Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward Page A

Branches became swords and enemies. We battled. We ran. Joshua collided with a tree and scraped himself purple. I clucked over it, wiped it clean with my shirt, blew on it.
    â€œIt hurts,” he said.
    â€œIt’s going to be okay,” I told him.
    Joshua trusted me. His eyes, which had glazed wet, dried. He shrugged, hopped a little on his good leg, ready for more serious play. I was proud of him.
    I was still dissatisfied with the name.
It sounds so plain
, I thought,
not magical like Terabithia
. But I was happy with Kidsland, our home, with Aldon, with Josh.
Two good warriors
, I thought. I was a little satisfied, as if I’d taken the first step to doing something momentous, to becoming one of those girls in the books I read.
    In real life, I looked at my father and mother and understood dimly that it was harder to be a girl, that boys had it easier. Here, boys could buy and ride motorcycles and come and leave when they wanted to and exude a kind of cool while they stood shirtless at the edge of the street, talking and laughing with one another, passing a beer around, smoking cigarettes. Meanwhile, the women I knew were working even when they weren’t at work: cooking, washing loads of clothes, hanging them to dry, and cleaning the house. There was no time for them to just relax and be. Even then I dimly knew there was some gendered difference between my brother and me, knew that what the world expected of us and allowed us would differ. But for me, the reality of those differences was reduced to one tangible symbol: cigarettes.
    I could read the packages, knew that my uncles smoked Kools. To me, they embodied just that, the leisure and cool that were the specific privilege of men. When Joshua and Aldon and my cousin Rhett and I collected enough loose change from the grown-ups, we’d jump on our bikes and ride them down the street, a mile or so, to a store built in a shed in a yard. The owners were White. I often felt like they were staring at us as we carefully picked our pack of gum, our potato chips,our one drink, our candy. Two dollars could buy us this, but if we had less, if we had only a dollar, our options were narrower. Joshua and Aldon would choose all candy, penny candy and Now and Laters, Rhett chips and drinks, and I’d buy candy and gum. My favorite candy was candy cigarettes. I’d smoke my candy cigarettes during the bike ride back to the house: my favorite brand had some sort of fine powder on the tip, so when I put my lips to the gummy candy filter and blew, a light smoke flew like sea spray.
    One day, one of my uncles puffed his cigarette, sucked it down quickly, threw it down in the dirt with a quarter of it remaining, and then walked down the street. The porch was empty, my aunts in the house were quiet, and we were alone in the dirt yard. I slid under his car, plucked the cigarette from where he’d flicked it. It was still warm. I held it by the filter, the tip pointed to the ground, and walked over to Josh and Aldon.
    â€œCome on, y’all,” I said.
    They stood and followed me around the back of the house. I stopped between the back wall of the house and the concrete slab of the septic tank.
    â€œWe’re going to smoke this cigarette,” I said. I wanted some of my uncle’s autonomy, some of his freedom.
    They nodded sagely, as only five-year-olds can do. I tried to puff the cigarette and got nothing. Before I could hand it to Aldon, Aldon’s mother heard us from the bathroom window, which I’d parked us right beneath.
    â€œMimi, Aldon, Josh: get in here!” she yelled.
    We dropped the cigarette and filed into the house. Both of my aunts sat at the kitchen table.
    â€œWhat were y’all doing?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œY’all were smoking a cigarette?”
    â€œNo,” I said, suddenly panicky, my chest flushed hot.
    â€œDon’t lie,” my other aunt said. “Was y’all trying to smoke a