Fourth of July in Eastover

In Jackson, the fourth of July was always a time to show off your rich white kids at the rich white country club, smiling at people you hate because they're in your firm or you need their guy to vote with your guy.

Giant coins tossed in the pool so kids in nearly obscene swim team costumes could dive for them, ribs that have been cooking for days, white men in striped shirts and fake straw hats play the banjo, women wear heels that sink in the carefully cultivated zoysia turf, children run wild, if you were slick, a black man in a bowtie would charge beers to your dad, I was always slick.

When it was over, you spent three hours trying to get out of the parking lot so you can spend ten minutes driving home.

My dad hated it. So did Rowan. One year after ignoring her since Nixon, Rowan was divorced from his wife. Nobody wanted to take sides, but Mrs Taylor wouldn't be attending. I missed her. I always liked her. We had Fourth of July at home.

We'd never made ribs before. There was a book on it at school. My mother's plan was to pre-cook them almost done in the oven, then finish them and the chickens on the grill. Having figured out the ingredients from Southern sideboards and the joy of cooking, I made the sauce.

What the hell is liquid smoke? I let the tomato paste sit in the grill while I prepared the other ingredients. That'll give it smoke flavor. Barbeque sauce is a dance between salt, heat, and sweet. Nobody knew what the hell umami was back then. Honey for sweet, Tabasco, salt, finely chopped onions cooked for seconds to release the flavor, garlic, French sherry, beer, peanuts boiled beside.

Bubba and Grandaddy arrived. "Help your grandmother get the watermelon." That was a joke. There were three boys, yet I was elected to give Bubba my arm, carry the watermelon, and carry the boiled custard. Bubba's position was this: One brother was insane. The other brother wouldn't cut his hair, so I was elected, and that's how it remained until I was two hours late picking her up for my sister's fifth announcement party because I'd been in a 24-hour regatta, which we won, but nobody asked. The body can only stretch so far. Nobody cared.

Ice cream churned, peanuts boiled, ribs and chicken smoked. My father asked when the sauce goes on. "Toward the end". He wasn't satisfied with that answer. We waited for Rowan to arrive. I had orders not to show emotion if he had a date.

My grandfather smoked his pipe. He took watermelon selection more seriously than most humans. He discussed it with two young black boys. Mrs Berry, who owned the stall, tried to help, but was brushed away. This was men's work. My sister entertained Bubba. I watched my pots. My brother rocked in his chair, lighting new cigarettes with dying ones.

No one asked why there were six empty cans of beer for one batch of barbeque sauce. I relished my illusion of solitude. Rowan arrived. No date.

"Can I fix you something?"

"I know where it is." And indeed he did.

My mother's contribution was potato salad, sliced tomatoes, Vidalia onions, and boiled horse corn. "Turn your chickens. You don't want the wings to burn." If it were up to me, there would be no wings, just rear quarters.

"Slice these peaches for your grandmomma's ice cream.". Everybody got peaches. Peaches, figs, and muscadines are divine. Yankees don't know shit.

Daddy wanted me to play patriotic classical music on his new stereo. I played "Grand Canyon Suite." We ate, and ate, and ate. Daddy and Rowan discussed politics. I was just stoic, watching, my ribs were too chewy.

Bubba and Grandaddy left before the sun went down. Baby sister had a date.

Daddy, Joe, and I had personally selected a large bag of fireworks. None of us were sober, least of all Daddy and Rowan. Fireworks you do yourself are louder, more impressive, and more colorful than professional fireworks.

An errant rocket started a fire in Warren Hood's yard. Four drunk men try to make it across the creek to put it out without falling in. No casualties.

There's a marked injustice in losing just one member of couple friends. They exist in a sort of quarantine state that everybody hates but nobody has a solution to.

It would be a few more holidays before Rowan had a date anybody liked. A little blonde Yankee who came to Mississippi to study Eudora Welty, but became, and still is, the principal inheritor of the Menopause Mafia.

There's a new Menopause Mafia, although nobody dares use that name. They're all associated with Millsaps College, naturally. If I name them, Nicole Saad will say I'm meddlin', which I am.

Scott Mattier wrote a song called "Christmas in Eastover." It was pretty popular. I knew people hated us. You could feel their disdain. I also knew I could drive to South Jackson and Pearl, offering girls with big hair a tour and get pretty much whatever I wanted. I learned that from Brother Overby, who learned it from an Irby.

I also know the boys that hated us have since been willing to do anything to live in Madison, which is the new Eastover, except it's not. Madison exists because three real estate guys from Jackson willed it into existence because they ran out of land in Hinds County. I'd say their names, but their wives would thump me. Justifiably so.

The truth is, there's no real wealth in Mississippi. Puttin' on airs is useless because we're all different stages of poor. The richest lawyer in the history of America wears old jeans and eats meat and three at Ajax in Oxford. He went to jail too. Pride goeth before the fall. He and the other fellas in that case are still my heroes. Jail’s not the worst thing a fella can do in Mississippi.

Whenever I write a story like this, I know there are people whispering, "Please don't mention me." I try to honor that. Unless you're an asshole. There aren't any assholes in this story, although there's hardly anybody left alive.

You know "Christmas in Eastover," now you know "Fourth of July in Eastover.". If it's not that impressive, that's the point.