I reached over toward the shadows and saw that it was pawing at Long Division.

"Wait," I told the cat. "Can you tell me who wrote this?"

Meow I opened the book to the last chapter. With the cat lying on the side of my lap, the top of the hole open, and the light blue of the computer screen cupping my greasy face, I closed the book and wondered if I was the reader or somehow, actually, the writer of the book I had in my hands.

"Wait," I said to the cat. "Did I write this? When?"

The cat ignored me and kept scratching its ears.

"I know this is supposed to be all dramatic," I told the cat, "but can you just help me understand what this book has to do with me? Somebody knows and I'm just tired of not knowing."

It just kept licking its paws.

"Thanks a lot, homie," I told the cat and sucked my teeth. "Where would I be without you? Did you ever really talk to me?"

The cat yawned and started licking its own a.s.s.

Making Baize really reappear was going to be harder than making her disappear, harder than anything I'd ever imagined in my life. And I was going to have to do it all with a book without an author called Long Division, Baize's computer, a fat-head cat, and a hole in the ground.

That's one of the only things I knew. I also knew that "tomorrow" was a word now like the thousands of other words in that hole. I closed my mouth, pulled down the top of the hole, and imagined more words in the dark.

But someone else was in the hole with me.

I heard more breathing and more fumbling around, so I walked toward the noise until I was close enough to smell dried sweat, pine trees, and ink.

"Who is that?" I said, sounding scared as h.e.l.l. "How'd you get down here?"

I gently reached and rubbed my hands up, down, and all around their noses, their eyelids, their dry lips and ear lobes. I found their thighs, their flimsy T-shirts, and finally all of their crusty hands. I had one more match left from the book I'd taken from the 1960s, so I went in my pocket and struck the match.

"You!?"

Slowly, we opened our red eyes in the dark and taught each other how to love. Hand in hand, deep in the underground of Mississippi, we all ran away to tomorrow because we finally could...

COVERED IN INK.

Out in the Bonneville, LaVander Peeler sat in the back and I sat up front with Grandma. She sat there not saying a word for a few minutes, with one hand on my thigh and the car running. She took her hand from my thigh and cupped her face with both hands before ma.s.saging her temples with her thumbs. I placed my left hand on the back of her neck and rubbed it like she'd do to me when I couldn't sleep.

I sat there, waiting for Grandma to say something and, really, waiting to hear from her how being in love with Jesus was going to help us out of whatever situation we were in. I didn't want no silly voices pa.s.s-interfering when Jesus decided to let me know what to do next. But even if you put it on strong leash, and even if you're saved, the imagination makes more noise than a little bit and takes you wherever it wants to go.

And my imagination did exactly that. It took me right across the road in those Magic Woods and it had me stepping on dead catfish and brittle monkey bodies and the blue crossed eyeb.a.l.l.s of white folks. All the while, all I could hear around me was Uncle Relle saying, "Gotd.a.m.nit. Gotd.a.m.nit. Gotd.a.m.nit."

Jesus, I thought to myself, if you're there, I'm not trying to cuss you. I swear I'm not.

Then, it took me back to a bed on a stage where Mama, Troll, Shay, Gunn, and MyMy were there and they were all kissing me all over my stretch marks and showing stretch marks I never knew they had. Without warning, my imagination calmed down and took me right back to my baptism and that Halona King song was blasting on level eighty trillion.

I pulled Long Division from my bag. "Grandma, I'm fine," I told her. "Really."

"Your face," she said.

"What?"

"It looks like my baby done aged fifteen years in two days. Lawd, have mercy. Please have mercy. This wasn't supposed to happen like this."

"Oh, naw. I'm fine, Grandma. I'm just waiting, but it shouldn't be long now." I sat there with Long Division, trying to get situated in the pa.s.senger seat of the car. "In a way, everything is right here." I handed her the book. "I think Jesus wanted me to find this book. You should read this one day. There's another one in the shed."

"I picked it up," she said.

"You did? Good. You should read it."

"I love you, City," she said and put the book back on my lap. "Galatians 6:9 say, Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. I ain't giving up, but I didn't do good this weekend and I reckon they 'bout to come for me. I want you-"

"Grandma," I interrupted her, "I'm gonna miss you. You know that, right? I am. And I'm gonna miss Melahatchie so much. And you ain't even got to tell me; I already know I can't say nothing about what happened in that work shed. It didn't really happen, right? I think I know where Baize Shephard is, Grandma."

I reached for Grandma's waist, smashing my head against her chest as she hugged my neck. Her heart was pounding so hard, so fast. The smell of the shed and Pot Belly was still strong on her chest. "You scared, Grandma? We didn't kill that man, right? Even though you think he killed Granddaddy and Baize Shephard, we didn't kill him, did we?"

I could feel tears from Grandma's face dripping onto my head. "Grandma, I have another question." I pulled away from her so I could see her eyes. "What does Jesus say is the difference between the fiction in your head and the real life you live? You know what I mean? It's like there's two of everybody, the one in fiction and the one in real life. But what's the difference?"

She squeezed my hand tighter and looked me right in the eyes. "Really, it ain't no difference, City," she said. "Because unless you use both of them the right way, they just as bad or just as good as you want them to be. But you lead both of them," she whispered in my ear. "And don't take no a.s.s-whupping or no disrespect from no one in your own house or your own dreams, you hear me? Do whatever it takes to protect you and yours," she said. "Especially in your dreams. Especially in your dreams, because you never know who else is watching."

"Grandma," I looked behind me at LaVander Peeler, who was looking out of rear window, "that's what I did at the contest. That's all I was trying to do. You think I did the wrong thing to protect me and mines today?"

Grandma tapped me on the forehead with my pencil and ignored my question. She told me to read and write when I got bored and needed to make sense of it all. She said I should never show anybody what I wrote, "...unless you really feel like Jesus forgot you and you're trying to save your own life, or the life of somebody you love." Then out of nowhere she said, "What I did to protect me and mines was wrong, City. I shoulda gone underground. I knew better."

"But you were just cleaning up our mess, right? You were doing what Jesus would have done."

"Naw." Grandma looked at her hands. "I was cleaning up my own mess. Or I reckon I was punishing that man for his part in some mess that can't never really be cleaned the right way. I don't know, City."

"It can be cleaned, Grandma. That's the thing." I wasn't sure what I meant, but I knew I meant what I was saying. "It's cleaner than it would be if folks didn't fight back. We can make it even cleaner."

"We can make it dirtier, too," Grandma said and kissed me right on the mouth and reached across me and opened my door. "You should go, City. They gon' be coming for me directly, so I should probably go to them first. Don't ever go back in that house or that shed. You understand me?"

In all the years I'd known my grandma, I never imagined her as someone's sad child. But there she was, looking like some kind of rotten blue loss was swallowing her whole, like she'd just lost 50 contests in a row in front of her parents, the boy she liked, and all the black folks to ever live in the state of Mississippi.

LaVander Peeler and I got out of the car and stood in front of the woods. While Grandma's Bonneville slow-crawled down the road and all these other cars were blowing their horn and pa.s.sing her, I put my hand on LaVander Peeler's shoulder and walked him into the Magic Woods. I remembered where the rusted handle in the ground was. I didn't have to explain anything to LaVander Peeler. He wanted to come with me.

I reached down and pulled open the hole in the ground. We both looked at each other and walked down the steps. "This wasn't supposed to happen to us, City."

"Yeah, it was," I told him. "Like you always say, all things considered, we didn't really have no other choice or no other story to tell, so we had to make one." I waited for him to say something back but he didn't, so I looked right in his face and said what I should have found a way to say to him after the contest.

"I love you, LaVander Peeler. I do, man, and I don't care what you say about that h.o.m.os.e.xual stuff. I know you love me, too. You ain't even gotta say it. Just treat this like the best video game ever made and act like we just beat the game together."

LaVander Peeler looked at me, not like I was crazy, but like we just tied for last place in the longest uphill three-legged race in the world. The hole was huge once you got in and so much colder than I expected.

"Should we leave the top open?" I asked him.

LaVander Peeler just stood next to me, ignoring my question and resting his head on my shoulder.

"Listen," I told him. "You hear something? Sounds like someone breathing."

"City, all things considered," he said, "I'm so scared. Can we read that book?"

In that hole, right in that second, I felt as far away from Melahatchie and I felt as close to a real character as I had ever felt. And the craziest thing is that I wasn't sure if that was a good, bad, or sad thing. With LaVander Peeler's head on my shoulder, we started rereading Long Division from the beginning, knowing that all we needed to know about how to survive, how to live, and how to love in Mississippi was in our hands. The sentences had always been there ...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I want to thank my father and mother for patience and life. I'm sorry I was so bad for so long. I just want you to be proud.

Thanks to my Aunt Sue, Aunt Linda, Nichole, and Mr. and Ms. Simmons for sharing their G.o.d, their healing voices, and their homes with me when I was homeless. Thanks to my little brother, Tommy, and my little sister, Jeanne, for the short time we've shared.

Thanks to Amie, a.s.sefash, Kleaver, Danielle P., Sharon, Rachel, Tanay, Abby, Lauren, Catherine, Robyn, Amielle, Kendall, Leona, Ocasio, Akil, Evan, Cordelia, John, Nate, Rosa, Emma C., Brianna, Amanda, Adam, Safy, Parker, my agents David and Robert, and she who has next, "Nephew Jessie," for reading or listening to early drafts of this book and believing when there was little to believe in. Thanks to Kara for embracing this book like I was family. Thank you for opening your heart to these characters and me at a time when we were so afraid and most in need of magic, music, and time.

Thanks to Raymon for showing a draft to his little brother and needing to teach it to his students.

Thank you to Amitava, Imani, Paul, Michael, and Hua for real talk and modeling innovative literary excellence up close. To Leslie, Peter, Paul, Judy, and David for mentoring and advising me not to sell out.

Thank you, Millsaps College, for a peculiar kind of freedom. Thank you, Jackson State University, for always being home. Thank you, Oberlin College, for a second chance at life and art. Thanks to the Indiana University MFA program for time to learn from some great ones.

Thanks to Lerthon, David, Terry, Henry, Roy, Brandon, Kareem, Stacey, Baraka, Madra, Hasinati, Leighton, Shonda, Robyn, and Shirley for making thousands of Mississippi memories and keeping me alive.

To Andrew, Lila, Bob, and Joanna for welcoming me, and Cappy for keeping Va.s.sar College's doors open to brilliance.

To Carlos, Luis, Prescott, Kisha, Torrie, Mona, and the one and only O.G. Raymon "Gunn" Murph for the kind of service, brotherhood, sisterhood, and love that saves lives.

To Bama, Magtoto, Adam, Paulsak and the rest of that first Writing the Underground cla.s.s I taught at Va.s.sar for holding me accountable to ride-or-die integrity.

Thanks to Morrison, Baldwin, Salinger, Butler, Jesmyn Ward, Natasha Trethewey, Rich Santiago, Ava DuVernay, Outkast, Big K.R.I.T., Ani, Jigga, Kanye, Joni, Maxwell, Scarface, 2pac, Spike Lee, Tyler, Crooked Lettaz, Frank Ocean, dream, Kendrick, Halona King, Brandon Green, Noel Didla, Adisa Ajamu, Marlon Peterson, Mychal Denzel Smith, Darnell Moore, and Killer Mike.

Thanks to Ron, Luke, Mia, Andy, Kim, and Lisa for your willingness to fight and collaborate. Ron, you took a chance on me when you didn't have to. I will never forget your courage.

I want to also thank 2010a2011 Senior Composition for creating and sustaining a rigorous, emotionally dense, innovative writing community when I was really unhealthy and ready to quit.

Thanks to Doug Seibold and the Agate Bolden crew for trust and putting innovative and soulful literature first.

Thanks are not enough to Professor Eve Dunbar for an intellectually demanding friendship while this book was being revised, for slapping blax and posing two questions about black regional literature that changed the narrative's trajectory and my writing life forever. Thank you so much for your care.

Grandma, thank you for teaching me how to pray, listen, laugh, and fight to the end. Blues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Kiese Laymon is a black Southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Oberlin College and earned his MFA from Indiana University. A contributing editor at Gawker.com, he has written for numerous publications, including Esquire and ESPN.com. He is an a.s.sociate professor of English and Africana studies at Va.s.sar College. His collection of essays, How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, will be published by Agate Bolden in August 2013.

Q&A WITH KIESE LAYMON, AUTHOR OF LONG DIVISION.

What inspired Long Division?

Like most of the kids I grew up with, I wanted to spend most of my time outside playing football or basketball, or wrestling. Unlike most of the kids I grew up with, I had a mother who wouldn't let me go outside unless I read "cla.s.sic" books-A Tale of Two Cities, Treasure Island, and later, Absalom, Absalom! Then I'd have to write essays about what was so great about those books. I got good at it not because I liked those books but because I wanted to go outside and play with my friends.

By the time I was 18, I'd read all those cla.s.sic books my mother made me read, and I'd also read a ton of books by black Southern writers. I loved some of those books but I was also hypercritical of them. I had a professor, Calvin Hernton, who said the best way to critique art was through the creation of alternative art. The book was born from this impulse. I had started two different stories, both of which were ultimately concerned with the limits of love and history. I wanted to create a book within a book that was really two love stories, possibly told from the same consciousness. I also wanted to create a book that was in conversation with Kindred, Invisible Man, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Bluest Eye, The Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, Black Boy, The White Boy Shuffle, and all those "cla.s.sics" my mother would make me read before I was allowed to go outside.

What does being a Southern writer mean to you?

Being a Southern writer means that I write to and from a group of people that a lot of other American writers neglect. I feel a responsibility to the richest artistic region on Earth. In my opinion, Southern literature and Southern music have shaped America more profoundly than work from any other region.

Who are your heroes, on the page and elsewhere?

B.B. King, Alice Walker, Mahalia Jackson, Richard Wright, Jesmyn Ward, Outkast, William Faulkner, Catherine Coleman, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin, and all those kids who died fighting for my freedom in Mississippi.

Your 2012 Gawker essay "How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America" received a huge amount of attention when it was first published. Why do you think it struck such a chord among so many people?

I thought a lot of people would enjoy the essay because of its musicality, content, and pace, but I didn't think it would stick with so many people. I knew it was something that we haven't seen a lot of on the Internet, especially in terms of my decision to write it in present tense. I also think that people were really ready for a different expository approach to the American gun and race narrative.

How much of your own experience is reflected in the novel?

My mother had me when she was pretty young, and I was sent to my grandmother's house in rural Mississippi whenever I was too much for my mother to handle. I spent a lot of time at Grandma's just watching, listening to her interact with the craziest, most amazing folks I'd ever met. I also spent a lot of time playing in the woods across the road from her house. One summer, I found this hole that I convinced myself was a time tunnel. I was too afraid to really explore the hole, but I was sure that it was my portal to the future. The grandmothers in the book are really different from my own grandmother, and I'm really different from the City characters we meet, but the woods in Long Division are the same woods I played in as a child.

What was the most difficult part about writing Long Division?

The most difficult part was finding the right way to distinguish the 1985 City from 2013 City. The narrative voices needed to be similar but they also needed to differ due to changes in pop culture, technology, and the pa.s.sage of time. I wanted their relationships to the language of love and heartbreak to be fairly distinguishable. There's a point early in the book where City says to the reader, "That felt like love to me." Simple sentence. The 1985 City, who's much less rhetorically sophisticated, just isn't capable of that kind of absolute earnestness, at least not initially. The second most difficult part was writing the final scene with Baize. It scared me. I didn't want to write it.

What role does humor play in the novel and in your writing in general?

I don't trust people or writing that are afraid of laughter. I think this book is dark in many ways, filled with critiques of race, gender, geography, and the nation as a whole. But I also hope people will think it's a crazy funny book. Some of the humor is "look at me" stuff, but most of it, I hope, grows organically out of the character and narrative. There's this really serious part in the book where Coach Stroud says to City, "You act like a li'l head-buster, but don't never forget, City, that you got a head, too." Coach is so sincere. And in that moment, City is genuinely afraid Coach is about to chop him in his esophagus. I've reread and rewritten that section hundreds of times, and it's still funny to me, though neither of the characters think it's funny at the time.

Who is this book for?

This book is for Americans who were teenagers in 2013, 1985, or 1964. It's a book for lazy writers, ambitious readers, and all those people who feel like they've never been written to before.

end.