The Year the Lights Came On Read Online Free PDF

the ache. We wanted to know why— really why—we were mutations. Why plagued us. Why gnawed at us, made us wonder about our traditions of Christian forgiveness. Why made us doubt our birthrights as premium Southerners, whose bloodlines had been purified in the mating beds of humble but bold English and Irish emigrants, with an occasional Indian partner to make the claim of being American a genetic fact as well as an assumption. Why was a forever question. Why was an initiation chant we learned as first graders, when we were tiny and frightened and willingly asked anyone who would listen, “Why?”
    We were told excuses, not answers.
    And as we grew older and perhaps more vulnerable, the Highway 17 Gang continued its assault. They laughed at the way we dressed. They giggled when one of us committed an embarrassing error in school. They made obscene little tooting sounds and pointed accusing fingers at the smaller children of Our Side.
    They called us white trash, or hicks. And no one could tell us why— really why.
    Until spring, 1947, when Time became placeable for us. Until Wesley’s year.
    *
    Two weeks after our first day of softball practice, as competition festered for positions on the team, Jack Crider slapped a double past Wayne Heath in a choose-up game. Jack belonged to Our Side; Wayne was a member in good standing of the Highway 17 Gang. As Jack stood on second, clownishly accepting our cheers, Wayne retrieved the ball, rushed to second, pushed Jack off base and tagged him out.
    Jack did not appreciate the tactic. He determined that Wayne should be retired from softball and proceeded to administer the service. Dupree rushed to Wayne’s aid and Freeman sprinted after Dupree to even the conflict.
    Jack was dismissed from the softball team for two weeks. Freeman was sternly lectured. Wayne was sent home to get a shirt with buttons. And Dupree’s eye was dressed in an ice pack.
    It was an ancient argument, and it had occurred too often.
    At recess the following day, Wesley led Our Side below the school lunchroom and canning plant, into a small stand of new ground pines and oaks. Freeman kept his rabbit tobacco buried there in a Prince Albert tobacco tin and at recess he loved to get in a couple of quick puffs.
    “It ain’t right,” complained Jack. “Shoot, Wesley, I didn’t do nothin’ to Wayne. I was just standing there on second and he come and knocked me off and tagged me out. It just don’t seem right.”
    A chorus of yeahs endorsed Jack’s anxiety. Wesley nodded his head and picked up a pine needle and began to braid the three slender shoots. Freeman rolled a cigarette out of a torn front page from a Grit newspaper.
    “Somethin’ ought to be done,” Freeman declared, tipping a kitchen match to his cigarette.
    Wesley stared at the braided pine needle. He ran his fingers over the sharp intertwining. He said, “Well, I guess I might know somethin’ about what’s wrong.”
    “What, Wesley?” I asked.
    Wesley dropped the braided pine needle and picked up another. He began to twirl it. He was being deliberate. “I got a notion why everybody living on Highway 17 thinks we’re different,” he said simply.
    “Well, that’s easy, Wesley, they got a paved highway. Makes ’em think they’re better’n everybody else,” replied Freeman, puffing frantically to keep his rabbit tobacco burning.
    R. J. spat through the slit in his top teeth. “Yeah, they think dirt roads is for hogs, or somethin’.”
    “Maybe. I think it’s more’n that,” countered Wesley.
    Freeman blew a smoke ring that grew into a perfectly round cloud and stood swirling six inches in front of his face. He then blew three smaller smoke rings through the center of the big one. He thought Wesley was playing. “Well, we’re waitin’, Wes.”
    “Yeah,” I added.
    “It sounds crazy…”
    “C’mon, Wes,” Freeman urged.
    “Freeman, if you laugh you’re gonna have to fight me right here, and I mean it,” Wesley