EXCERPT: The GROVE

A decorative placard hung over one tent and announced the name of the tailgate space: The Pine’s Box. Each tent panel alternated red and blue and featured the cartoonish image of Ole Miss’ defunct mascot - Colonel Reb. The school had officially abandoned the image, but he was still plenty visible around The Grove, dressed like an old cotton planter on his way to a formal Sunday supper. Red suit. Ribbon tie. Cane. Wide brimmed hat cocked atop his head. One arm hidden behind his back, probably holding a coiled whip.

The foldout tables in the tent were covered in white linen cloths and topped with silver serving trays full of wrapped Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, waffle fries, chicken biscuits, and there must have been 2,000 chicken nuggets arranged on silver platters. There were black ribbons tied into bows around the tent poles, black cocktail napkins, and authentic Ole Miss football helmets displayed upside down holding bouquets of black roses. In the corner they had a full-sized wooden casket propped up. It held a realistic skeleton wearing a blue sweater vest, a red Ole Miss cap, and a coach’s headset over its skull. Its bony fingers held a cluster of white lilies. A framed, black-and-white headshot of Tommy Tuberville, Auburn’s former football coach, graced an adjacent table.

AI’s depiction of The Pine’s Box tailgate on the campus of Ole Miss

The instant Caleb and I crossed over the tailgate threshold, a man stepped out of a conversation and greeted us abruptly like he was a part of a security detail. He wore duck boots and khaki pants with a white button down and plaid suspenders in Ole Miss colors. He had dirty blonde hair slicked back under a navy-blue ball cap with a big red M, and he wore a slightly damp, out-of-season, seersucker jacket.

“You boys lost?” he asked, assertively, and took another confident step toward us.

Caleb nodded his head upward at the guy. “Sorry to bother you. We were just accosted by a couple of cops about my friend’s beer.”

The man looked down at my case of Ultras and in his own authoritative way he said, “That’s right, can’t have an open container on campus.”

“We were told to drink from opaque cups,” Caleb finished, “and since we didn’t bring any, we find ourselves at the mercy of your hospitality.”

“First time in Oxford?” the man asked.

“First time,” Caleb lied again.

“Well, it’s no problem at all,” the man said somewhat tersely, his jaw noticeably clenched. He was bound by his Southern upbringing to act neighborly toward us, but it was clear the presence of even modest Auburn fandom in his tailgate space made it difficult. He reached into a big tote and handed us two red cups from a stack of several dozen. He gave me a plastic grocery sack that I used to hide the case of beer, for which I thanked him profusely. Caleb did, too.

“Help yourself to some nuggets,” he added, in an equally uninviting tone, looking for backup from his cohorts as he said it.

“No thank you,” I said and tapped my stomach, “I’m still full of Waffle House. They’ve got a real nice one over in Batesville.” Then I placed my bag of beer on the table, picked out a fresh can of Ultra, opened it, and casually poured it into my new plastic cup. After I took a long drink of it, I looked at the cup and said, “Ahhh, now I fit in.”

“And no one the wiser,” Caleb added.

Our speechless host watched us with utter bewilderment, as if he had just witnessed me and Caleb stripping down to our underwear while belting the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

“Can I trouble you with one more question?” I asked him, “What’s with the guy in the coffin? Is it a Halloween thing? I don’t get it.”

Caleb pointed at me with his thumb and apologized on my behalf. “He’s relatively new to the SEC, so I’ll let the home team take the honors explaining this one.”

The man laughed to himself and shook his head in disbelief that two Auburn dupes had fallen directly into his trap. “Funny you should ask,” he said, speaking louder than before to gather everyone’s attention. “That story begins with my Daddy – Mr. Thomas Pine.” This guy didn’t have much of an accent but when he said that word, Daddy, it sounded as thick as sludge in a Mississippi riverbank.

Caleb looked at me, eyes widened with mocking interest. He quickly turned to the nuggets and used a set of silver tongs to grab several pieces of chicken that he placed on a clear plastic dish, adding one packet of Polynesian sauce. I knew Caleb wouldn’t tolerate a paternalistic Southern trope with anything more than passing ridicule, but because of the nuggets combined with Ole Miss tailgate guy’s bravado, he leaned in, ready to hear more.

The Ole Miss guy obliged. “Daddy hated Auburn worse than any other school in the Southeastern Conference.” Now the man was preaching. He had one hand out, palm upturned, the other hand was behind the lapel of his jacket, and he angled himself to project his booming voice to the people behind him as he made his case against the Auburn Man.

But before he worked up to a crescendo, I interrupted again and untimed his cadence. “He hated Auburn worse than Mississippi State?” I asked, feigning disbelief.

“Worse.”

“Worse than Alabama?” I asked, really pouring on the disbelief this time.

“Much worse. You must understand, Daddy respected Mississippi State,” the man said in a tone of voice worthy of a politician. “We knew good people who chose to go to school in Starkville. Engineers and farmers and people fulfilling family legacies. And Daddy always revered Bear Bryant. No sir, he reserved all his hate for Auburn University. The red bricked armpit of Lower East Alabama. So crooked they can’t keep their mascot straight. No honest man ever came out of Auburn, Daddy always told me.”

Caleb, who chomped on his nuggets with an amused look of suspicion on his face, butted in. “Wait, I’m sorry,” he said and swallowed the chicken, “is it that dishonest men attend Auburn in the first place, or is it Auburn that turns them into dishonest men?”

The man didn’t have to consider this one long at all. “50-50,” he said, smirking.

“Fair enough,” Caleb replied.

“Which one were you, Caleb?” I asked.

“I went in as a fair skinned virgin,” Caleb said, “but I sure didn’t come out that way.”

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