WARNING: Look, there’s all kinds of stuff in this post that has the potential to offend everybody. Racism, profanity, animal cruelty, you name it. If that’s the sort of thing you get worked up about, please do both of us a favor and go read something else.

For some reason, black people always assume that West Virginia is some kind of hotbed of seething racism. I’ve never really understood why, but as soon as you tell a black person you’re from West Virginia they start wondering how many crosses you’ve burned. Well, that’s not entirely true. First they wonder if you’re married to a blood relative, then they wonder how old you were when you started wearing shoes, and then they wonder how many crosses you’ve burned.

My hunch is that this probably has something to do with population figures. No, West Virginia doesn’t have the lowest number of blacks as a percentage of the population, but it’s pretty damned far down the list. The truth is that most of the states ranked lower than West Virginia are places like Idaho, Utah, and Vermont – which aren’t exactly known for having a “thriving urban scene.” Hell, even Alaska has a higher percentage of blacks in the population than West Virginia, and that’s really saying something.

Putting aside for a moment the historical facts that West Virginia ended the Civil War with the north, and that slavery was never a big institution in any part of the Appalachians, I think black people assume that West Virginia has a tiny black population because of racism. Instead, I would tend to say that for someone like me who grew up there, the tiny black population made racism irrelevant.

Now I’ll admit that I grew up in a pretty rural area, but that’s nothing special. About 99% of West Virginia is a rural area. The only black person I knew growing up was the bandleader at my High School, and everyone (including me) pretty much worshipped the ground he walked on. For us, hating black people would have made about as much sense as hating penguins. What would be the point, you know? Sure, we used the terms and we told the jokes, but most of the jokes I remember were at the expense of pollacks and bluebloods, and we didn’t know any rich people or anyone from Poland either.

By the time I joined the Army, got to know some real live black people who weren’t Heathcliff Huxtable, and for the first time in my life had the opportunity to actually be a racist, I suppose I was old enough to know better.

Believe it or not, I don’t think I ever encountered real racism until I moved to eastern North Carolina. I was naive enough to think racism was a dead issue, but I’m here to tell you – those folks take their racism seriously. When we first moved to Harnett County in 1994, Vicki and I started looking for a house to rent, and we approached it the way you do in West Virginia. You get in a car, drive around in the area where you want to live, and you look for the For Rent signs, right? We tried that for about a week without ever seeing a sign, until finally someone took pity on us and explained that’s not how things are done down there.

See, if they put up a sign they might actually have to rent to “the blacks”, and that would be a fate worse than death and everything. In Harnett County, you have to attend a church, and pass the word around that you’re interested in renting a house. That activates the lightning-fast Sweet Little Old Lady communications network, and if you’re deemed acceptable, you’ll be contacted. If you’re not deemed acceptable, then your best bet is cleaning up a bit, buying some nicer clothes and trying a different church. Washing your car probably wouldn’t hurt either.

So after jumping through all these hoops and finally finding a house to rent, we moved in and went around to meet the neighbors. The family next door was black, and I remember when I introduced myself to the father and said “We just moved down here from West Virginia” the poor guy practically shit himself. I could have said “We worship Satan and we like to eat babies” and I don’t think I would have gotten a stronger reaction. It’s really more sad than it is funny, but I have to admit it tickled the hell out of me at the time. Here’s this black guy who had spent his entire life surrounded by the biggest, most blatant racists I’d ever seen, and he was worried about me?

But anyway, we settled in and somehow managed to avoid burning any crosses in the yard, and I guess we’d been there about 6 months when I came home from work one day to find a bunch of kids and women standing on the back porch crying their eyes out. We had a cat, and the house had a busy road in front of it, and the two often make for a lousy combination. My sister-in-law had been the one who found the cat, and she actually took it to the Vet, but she got freaked out when they told her that X-rays for the cat would cost $500, and instead of just having them gas the damned thing (which was what the Vet suggested) she brought it back to our house and put it on the back porch.

Her intentions were good, I suppose. She was hoping when I got home I’d approve the $500 for the X-rays. As it turned out, her hopes were somewhat unrealistic.

Look, I’m not a cruel guy. In fact, most people think I’m great with animals, and for the most part I genuinely like them. But for one thing this was a stray cat we’d adopted, and for another thing this cat was messed up pretty bad. The front legs and the head worked, but nothing else did. The last thing I was going to do was shell out $500 for a diagnosis alone, just to have some Vet tell me that for another 2 grand they might be able to save it. So instead of parting with 5 Ben Franklins, I dug a 10 dollar bill out of my wallet, handed it to Vicki and said “Take the kids to Dairy Queen and get some ice cream. I’ll take care of the cat.”

The ice cream announcement cleared up the waterworks pretty quickly, and everyone except me and the cat piled into vehicles and left. I made sure the cat was about as comfortable as it was going to get, then I grabbed an old shovel and went out in the tobacco field behind our house and started digging a hole. The ground got really hard after a few inches, but we had a bench grinder in the shed so I took a break and sharpened up the shovel blade, and after that it was a lot easier.

Just to kind of paint the scene for you, I should probably mention that all of this happened in the middle of August in eastern North Carolina, so the heat index was probably about a bazillion degrees. I was working on an asphalt paving crew at the time, which is hot, dirty, miserable work anyway – and I was pretty much a hot, dirty, miserable bastard. I had asphalt tar all over me when I got home, and now thanks to digging that hole I had an additional layer of dirt sticking to the tar. I went in the house, took my work pants off and put on a pair of gym shorts, and then put my heavy work boots back on. I didn’t bother tying the laces though, so I’m sure I made for quite a sight, flip-flopping around the back yard, covered with grunge, in a pair of unlaced work boots, gym shorts, a blue polyester work shirt with my name over the pocket, and a filthy hat on my head. If you didn’t know me, the term “deranged hillbilly” might come to mind. Well, let’s be honest. That would probably come to mind even if you did know me.

Then I had to find a gun to kill the cat, and that’s where the problems started.

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