Men We Reaped

Chapter 6 recounts the life and death of Ward’s paternal cousin C. J., the boyfriend of her youngest sister Charine. From a young age, C. J. is small but athletic and powerful. Ward recalls capturing C. J.’s athleticism on camera one day on the basketball courts, as he “flew so high that he dangled from the rim by the crook of his elbow, giggling madly, swinging slowly from side to side” (107). At 14 years old, C. J. begins dating Charine and, although their families disapprove because they are cousins, they fall in love. Ward notes that “cousins dated, had children, and married all the time in DeLisle and Pass Christian. They had for generations. In such small towns, in communities confined by race and class, this was inevitable” (109). The child of a single mother, C. J. rarely stays in his home and lives a nomadic life in the homes of various relatives.

Ward admits to judging C. J. for selling drugs. In retrospect she confesses, “What I did not know at the time was […] that he wanted more for himself, but he didn’t know how to get it” (110). C. J. drops out of school at 17, a reality that Ward connects to the negligence of the school administration that labeled academically struggling students like C.