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where exactly.”
    Jim Giles takes a sip of something in his trailer; I take a sip of coffee in the kitchenette.
    “Who was Richard Barrett?” Jim asks. “Richard Barrett was an asset. Not to white people. He was an asset to the FBI and to the fucking media. He was a sick puppy, and I’m suggesting sexual perversion on his part. He was a little man. He was a lawyer. He was a scrawny man and he had a look in his face that was one of distortion, of perversion. He would call me on the telephone incessantly.”
    You should know, white separatists are always kvetching about one another. In fact, most white supremacists hate: (1) white liberals, (2) white conservatives, and (3) other white supremacists, making it unclear which whites they have in mind when proclaiming their love of the white race. It’s not uncommon for them to accuse one another of working for the FBI, although already I’m hoping it’s true in Richard’s case.
    “Richard Barrett, the most famous European supremacist Mississippihas ever known.” That’s a big claim. Bigger than the Mississippi Burning Klansmen? Maybe he’s being sarcastic. “He is dead now, though, boys, if y’all didn’t know that! An African killed him, and I’d say that’s an appropriate end to his life. His demise was rooted in his conduct as a man. He was somewhere he did not belong. He was from . . . He wasn’t originally from the South. He was a Yankee from up in New Jersey, who came down here like those Freedom Riders.”
    The Freedom Riders were civil rights activists in the 1960s. Odd comparison, but perhaps it’s a white supremacist insult. Barrett was an outsider, coming down to meddle in things that weren’t his birthright to meddle in.
    “I have read brand-new Freedom Riders will be marching on Mississippi this month. Well, let me tell you, folks, this might be called the hospitality state, but I’m not offering you any hospitality. I hope an African kills you dead. And your demise will be rooted very appropriately where Richard Barrett’s demise was rooted. Come on down! I’m praying one of the Africans kills you dead as Abraham Lincoln.”
    I’ve made Jim first on my list of people to pursue. He sounds emotional with nothing to lose. They’re the people who blurt out the truth. Back in Melbourne, I flicked a Facebook message to Jim. He never responded. But his home address is online. Jim had claimed in an interview he’s such a good fighter, he can beat up 95 percent of people in the street. So an antiracist activist posted a smart-aleck poll on a message board.
    POLL: Can you beat up Jim Giles?
    a. Yes
    b. No
    c. Maybe
    Jim Giles responded to the poll.
    In Reply To: POLL: Can you beat up Jim Giles?
    I live at 6 Oakland Lane, Pearl, Mississippi 39208.
    If any of you bitches want to fight me, meet there.
    •   •   •
    I t’s still cement in all directions in downtown Jackson. In the daytime, even the sky is cement. Walking through the motel parking lot, I pull my jacket sleeves over my hands—the air cuts that cold. But when the sun elbows its way through the clouds now and then, it laser-beams my eyes.
    The Stepford Wife inside the GPS says it’s forty-five minutes to Jim Giles’s. I want to know more about why he hated Richard so much. Does he really think that he was a sexually perverted FBI agent who was killed in some horrible misunderstanding? And I want to know what
he’s
like, the white supreme in the trailer.
    The Stepford Wife directs me past vast abandoned concrete lots in Jackson, where things once were but I don’t know what. In one, the mangled metal innards of a building twist to the heavens. I can’t tell if the building was never fully built or never fully torn down. I’m then directed through a designated “historic district.” It tricks the eye. First glance, you see gorgeous, old-world white cottages, the charming heart of the American South. Second glance, you see they’ve been gutted, vandalized, stripped for