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told me even a year ago that it’d be like this today, I’d have said they were crazy. It took Laramie being born for my parents to patch things up with my grandparents, so I was almost five before I ever set foot in this town. Afterwards, we still only visited once or twice a year, but when we did, attending at least one service at Harvest Mission with Grandma and Grandpa was required. Daddy always balked at the door like a steer seeing his first trailer. But when our Dallas community didn’t do anything to help us after the accident, it was Harvest Mission that took up offerings to keep me and Laramie fed. Because that’s what families do for each other, even if they only see you once or twice a year, even if they don’t got that much to give.
    So I’m stuck with Brant. We’re family. Brothers in Christ. That’s how Mackey tells all us youth group boys to think of each other, and we all get that it’s a metaphor, but when it comes to me and Brant, most folks take it literal. Someone’s always coming up to me at church and patting me on the back or squeezing my elbow, saying some version of, “Brant Mitchell is like the big brother you never had!” This irritates me because one, Brant isn’t even a full month older than me, and two, I have a stupid little sister so any suggestion that I need an older sibling implies there is something naturally dull and middle-childish about me, and three, I don’t like to think of Brant that way because of this other way I think of him, this way that tells me he’s beautiful even though I know it can’t be true because girls are beautiful, not boys, and it ain’t right to confuse the two.
    But somehow I do.
     
     
    Ditch Daze happens for three reasons:
    1.) To celebrate America’s independence from British tyranny.
    2.) To honor our unique history as a town built around a bone-dry, butt-ugly ravine that may or may not be haunted and/or cursed.
    3.) To stimulate the local economy by luring in out-of-towners with the promise of antique cars, teenage beauty queens, and all the useless knick-knacks a minivan could ever dream to carry.
    In service to the third and arguably most important goal, the town tapes off large swaths of the park, making it not entirely impossible but extremely inconvenient to get from one event to another without getting lost in the arts ’n’ crafts booths. As we re-enter the maze, Brant’s arm slides off my neck, but his hand catches on my shoulder, fingers curling around the bone in a firm, split-second squeeze. Then his arm is back where it belongs, swinging at his side, while my heart races off in a direction my body will never follow.
    We pass dozens of booths, each one hawking its own unique flavor of country kitsch but otherwise exactly the same—tarp roofs crackling in the hot breeze, sweaty vendors lounging in old plastic lawn chairs, rickety tables sway-backing under the weight of their wares. They’ve got leopard-print wall crosses and camouflage dreamcatchers, serious hunting knives and goofy switch-blade combs. Polished walking sticks with animal faces carved into the crooks and plush patchwork horses made from fancy old furs. One booth has a pyramid of those colorful, scented wax blocks all the moms have gone crazy over, and if that don’t make your house smell classy enough, there’s plenty of candles inexplicably shaped like high heels and martini glasses at the booth next door. Past that, there’s a man selling gun racks made from upturned deer hooves, table runners made from coyote pelts, and hundreds upon hundreds of little wooden signs that say things like, “Born to Hunt … Forced to Work” and “Missing Husband and Dog … Reward for Dog!”
    Back when we had money, Daddy liked to show off in front of all the folks who’d told Mama he’d never amount to anything. He would set me loose with a roll of twenties, and I’d spend it on the weirdest things I could find. Of course, back then, I had no idea they were weird.