Mississippi Burning

MISSISSIPPI BURNING

By uciboy

PART I - WONG'S CONVENIENCE STORE

Charlotte Wong set down a heavy box on the counter next to the cash register. The callouses on the hands of this 41 year old Chinese American mother of two were an indication that she had lifted many boxes in her lifetime in this small convenience store, especially since her divorce ten years ago when she was left to run the business on her own. She opened up the box and began pulling out cartons of cigarettes, setting aside a pack of Virginia Slims 120's for herself. The first thing she did after unwrapping that beautiful white pack with its green stripes was to smell the contents. How she loved the aroma of a fresh pack of menthols.

She lit a cigarette freehanded and sucked hard while inhaling through her nose at the same time, a technique which brought the smoke directly into her lungs without delay. She then exhaled rivers of smoke through her nostrils while taking a second puff before pulling the cigarette out and placing it in a clean ashtray on the counter. She exhaled a long stream as she picked up the empty box and threw it on the floor.

She noticed how dusty the counter was and picked up a rag. Since the fire in the tobacco field from that meteor two weeks ago engulfed the town in a pall of smoke and dust, it had been impossible to keep the store clean. The government said that there was nothing to worry about, but like her Southern neighbors, she rarely trusted what the government ever said. Of course, if she was worried about the health effects of a burning tobacco field, she wouldn't be a pack a day smoker. She looked at the long, freshly lit cigarette in the ashtray, watching the smoke rise like a long string. Was there anything more beautiful than such a sight? Of course there was. A long, freshly lit cigarette between a woman's fingers. She picked up the cigarette from the ashtray and took a confident puff.

She looked around the store, exhaling a long stream of smoke into the empty space. Cigarettes were just about the only profitable item she sold in this small Mississippi town; and liquor, of course, to deaden the pain of living in Bedford. When her great grandfather had opened up this convenience store back in the late 19th century, it sold groceries of all kind, as well as vegetables and even fresh meat. It was a hub of activity for both black and white sharecroppers. Now, people bought their groceries at the Walmart in Tunica County.

She sat down on the chair behind the register and brought the Virginia Slims up to the corner of her lips and puffed, opened her mouth, and snapped back a thick ball of smoke. How she loved that feeling of a white cloud floating inside her body. After a few seconds, a smoky waterfall began descending from her nostrils.

She adored 120 cigarettes and the femininity and sexiness they conveyed. But Virginia Slims was not her first brand. She remembered as a kid the cigarette posters her family store had back in the 1980s when 120's became popular. "Say hello to Max!" read one with a beautiful black woman holding a long cigarette. That was the brand her mother, also raised in Bedford, smoked whenever she sat behind the register, even (her mother told her) when she was a teenager. Since the sight of a young, beautiful Chinese female smoker appeared to bring in male customers, while at the same time increasing cigarette sales to all ages, her parents never complained (and neither did the customers!) She was a sort of living, breathing smoking billboard to promote addiction - and the profit that flowed from it.

Charlotte loved Max cigarettes. She felt so sophisticated when she and her sister would sneak off behind the store to smoke them. She was 15 when she started. She shook her head slowly as she recalled that memory.So young. Probably too young. But did she regret it? Nope. She's loved every puff since.

She was heartbroken, though, when Max was discontinued in 2010, a year after her mother died and she herself inherited the store. So she started smoking Saratoga 120's. "Wait 'til I finish my Saratoga" read the store ads, directed to both men and women. The cork-tipped 120 was popular with her African American female customers, so she took on the role her mother once played, a real life advertisement for smoking. Saratoga was a wonderful cigarette, and the green Menthol pack had a sophisticated look that she was proud to show off in public. And then Saratoga was discontinued in 2018! Super Slims were not her style, preferring a thick, dense puff of smoke in her lungs. That left only two choices: Misty and Virginia Slims. She chose the latter for its rich, creamy texture.

But enough of this useless journey down memory lane, she thought to herself. She had work to do. The shelves were not going to get stocked by themselves. Her 19 year old son, Curtis, worked as a mechanic at a garage down the road, having no interest in taking on the family store. That left only her 18 year old daughter, Caroline, who at the moment did not know what she was going to do with her life after graduation. One thing she knew for sure was that she was unwilling to act as a living, breathing smoking advertisement. In fact, unlike her brother, she didn't smoke at all.

So it was a total and complete shock for Charlotte when her daughter walked into the store after school that day with a freshly lit 120 between her fingers. "Hi Mom," she said dreamily before taking a puff which she did not exhale.

"Well, my heavens!" Charlotte said with a wide smile. "You've decided to come over to the dark side." She took a gentle puff and French inhaled the smoke that curled from her lips up into her nostrils.

"I don't know why I waited so long," she replied, taking another deep puff and holding the smoke inside of her lungs.

While happy that her daughter had finally decided to join Team Smoking, this mother sensed that something was not right as she watched her daughter take another puff and again held it deep in her lungs without exhaling more than a thin vapor of smoke from her nostrils. This was not the smoking behavior of a new smoker. Caroline's eyes were also watery and her face flush, as if she had a fever.

"You okay, hon?" she asked as she reached over the counter and felt her daughter's forehead with her palm. The girl was burning up.

"Oh, Mom," she replied in a haunting voice, "I feel so wonderful." Caroline then brought forward an orange tubular bloom on a long stem that she had been concealing behind her back. "Here," she said, handing the flower to her mother. "This is from Mr. Dawson, my science teacher at school. He said you should be among the first to have one."

Charlotte had seen these wild flowers growing in the charred tobacco field where the meteor crashed. "It's very beautiful," she replied with some confusion as to why she specifically should receive one.

"It smells like Jasmine," Caroline said, bringing the long 120 up to her lips.

As Charlotte moved her nose towards the bloom to take a sniff, immediately the bloom reared up and sprayed from its tube a fine, white mist into her face. Taken aback, she immediately looked up at her daughter who had a wicked smile while taking a long puff on the 120 cigarette.

Charlotte felt her body temperature spike and her lungs tingling wildly with a burning sensation. A slight throbbing pain emanated from both shoulder blades with the emergence of two bumps. As a creamy cone of smoke from her daughter's mouth engulfed her face, Charlotte had the uncontrollable urge to suck madly on her own Virginia Slims. When she inhaled the blast into her lungs, she felt an explosion of pleasure that was unlike any puff she had experienced in her 26 years of smoking. "Oh, God," she moaned as she brought the cigarette up to her lips for another long puff, looking at her daughter who just stared back at her with that evil smile. She noticed that the back of Caroline's shirt around her shoulders had some sort of movement.

And then Charlotte felt from her own back a stinging sensation from the bumps which had emerged on her shoulder blades. Something was growing out of them....

PART 2 - COMING HOME

Six Months Later

"My God, Mom, it's so hot down here," Justin said as he ran his hands through his short black hair, finding his fingers dripping with sweat despite the A/C being on full blast. "How do people live like this?"

Patricia Wong Jin smiled at her 18 year old son. After living so long in California, she had forgotten how oppressive the heat and humidity can be in the Mississippi Delta. "Well," she replied, "you just get used to it; and you stay in-doors a lot."

Justin started to turn the nobs on the car radio. "What kind of music do they listen to down here?" he asked.

"Honey, we're not in a foreign country. They listen to the same music here as in Los Angeles." Then she added, "For the most part, at least." Finding nothing but country-western and Christian stations, he turned the radio off and stared out the window. Nothing but acre after acre of cotton fields.

"Mom," he asked carefully, "how are we gonna be treated down here? I mean, you know, with the Southern racism we hear so much about."

Patricia understood her son's concerns. Growing up Chinese in the South was not easy, but things had changed since the sixties when her father's store was almost burned to the ground for helping a black family in trouble. "Don't worry, honey. It's a different kind of South, now. It's much more cosmopolitan. You know that area we stopped at for lunch that had all the casinos? When I was a girl, that land was completely vacant; just farms and wetlands for as far as you could see. Now, so much of it is built up. The South is much more modern than it used to be."

Justin was not convinced considering all he had read in his high school history text about the South's racist past. But he wanted to keep an open mind. After all, this was the region of his Mom's birth. For years she had talked about coming "home" to see her sister's family. That need for a connection had been particularly strong since his father's death five years ago. Justin was always much more mature for his age, and he provided her with whatever comfort a teenage son could offer to a grieving mother. For that reason, he was very close to his Mom.Of course he was going to come with her to Mississippi. Besides, he had never met Auntie Charlotte before, or his two cousins.

Justin stared outside the window for a few moments before asking his mother another question that had been nagging at him since he was told they were off to the Magnolia State for a vacation. "Mom," he asked, "what is your family doing in Mississippi anyway? I mean, it's not really a destination spot for immigrants like Los Angeles."

"It's a fascinating story," Patricia began in an animated tone. "A lot of Chinese immigrants moved out here to the Delta after the Civil War. Many worked in the fields alongside former slaves, but eventually most started up their own businesses - like grocery stores. That's what your great grandfather did in Bedford, serving the black and white sharecroppers in the region."

"Bedford," Justin said picking up his smart phone and typing the name into Google. "I've never heard of it."

"I'd be shocked if you did," Patricia said turning off the highway onto an old two lane road. "Most maps don't even bother to list it."

"Oh, here it is," he said scrolling down to a US census link. "Population 531.531? My high school was bigger than your hometown!"

The car bumped violently as Patricia ran over a pothole. "Sorry about that," she said with a frown. "Pretty old road." As the rental car came up to a small and discolored "Welcome to Bedford" sign, Patricia stopped the car and exclaimed, "We're here!"

Justin looked around. All he saw was miles of tobacco fields.

"Small population," Patricia said with a weak smile, "but wide open spaces." She put the car into gear and began to drive down the road again. Off in the distance, they noticed what appeared to be a security check point with concrete barriers across the road. "What the hell is this?" Patricia, who rarely cursed in front of her son, asked in an unguarded moment. As she drove closer to the barrier, a middle-aged African American man in a police uniform stepped out of what looked like a toll booth. He put on a broad-brimmed hat and lit a Winston cigarette. Patricia rolled down the window, feeling a blast of hot air hitting her face along with the officer's second-hand smoke.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but this road is closed," the police officer said in a heavy Mississippi drawl. "Please turn your vehicle around."

"Closed?" Patricia said flabbergasted. "This is the only road into Bedford. How can it be closed?"

"Ma'am," the officer replied politely but firmly after taking a puff on the cork-tipped filter, "this is now a private road, so you'll need to..." The man paused as he stared into Patricia's face. "Holy mother of pearl," he exclaimed with a broad smile, "if it ain't Patty Wong! Good God almighty, what on earth are you doin' here?"

"Lawrence?" Patricia - or Patty, as she was known back home - replied, now recognizing the face of the officer in front of her. "Bless my soul, aren't you lookin' sharp in that uniform," she responded in what Justin suddenly recognized was a Southern accent. "When did you join the force?"

"Oh, a few years after you left us for college," the officer said as he rested his arms on the car door window, oblivious to the fact that he still had a lit cigarette in his hand that was filling the cab with smoke. "You paying a visit to Charlotte?"

"A little vacation," Patty said nodding. "But why is the road closed?"

"Well," Lawrence said looking first to his left and then his right as if he was about to impart something confidential, "we had some excitement 'round here six months ago. A meteor from outer space decided to plop itself in this little corner of God's kingdom. You'll see a few miles yonder that it burned a whole tobacco field. Of course, tourists from all over wanna come in and see if ET phoned home, clogging up the streets, and...well, you know how we've always valued our privacy in Bedford."

"Mmm," Patty nodded politely, but she wasn't in agreement that that was always true. Now was not the time, however, to argue the point.

"So," Lawrence continued with a smile, "we put up this road barrier to keep all those Yankees out. But now, who is this fine looking man here sitting next to you?"

Patty placed her hand on Justin's shoulder. "This is my son, Justin," she said proudly.

Lawrence reached his hand into the car for a manly shake. "How you doin', son?" he asked in a friendly tone.

"Officer," Justin replied politely as he shook hands.

"That is one respectful boy you've raised there," Lawrence praised. "Strong grip, too" he said in one final shake. "You know, your Momma was once the prettiest girl in Bedford." He then looked at her softly, and added, "Miss Patty broke a lot of hearts when she moved away."

Patty gave Lawrence a kind smile and gently caressed his face. "You're still as handsome as ever with that devilish smile of yours," she said in the tone of a Southern Belle.

"I'll let my wife know you said that," he grinned.

"How is Livie?"

"Oh, fine," he said with a smile and a nod, "just fine. She's got her hands full with an 8 month old."

"Why you sly fox," Patty said, slipping easily back into her Southern tongue, "a baby at your age."

"Well," Lawrence replied with a sniff as he pulled up his belt, "when you got it, you got it,"

"You still livin' in the old Harper mansion?"

"It's still standing," he said proudly. "We done a lot of work on it." He nodded his head proudly. "Yessir, a lot of work." He then noticed another car down the road coming towards the barrier. "Okay, you two. I gotta shew away some Yankees," he said jocularly, seeing the license plate was from Ohio. "You both have a pleasant stay." He raised the thick metal bar between the concrete barriers that was wide enough for just one car. As Patty slowly drove between the barriers, Lawrence said mysteriously, "I'm certain that after a day or two, you won't ever want to leave."

Once past the barriers, Patty began to speed up down the road.

"Old boyfriend?" Justin asked.

Patty looked at her son with a smirk and said nothing.

Just then, the car came up to a blackened area of farm land that was at least a square mile. "This must have been quite an inferno," Patty whispered as she drove slowly by the charred remains. Then she noticed a splash of orange color scattered throughout the field from what appeared to be wild flowers. She took some hope from this sight, that despite the destruction of the crop, something new and beautiful could still emerge. She wondered to herself whether this was a good omen for a town that she knew from experience always appeared to be on the edge of social, economic and even racial disaster. That is, after all, why she couldn't wait to leave it so many years ago.

PART 3 - OUTBREAK

Six Months Ago

Lawrence sped down the road in his patrol car as fast as he could to his wife and kids. Cassidy had stayed home from school with a cold, but if one of her friends had come by the house... "Please, Lord, keep them safe," he prayed.

Lawrence's home was on the outskirts of town, the only remaining structure of the old Harper plantation. He bought the dilapidated mansion for a song twenty years ago for the privacy it would provide him and his family. Though far from the center of town, he knew it was only a matter of time before members of the mob arrived. He saw them going house to house in the neighborhoods off Main Street, supported by the Sheriff. What he witnessed happening to those people made his blood run cold.

His patrol car skidded across the driveway and onto his front yard, smoke rising from the wheels. He ran up the porch steps and flew open the front door. "Livie!" he screamed from the entryway as he ran into the living room. Suddenly he heard the baby crying in the kitchen.

"What the hell are you shoutin' for?!" his wife angrily yelled as she came into the living room holding the baby in a chest harness. "I just got Mason asleep."

"Babe, we gotta go. Grab the diaper bag and whatever you can pack in five minutes."

"Go?" Livie responded, her anger now turning to confusion. "Go where?"

"Where's Cassidy?" Lawrence asked in a panic as he walked towards a gun cabinet and fumbled with some keys to unlock it. "Cassidy!" He yelled. "Get down here now!"

"Lawrence," Livie said, fear rising in her voice, "what's happening? I've never seen you so frightened."

Their 18 year old daughter, Cassidy, came running down the stairs. "I'm here, Daddy."

"Baby, I need you to pack what you can as fast as you can." Lawrence opened the cabinet and pulled out a shotgun with a box of shells. "Something's happened to the town. It's like..." He had no words to describe it. "We gotta get the hell outta here before they arrive."

"Who?" Livie asked in desperation. Suddenly she heard two cars park in front of the house.

"Lawrence," a voice from outside hollered, "I need you to come on out. Be good, now. We don't want no trouble."

Everyone in the house froze.

"Daddy, I'm scared," the teenager said with tears in her eyes.

"Everyone just stay calm," Lawrence said slowly to the women. He opened the shotgun, loaded it, and shut it with a snap. He knew he wasn't going to survive this, but he would take a few of those men outside with him to the grave if it meant his wife and kids could escape. "Livie, I need you to take the kids into the kitchen. When you hear shots fired, that means it's time for you to run. Run like hell. Run as fast as you can to the woods. Don't trust nobody."