had bought the week or two previous and stored against this night and now the night was here, and the sky was at war. Somewhere he heard Christie say:

—Let’s go nigger-knockin. I want to go nigger-knockin.

There were pinwheels and brief gorgeous flowers of light. The sky was lit up raggedly in clouds and billows of hanging smoke, like an ongoing fusillade or barrage, one burst upon another. Amid the tumult, Tommy showed Sheldon how to unwind the firecracker from the package and how to light the fuse with the punk and throw it quickly. In the corner of the yard someone set off a whole pack and it blazed and jumped like a war and the children danced around it howling and the shadow and the light was lurid paint on the openmouthed faces.

Sheldon ran with his punk and his firecrackers to the side of the house where most of the kids were and twisted out a firecracker and carefully lit it. The fuse sparked. Around him shrieks and shouts of delight, Dallas with a sparkler, his brown eyes fixed on it wide and full of wonder. The fuse of Sheldon’s firecracker sputtered and seemed to go out. Dallas spun his sparkler in the air and it traced ovals that lingered in the vision. Sheldon watched it, fascinated.

—I want to go nigger-knockin, Christie said.

The spark of the fuse zipped suddenly into the firecracker.

He screamed when it exploded in his hand.