Men We Reaped

Ward commences her exploration of the five men whose deaths structure her memoir by starting with the latest tragedy to affect her and her community: the death of Rog, who died at age 23. Rog was a close family friend and former boyfriend of Ward’s sister Nerissa.

The chapter starts with the author’s trip home to Mississippi from Michigan, where she attends graduate school. Her cousin Aldon flies to Detroit to help her with the long drive home. As Ward travels from Michigan, she suffers from intense allergies that make her “feel as if the very landscape of Michigan hated me, as if I were a foreign body it was attempting to eject” (20). However, as she moves closer to Mississippi, the allergies lift, and she can finally breathe, although she grapples with extreme grief over the four lives lost in four years and ominously wishes, “I hope nobody dies this summer” (21).

Ward details the homesickness that plagues her while away from Mississippi and the customary trips she makes back home during every break. She returns to her mother’s double-wide trailer where, after her brother’s death four years prior, her mother cares for Charine, the youngest sibling, and De’Sean, the young son of Ward’s sister Nerissa, who gave birth to De’Sean at 13 and cares for him only on the weekends. The author arrives home and collapses into bed alongside her sister and “cried, my unsteady breathing the only clue I wept, from dread or relief” (23). The next day Ward and Charine, both bored and lonely, venture to Rog’s house in search of diversion.

The author describes Rog as “short and lean” with a smile that is “shocking, bright, wide” (24). Rog lives with his single mother after his father, his namesake, died in his 20s from a heart attack. Rog once dated Nerissa, prior to the birth of her son, and they remain friends. Artistic, Rog fills his bedroom with sketches and dropped out of school in 10th grade. He worked and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he found employment in an auto body shop and flourished. Ward recalls a trip to Mardi Gras during this time with Rog and a group of their friends shortly after the death of her brother. She reminisces on Rog’s calming presence during this time of grief. Rog soon returned to Mississippi for good.

Upon Ward’s arrival home from Michigan in the summer of 2004, she, Rog, and Charine party in excess. Ward proclaims, “we were no longer rebel drinkers, imbibing to break rules, to shit on mores. Now, we were subdued drinkers, drinking to forget” (30). Rog expresses his desire to return to California and numbs himself with drugs and alcohol to deal with the realities of being stuck in Mississippi. He soon develops an addiction to cocaine, which he attempts to hide. In retrospect, Ward comments on her own attempts to self-medicate with alcohol and feels a connection to the addictions of family members and Rog, who use substances to find the same relief from despair Ward seeks.

Ward sees Rog for the last time at a local gas station. No longer characterized by his gentleness and ever-present smile, Rog is now “so skinny,” with eyes “closed to slits” (34) as if he is smiling, though he’s not. He wanders off, disappearing “into the dim, tree-tunneled streets of Pass Christian, like an animal down its secret hole” (35). Rhea, Rog’s sister, later discovers him dead in his home. On the night of his death, Rog does cocaine and takes a prescription drug before dying of a heart attack, the same condition that killed his father at age 28. Ward imagines what Rog contemplates on his last night.

After hearing the news of Rog’s death, Ward travels to Rog’s house, where others have gathered to mourn his loss together. They watch as a driver transfers Rog’s body to the hearse. Ward fixates on the words of one of Rog’s cousins, who says, “They picking us off, one by one” (38). Ward wonders who “they” are.

The chapter concludes with Rog’s funeral, which is followed by a customary gathering, or repast, where mourners gather in fellowship. Ward explains the custom of the memorial shirt, which “is most common at funerals for young people,” especially in the South (40). Rog’s memorial shirt features photos of the deceased men Ward explores throughout the rest of her memoir as well as some of Rog’s common sayings.