- Ben thinks back to the summer he turned 12 when he saw the lynching.
- He and his buddy Jacob used to smoke cigarettes in a vacant lot. It made them feel like men.
- One Monday in August, they were smoking back there—even though they weren't supposed to—when they saw three Black guys shooting the breeze in the street.
- One of the guys, George, was saying how Black people do everything around there; he'd like to see the white people take care of themselves for a while. Imagine that.
- Ben knows George isn't supposed to talk like this, and George knows it, too, because when some white men come over to teach George a lesson, he runs.