In “Roanoke Rapids” joy lives alongside confusion and sadness. The young narrator’s language sings like Tchaikovsky, like the feeling of a balance beam flip, like the wonder and solace of dollar store angels. Ashleigh Bryant Phillips conjures the inner lives of her characters with a kind of precision, concision, and immediacy that punctures stereotypes of poor white rural Southerners. In a handful of pages, we are handed an entire world.

Over the years, Narrative has introduced me to many young writers I love and follow. I’m thrilled to play a role in sharing Ashleigh Bryant Phillips’s work with my fellow devoted readers of Narrative.

—Maud Newton

Roanoke Rapids

I like Roanoke Rapids. That’s the big city. They got the Super Walmart and Dairy Queen and Sonic. And the movie theater and the car dealership that Daddy likes us to stop at—and we get out and look in the car windows to see what kinda seats they got: plush or leather.

Roanoke Rapids is where my gymnastics is. Aunt June takes me every Wednesday. And when I get done, Aunt June takes me to Sonic and I get a Ocean Water. With a cheeseburger, only ketchup, and fries. Then we get a chicken sandwich for Grandma Clark and a foot-long hotdog for Aunt Dew.

First we go to the bridge and look for Aunt Dew. She lives under there right now. She knows I got gymnastics every Wednesday, so most of the time she’s standing up there beside the road waiting. But sometimes she’s not there and then we go see Grandma Clark and come back to the bridge on the way home to see if we see her.

Aunt Dew and Aunt June are sisters. Grandma Clark is their mama. Aunt Dew used to work at Grandma Clark’s nursing home. But then they fired her when they found out she was stealing the medicine.

She likes mustard on her foot-long hotdog. And chili and onions. She says it’s “Carolina style.”

I don’t like hotdogs. I only eat hamburgers.

Today Aunt June’s brought some tennis shoes for Aunt Dew. Sometimes they hug each other, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I want to get out the car and go see Aunt Dew. Sometimes I don’t.

Tchaikovsky! Boris plays us Tchaikovsky! And I love it, it’s not like anything I’ve ever heard before! It’s so pretty like I’m a flower floating in the wind! A fairy twirling round and round. I hear Tchaikovsky when I close my eyes and spin, when I walk on my tip toes and pretend I’m flying. I’m soaring above everything, way up in the sky. Looking down and see there’s Sonic and there’s Grandma Clark’s nursing home and there’s Aunt June going into Belk’s—she’s always got to see if they got anything—and there’s Aunt Dew, she’s coming out from Under the Bridge just in time to see me. And she starts waving and waving at me. “Hey there, Brandy,” she says. Smiling just as fast as she can. I tell her I love her and she says, “Baby, I love YOU.”

Boris’s from Russia. That’s way across the ocean. I’ve seen it on the map. He can jump up and touch his toes. He can swing himself round and round on the high bar. Before he plays us any music, he tells us who it is. And he tells us to listen to it. He says it’ll help us balance.

He don’t wont us to call him Mister Boris.

Aunt June says he’s smart.

She never took gymnastics.

She said Aunt Dew never took it neither.

Mama didn’t.

Nobody at school takes gymnastics.

Nobody at church.

Can’t talk to nobody about Tchaikovsky.

But I also like this one called “The Swan” and I don’t remember who did it because Boris only plays it sometimes and all he says is that it’s “The Swan.” But I know it ain’t Tchaikovsky because it don’t make me feel as full. It makes me feel real small and dainty, like a raindrop or a flick of snow.

I love gymnastics so much. I just hate how my leotard digs in my butt all the time.

One time when we went to see Grandma Clark in Roanoke Rapids, Miss Lulu poked my butt. Miss Lulu lives across the hall from Grandma Clark. She kinda scares me but I can’t say it. Grandma Clark says that Miss Lulu steals from her. She don’t want us to bring her any more lil angels from the Dollar Tree because she says Miss Lulu done took ’em all.

I look and don’t see any more of them. Not even my favorite, the one I picked out with Grandma Clark’s birthstone. A ruby right there on her chest.

I close my eyes and see Aunt Dew holding ’em all together in her arms like babies. The whole pile of ’em.

She has a sleeping bag under the bridge. I’ve seen it. Her pillahs covered in sand. She asks me to show her a new trick. And I look to Aunt June and she says, “Go on and show us.” Aunt Dew loves when I put on a show. And I close my eyes and hear that pretty Tchaikovsky music and turn on my tiptoes. I’m making circles, a chain. Climbing Jacob’s Ladder to heaven. Rise and Shine Give God the Glory Children of the Lord.

Aunt June plays the Gaither Vocal Band so loud cause she’s deaf in one ear. I get embarrassed sometimes when we pull up at the Sonic in Roanoke Rapids. She always asks for an unspoken during the prayer requests. I know she’s thinking about Aunt Dew, perched up under that bridge like an ol’ orphan.

Sometimes Tchaikovsky can be real sad. And sometimes Tchaikovsky can be scary. But it’s never real scary. Things always turn out in the end. But still sometimes you don’t know where it’s going and you feel all bogged down and stuck to the floor. And then something’ll happen in the music and you’ll feel yourself getting pulled up. Like your daddy pulling you up outta the swimming pool when you were little.

Daddy says I’m spoiled. I don’t really know what that means. It sounds like oil. And makes me think of when the milk’s too old and eggs smell. I don’t want to think of that but I can’t help it. I don’t want to be spoiled but I can’t help it.

I’m going to ask Santa Claus for a Tchaikovsky CD for Christmas.

One of my favorite things to do is to dance to CDs in the living room. And I need to dance to Tchaikovsky.

I keep asking Aunt June if we can go check Walmart again to see if they have it. I ask her every Wednesday. Santa Claus will be able to find it. And I hope when he does, it’s got the songs Boris plays on it.

When I put on a show in the living room, everyone comes to watch me. Except Grandma Clark and Aunt Dew. Daddy grills hamburgers and everybody’s there. And when I bow, they clap.

So I like to do tricks for my Grandma Clark and Aunt Dew when I can. It makes me sad to think they ain’t got much else to look forward to.

Their names ain’t never been taken off the prayer list.

The church always claps real loud and tells us how much they love us when Aunt June gets Aunt Dew to come home for a couple of days. And then Aunt Dew will stand up all clean and dressed up with perfume and everything and give her testimony about how she’s strayed and come back. And everybody comes up and tells her how pretty she looks and gives her love and Aunt June love and me love. And sometimes Aunt Dew will start crying about how sorry she is for everything she’s ever done.

But Aunt Dew won’t always bad. She didn’t always live under the bridge. That’s just where she is now.

Grandma Clark said it was all ’cause of her trooper husband. I never met him, he died before I was born but he got busted out in that dope ring out in Roanoke Rapids. That’s what Grandma Clark says. And Aunt June will say, “Mama, let’s not talk about that.” And Miss Lulu will be creeping in the corner and Grandma Clark will say, “But it’s the truth, dammit. It happened.” And I’ll look to where the angels used to be, sitting there in front of the window. And I’ll wish that a bluebird could fly by. But I’ll turn around and see that it’ s just Miss Lulu scooching closer in her wheelchair. Grandma Clark says Aunt Dew’s down there laying with men for $4, $5. She tells Aunt June she ought to stop going out to the bridge to see her. She says we’ve done all we can.

I think it snows in Russia. I’ve only seen snow twice. I saw it when I was a baby but I don’t remember. And then I saw it last year when I was eight.

I think about Aunt Dew laying down with men like a sleepover. But the way Grandma Clark says it, I know that can’t be right.

In gymnastics, all the girls know each other. They’re all from Roanoke Rapids. They haven’t heard of Woodland. That’s where my family lives. And they haven’t heard of Lasker, that’s where my school is. And they haven’t heard of Aulander. That’s where we say church is, but it’s really between Woodland and Ahoskie. And sometimes they’ve heard of Ahoskie.

But none of them care about Tchaikovsky either. When Boris tells them to stop talking and listen to the music they always keep talking and I hate it. I was the first one in my class to flip on the balance beam. Boris said he wants to move me up to the middle school girl class. He says I need to be more challenged.

Aunt June’s dragging me into Belk’s because she says she wants me to try on some blouses. I don’t like them but I can’t tell her. I try ’em on anyways and when I come out she tells me they make me look so becoming.

Aunt June says that Grandma made her and Aunt Dew’s dresses out of feedbags. She says feedbags is what seeds used to come in. And then for Christmas last year Grandma Clark made all the great-grandchildren cotton picking sacks outta old feedbags. The cotton-picking bag is weird. Every time I try to put stuff in it, it falls out cause one of the sides hangs down. Aunt June made a real big deal about the bags that Christmas. And said, “Make sure you tell Grandma Clark how much you appreciate it.” And I do and give Grandma Clark a big hug. But I’m careful because she’s on oxygen. She says it like “ox-again” and I look out her window and imagine two oxes and then before I know it, it’s a manger and wise men in robes and Joseph with the staff and the shepherds and flocks and camels and donkeys and Mary laying Jesus down in the hay and I can hear O Holy Night playing. That’s my favorite Christmas song to sing in church. It’s also fun to dance to. Because it’s kinda like Tchaikovsky.

Whenever we get back home from Roanoke Rapids it’s always night. I always say my prayers. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep, guard me Jesus through the night and wake me with the morning light. Amen.