Darktown by Thomas Mullen Page B

checked the shelves, which were half-stocked with old containers of cleaning solutions and boxes of what appeared to be years-old newspapers and legal transcripts. His pants were gone.
    They stood there in silence for a moment, then Smith swung and batted a box of moth balls from a shelf. Little toxic spheres ping-ponged in every direction.
    Boggs closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to hit something, too. Yet he held it in.
    â€œEasy,” he said, to himself as much as to his partner.
    â€œ Easy? You’re the one with no britches.”
    â€œWhich is why you should be cooling down. You’re the one who’s going to have to fetch me some slacks.”
    â€œYou’re going to hide in here?”
    â€œI am going to wait in here for you to get them, yes.”
    â€œThe hell with that. Let’s both go to the Y, in our uniforms. Hell with their rules.”
    â€œNo. I’m not getting written up for something like that. Not after what just happened.”
    â€œFive dollars says your britches are in the judge’s chambers.”
    â€œHe can have them.” Boggs reached into his pocket and dug out a key. “I have an extra pair in my locker. Hurry up and we can get some sleep before next shift.”
    Smith leaned against one of the shelves. He stared at his feet.
    â€œRemind me why we’re doing this.”
    Boggs breathed. “To be upstanding citizens and paragons of our race,” he said, his voice gently mocking the mayor’s speech from their first day.
    â€œGive me a better reason.”
    â€œTo provide a good example for colored kids.”
    A phone rang from an unseen office.
    â€œA better reason.”
    â€œThere aren’t any better jobs.”
    Smith closed his eyes. “A better reason.”
    Boggs thought for a moment, then said, “Maceo Snipes.” Shot in the back for being the first Negro voter in Taylor County. “Isaac Woodard.” War veteran, blinded two years ago by South Carolina cops for daring to wear his army uniform. “The Malcolms and Dorseys.” Two married couples, including another veteran and a pregnant woman, ambushed and murdered on a bridge over the Apalachee River.
    Smith opened his eyes. “Give me those keys.”

7
    RAKE WAS FLIPPING burgers at the grill when his nephews, Brooks and Dale Jr., cautiously approached. The fact that they held their hands behind their back meant either that they were about to throw something at him or that they were trying to impersonate harmless children with an innocent question.
    â€œUncle Denny?” Dale Jr., the six-year-old, asked.
    Rake took a pull on his Coke. “Yes?”
    â€œIs it true you were a Boy Scout in the war?”
    â€œWhere’d you hear that?”
    â€œMother and Father said you were a Boy Scout,” said Brooks, the freckled four-year-old.
    â€œI was a scout. But yes, I suppose you could say it was like being a Boy Scout.” It was not remotely like being a Boy Scout. “It was more like I was a tour guide.” That was actually true, at the end.
    Sunday cookout at the Rakestraws. Rake and his wife, Cassie, playing the hosts, as they usually did. Cassie was inside with baby Margaret and two-year-old Dennis Jr., as well as Rake’s sister, Sue Ellen, and his brother-in-law, Dale, who was on his third or eighth beer.
    Rake looked through the window into the kitchen and caught Cassie’s eye. She winked at him. He wished these next two hours could vanish. It was a rare night off for him, meaning he was roughly on the same schedule as she was, and the baby was finally giving them some time to themselves.
    Through another window he could see his old man, Colson, playing with Dennis Jr. and doing a reasonably good impression of a happy granddad.
    The boys had been cagey, asking Rake about the war when theirgrandfather was not in earshot. Rake seldom discussed it, especially when Colson was present. Funny how even