Men We Reaped

Chapter 10 chronicles the first death Ward experiences in 2000: the loss of her brother Joshua. A climactic point in Ward’s memoir, Chapter 10 commences with Ward’s declaration: “This is where the past and the future meet…This is the heart” (213). In April 2000 Ward returns to Mississippi after graduating from Stanford University. She yearns “for the familiar” after becoming “tired of being in the big world” (214), where she feels constant loneliness. She struggles to find work related to her English and communication degrees, while Josh jumps from job to job. He moves back in with his mother and sisters, and eventually lands a job at the Grand Casino in Gulfport, where he works as a valet parking attendant.

In the time between employment, Josh continues to sell drugs, a choice Ward explains is “a necessity for most young Black men” in their community, particularly given the “sluggish economy where their labor was easy to come by and totally and completely expendable” (218). After dropping out of high school in ninth grade, Josh feels limited in his options. Thinking of Josh’s difficulties, Ward reflects on the changing global economy and “how America was hemorrhaging blue-collar jobs overseas, how factory jobs like the one my father had once supported a family on were becoming a rarity while only dead-end service jobs remained” (219-20).

Ward buys a used car with all of her savings and struggles to maintain the car. She racks up $5,000 in debt and applies to a job in a New York publishing house through a college connection. She contemplates leaving Mississippi. She sees Josh for the last time as she prepares to visit New York for her interview, informing him of the trip and possibility of a permanent move to New York. Josh fails to hide his disappointment; “his expression [slides] from his forehead over his beautiful eyelashes, his brown eyes, to his mouth, where it [settles] in a frown” (225-26). Ward’s mother and grandmother take her to the airport, and she feels overcome with uncertainty about her future.

Ward travels to New York for four days, staying with her college boyfriend. She interviews with a placement agency on October 3 and, although she feels “the energy of the place, the feel of limitless possibility and potential” (227), Ward wanders back to her boyfriend’s place in a state of doubt and insecurity. Her boyfriend greets her at the door in an emotional state and tells her to call her father. She calls her father, who informs her of Josh’s death in a car accident the night before.

On October 2 Josh went to the casino to work an extra shift for which he was not originally scheduled. After completing his shift that night, Josh chose a different route home along Highway 90, the beach road. Ward envisions Josh’s drive alongside the Gulf of Mexico, as he enjoyed the scenic views. A short while later, a White drunk driver hit Josh’s car from behind at 80 miles per hour and, though Josh attempted to hit his brakes, “there was so much momentum, so many bodies and cars and histories and pressures moving all at once, that my brother could not stop his car” (231). Josh ran into a fire hydrant that ripped through his car “and smashed into his chest” (231).

Ward jumps the narrative to eight months later in New York, where she has been living for the past five months. She receives a call from her sister Nerissa, who notifies her of the jury’s verdict in the trial against the drunk driver. His sentence is five years for leaving the scene of the accident and not for vehicular manslaughter. Authorities did not discover the cause of Josh’s accident until the next day, as the driver landed on a beach away from the accident and left the scene. The judge orders him to pay their mother $14,252.27 in restitution. Ward reveals that “the man served three years and two months of his sentence before he was released, and he never paid my mother anything” (235). The family later learns of the man’s history of similar incidents.