Hillbilly Elegy

and thought nothing more of it. I was
asleep for what happened next, but I’ve
heard some version of it a hundred
times. Even today, when I see someone
who attended that funeral, they tell me
about my hillbilly Mamaw and Papaw.
When I failed to appear in the crowd
of mourners leaving the church, Mamaw
and Papaw grew suspicious. There were
perverts even in Jackson, they told me,
who wanted to stick sticks up your butt
and “blow on your pecker” as much as
the perverts in Ohio or Indiana or
California. Papaw hatched a plan: There
were only two exits to Deaton’s, and no
one had driven away yet. Papaw ran to
the car and grabbed a .44 Magnum for