# Read the first page of The Trees by Percival Everett

Read the opening of The Trees by Percival Everett free, no signup. A small-town deputy finds a gruesome death tied to an old lynching.

- Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-trees-percival-everett
- Genre: Literary fiction
- Year: 2021
- ISBN: 9781644451564
- Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781644451564&s=read-page
- Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781644451564
- Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781644451564

## The opening

Delroy was confused and now more than a little scared. All he ever did in the service was count rolls of toilet paper. He went back to his patrol car and grabbed the radio. "Hattie, this here is Delroy. I'm out at Junior Junior Milam's place and I think I'm gonna need me some backup." "Brady's not far from there. I'll send him over." "Thank you, Hattie, ma'am. Tell him I'll be in the back of the house." Delroy put down the handset and returned to Daisy. "I'm gonna take me a little look-see. You send Brady back there when he arrives." "The room is just off the kitchen," she said. "Delroy." She put her hand gently on his arm. "You know, I always liked you when we was in high school. I didn't mean to bite your tongue, and I'm awfully sorry about that. Fast Phyllis Tucker told me all the boys liked that and so I did it. You didn’t like it. I guess I did it too hard.”

“Okay, Daisy.” He started away and then turned back to the woman. “Daisy, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“Delroy, I’m the one who called the police.”

Delroy stared at her.

“No, I did not kill him. Either one of them.”

Delroy didn’t draw his weapon as he entered the house, but he kept his hand heavy on it. He walked slowly through the front room. It was dark because the windows were so remarkably small. There was a line of small bowling trophies on the mantel. The fire-place was filled with stacks of brightly colored plastic bowls, plates, and cups. The house was so still and quiet he got more frightened and pulled his pistol. What if the killer was still there? Should he go back outside and wait for Brady? If he did that, Daisy might think he was a coward. Brady would certainly laugh at him and call him a yellow chicken. So, he kept moving forward. He gave each bedroom a cursory look, then stood in the kitchen for a long while before pushing on into the back room. His boots made a lot of noise on the buckled linoleum. He stopped in his tracks once inside the room. He couldn’t move. He had never seen two people so dead in his entire life. And he’d been in a goddamn war. Who or what he took to be Junior Junior had a bloody, bashed-in skull. He could see part of his brain. A long length of rusty barbed wire was wrapped several times around his neck. One of his eyes had been either gouged out or carved out and lay next to his thigh, looking up at him. There was blood everywhere. One of his arms was twisted at an impossible angle behind his back. His pants were undone and pulled down to below his knees. His groin was covered with matted blood, and it looked like his scrotum was missing. Some ten feet from Junior Junior was the body of a small Black man. His face was horribly beaten, his head swollen, his neck scarred and seemingly stitched together. He was not bleeding, it seemed, but there was no doubt that he was dead. The Black man wore a dark blue suit. Delroy looked again at Junior Junior. The man’s exposed legs looked strangely alive.

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