1 Chapter 1

About the only thing that happens here in Boydton County is the annual fair.The first week in October everyone turns out at the fairgrounds,their livestock and crops in tow.There are cattle auctions,hog calling contests,funnel cakes,chitlins,and“Best of Show”ribbons given out for everything from largest cucumber to fattest sow.On any given day there’s maybe five hundred people all told,jostling for a place inside the split rail fence that cuts the grounds out from the surrounding fields.Believe me,that’s a crowd around these parts,and all the pick-ups and John Deeres tear up the dirt tracks that lead into the fairgrounds something fierce.When the fair committee manages to wrangle someone famous to stop on by,the mud and the muck just gets worse.Few years back,they had that guy who played Deputy Enos on The Dukes of Hazzard,and you’d have thought it was Boss Hogg himself.This year my sister Jolene heard it might be Toby Keith,but I think she heard wrong because there’s no waythe county could cough up the money to bring someone big like him here.I mean,really.

The day the fair’s set to open,Jolene wakes me up at 4:30,just before dawn.Since it’s stilldark out at this hour,it takes her several minutes to rouse me out of sleep.Barely opening my eyes,I groan,“God,Jo.It’s too early.”

“Come on,”she mutters,keeping her voice down so she won’t wake our folks.“Jesse,you said you’d drive me to the fair.Missy’s outside and waitingalready.”Missy is Jolene’s prize pig—she won four ribbons three years back and Jo’s been making money selling her offspring at every fair since.Vaguely I remember telling her that I’d give her a ride to the fairgrounds,but right at this moment I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

When I don’t stir,Jolene shoves my bed and hisses,“Jesse!”Then she shucks off her sneakers and clambers on top of my covers,nothing but pointy elbows and skinny legs that poke at me in unpleasant places.Rising to her feet,she stomps about my mattress,narrowly missing my hands and face.“Wake up,”she chants in time with her steps.“Wake up,wake up,wake up.”I curl into a fetal position and squeeze my eyes shut,but what’s the use?She’s won.Still,I hold out until she stops moving and threatens,“I’ll tell Pa.”

Only then do I stretch awake.The last thing I need is my father in here,towering over my bed with his hard eyes,asking in that dangerously low voice of his how a hard-working man like him managed to sire a lazy do-nothing freeloader like me.I’ll never be good enough for him,I’velearned that lesson over the last twenty years,but that’s never kept me from trying.As I kick Jolene off the bed,I yawn and tell her,“I’m up already.”I hate the triumphant grin onher face—little sisters sure know how to get under your skin.Running a hand through my close-cropped hair,I ask,“You load Missy up yet?”

“She won’t go up the ramp for me,”Jolene admits.“I got the piglets boxed in but Pa said to come get you since it’s your truck.He’s got Mamma’s veggie crates already stacked up by theback tire,too,waiting for you.”

Suddenly I feel the weight of the coming week heavy on my shoulders.Loading the truck,then driving slowly over back country roads for an hour to get to the fairgrounds,unloading the truck,uncrating the vegetables and the pigs and sitting in the bed of my pick-up for long,hot hours watching people pick over both.Six days of that shit.When I was little,the fair used tobe as big as Christmas for me,but this early in the morning I don’t have the energy to get thatworked up anymore.“God,”I moan,rubbing my face with both hands.

Because I’m not moving fast enough for her,Jolene kicks me in the shin.

****

By the time we get to the fairgrounds,there’s already a line of battered trucks edging the fence.My mother’s half-brother Gary stands at the open gate,waving vendors on through.He’s county administrator and since it’s an elected position,he makes sure that he’s seen.The day has begun to brighten,but the sky is white from a faint haze that hangs above the grounds like wet laundry.As I pull up to the gates,I lean out the window and holler,“Looks like rain.”

“It’ll hold,”Gary tells me.With a glance at Jolene in the bed of my truck,he adds,“Pig sty’s in the back,you know the way.”