The Trees

by Percival Everett

“Mr. Mayor, this here is the sovereign state of Mississippi. There ain’t no law enforcement, there’s just rednecks like me paid by rednecks like you.”

“Lord, I had me a good time down in Yazoo City. I went to one of them Trump rallies and scared me some fake news folks. Whooeee! That was fun. You know that man is just like us.” Big Ten-Forty laughed. “I mean he ain’t got no more smarts than a porkypine, but he knows how to put them liberal e-lites in their place. Come back.” “Damn. Is he as orange as he looks on TV? Come back.” “Oh, he’s orange all right. Natural orange. I couldn’t believe it. That Melangia was there too. She looks just like one of them Barbie dolls, got eyes just like one of them Barbies. Come on back.”

“This is Mississippi,” Ed said. “Somebody Black had better watch these White folks down here. Because for a lot of these crazy folks, it’s still nineteen fifty.”

However, the crime, the practice, the religion of it, was becoming more pernicious as he realized that the similarity of their deaths had caused these men and women to be at once erased and coalesced like one piece, like one body. They were all number and no number at all, many and one, a symptom, a sign.

What I do know is that the world has become six gallons of shit in a one-gallon bucket. I don’t understand fuck, and I don’t like it.”