Though dated 2003, the story is set in a Jim Crow-era town of the American South, and the primary attitude of the protagonist, Samuel Teece, is reflective of that era’s white values. Several white men gather on the porch of Teece’s hardware store to watch a flood of Black families leaving town. Teece is informed that all the Black people in the community are heading out of town to rockets built by their own community which will take them to Mars. Teece is furious that the Black community would decide to do this without alerting any white authority figures, and wants to “telephone the governor, call out the militia” (121).

Several of the wives of the men on the porch arrive, including Teece’s wife, who implores her husband to come home and prevent their domestic worker Lucinda from joining the rest of the migrants. Teece’s wife can’t understand why Lucinda would leave even after Teece’s wife offered her a second night off a week. Teece restrains himself from beating his wife and orders her home. He enters his hardware store and returns with a pistol, threatening to kill any of the passing migrants who laugh.