Arde Mississippi

Ward: Where does it come from? All this hatred?

Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule, 'cause his friends were always kidding him that they saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule, and Monroe was going to rent another field now he had a mule. One morning, that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn't any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time, we were driving down that road, and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something. I looked over at my daddy's face. I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?

Ward: You think that's an excuse?

Anderson: No it's not an excuse. It's just a story about my daddy.

Ward: Where's that leave you?

Anderson: My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killing him.