In WDC, on assignment. Down-time. Check email. Friend request. Wander to Facebook. Oh, it’s someone from Baptist Town. Confirm. A post on her wall makes me stop. It says “RIP Butta”. Confused, but not yet alarmed, I go to another person’s page. A post on Nikki’s wall says the same. My blood runs cold. Find my phone, start dialing numbers. Sylvester Hoover, the man who owns the one business in Baptist Town, a convenience store and laundromat, is the first to answer. “Yeah, Butta’s dead” he tells me. “He was shot and killed yesterday.”

The details are scarce. He says he’ll let me know when the funeral time and date is announced. I thank him and we say goodbye as I hunt for my pack of cigarettes. The next call is to my wife, “Baby, I know I just got home and planned on being there for a while but I just found out some bad news…” She is pissed at me, but understands that I need to be there. It is one of those times with outstanding invoices totaling thousands of dollars from late-paying clients, but only $54 in the account. She wants to know how I plan to make it work, and also if I will be there for trick-or-treating with our daughter but I don’t have a clue. A photographer friend offers to give me enough money to get my oil changed and pay for gas down there. An editor hatches a plan to help fund the trip, though the money won’t come until weeks down the road. I pack my bags and wait. Mr. Hoover calls back and tells me the funeral is the following Friday, November 5. I tell him I’ll be there.  

On Wednesday I leave Norfolk and early Thursday evening I show up in Baptist Town. At the corner of Young and Pelican, a woman I don’t recognize finds me and asks, “You’re Butta’s friend aren’t you?” She introduces herself as Sharon Harris, his aunt, and tells me I’m just in time for his wake. “I’m not sure I’m invited”, I answer, not having met Butta’s parents yet, “and I’m underdressed”. I motion to my hoodie, tattered jeans and sneakers. She says it doesn’t matter and flags down a lift from Pat who runs us over the tracks to the funeral home where the wake is about to end. When we arrive Sharon hurries me inside, takes me by my arm and leads me to the front of the room where we stand in front of Butta’s open casket. He lies motionless, hands folded, a soft palette of light blue and white flowers, a purple shirt and tie. Behind me to my left is a row of his loved ones who sit crying quietly, to my right the funeral home director sits alone, checking his watch every few minutes. “You can stand here and make pictures”, Sharon tells me. 

The next day the funeral is scheduled for 1PM. I arrive in Baptist Town around 11AM but all is quiet. I let myself into the empty church and look around, wondering how the service and the day will play out. As the time for the funeral draws near people begin to gather at McKinney Chapel on the edge of the train tracks. Butta’s friends arrive first, dressed in their finest. They shuffle around quietly, still shocked at the suddenness with which they lost such a close friend. I go inside with them and after spending a few minutes in front of his casket, they huddle together on the front pew. I step outside to find a crowd of people that will swell into the hundreds before the service starts. Inside the church, it is standing room only, with extra rows of metal chairs placed at the end of the pews, family and friends packed in the choir loft. Shoulder to shoulder, the community comes together to mourn the loss of one of their own. After songs and short remembrances, the Pastor steps up and quickly clarifies that he is not there to judge, but he speaks very pointedly to the young people in attendance. “There’s no salvation in hanging out on the corner”, he says. “The only thing that is assured is a visit to a jail cell or an early grave…if you see your friend going down a path, you don’t have to follow them…if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.” His admonishment isn’t lost on the adults who nod fervently. They have seen too much violence, too much death over the years. For the younger generation, many of them have never lost anyone so close. 

The more I listen, the more details emerge. Butta’s oldest brother was shot and killed in 1996. His cousin, Bianca Keys, was 18 when she was murdered, barely a year before Butta. She is buried next to him on the outskirts of Greenwood. His girlfriend is pregnant and is due in December. The layers of pain and loss are hard to fathom. As the funeral service lets out everyone files outside and loads into their cars. The traffic bottlenecks on Young Street at the train track crossing, eventually untangles itself and the funeral procession begins slowly moving. I hop in a pickup truck with some folks I’d seen around but didn’t know and sit next to their unbuckled 3-year-old as he hands me pieces of candy to unwrap for him. At the cemetery any semblance of pomp and circumstance are gone. People quickly huddle up, the Pastor offers a short benediction and as the backhoe idles behind us the burial crew gets busy putting Butta in the ground. I stand next to Jarvis, one of the few people I’ve met in Baptist Town that genuinely scares me. In his right hand he clutches a clod of dirt and I watch his fist tighten slowly during the benediction until it crumbles to dust. He is the first to step up and scatter the dirt on the casket before walking away. I linger longer than most and as I am about to leave two young men stop me and ask me to make their picture. It is just a snap, but their body language is full of pride and reminds me in that moment that life moves on. 

After the funeral a crowd of well-dressed mourners descend on Young Street for the block party that will celebrate Butta’s life and allow them to drown their sorrows. Some people gather at the church for food but most head to Young and Pelican for a swig from one of the many bottles of gin that is circulating on the corner. Out of nowhere my boy Winky appears, fresh out of jail in Texas for a parole violation. He was set for an easy six months (some resting up time for him) when he heard about Butta’s death. He paid bail and was released just after the funeral, in time to arrive for the block party. As the afternoon drags on, the crowd becomes more belligerent and the more I am called on to make pictures. When I get tired of making the photographs that they ask me to, I have to remind myself that they want to be remembered. They want the world to know about Baptist Town. After a few hours of playing the role of community event photographer after the funeral I am exhausted and duck out for a bite to eat. The party is scheduled to move to one of the clubs down the highway in Itta Bena later that night and I’ve been invited, but I’m still undecided.

As I wait for a takeout sandwich I talk with my neighbor from Virginia, Amanda Lucier, and ask her what I should do. The ever-present question of “should I stay or should I go?” She tells me “to stop being a pussy, go out and make more pictures.” After some food I feel recharged and head back out. Hours later we end up at Scruples Sports Bar where Butta’s friends and some family congregate and slowly take over the place. There is a feeling of connectedness among the crowd of young people who all move together, dancing in front of the large mirrored wall. Towards the end of the evening Winky tears off his shirt, which reads “In Loving Memory: Demetrius “Butta” Anderson” and tosses it on the floor. He clears a circle in the crowd and begins to pour out his beer. People follow suit and start throwing down cigarettes and dollar bills. Next thing I know they are setting money on fire and the mood escalates to a fever pitch. Just as quickly as the dancing started, the last song plays, the club goes quiet and people start to file out the door and into the night.

An enormous debt of gratitude is due to Ross Taylor for giving me the support necessary to make the drive, to Michael Wichita and AARP Bulletin for helping fund this trip, to David Walter Banks and Kendrick Brinson of LUCEO for hosting me while en route, to my brother-in-law Dane Turk for the awesome hotel rewards points card that allowed me to stay in Greenwood for free and to my wife for her understanding. 

Most of all, I can’t even put into words how grateful I am for the friends and family of Demetrius “Butta” Anderson and the Baptist Town community at large for allowing me to be present for such an intimate and heartbreaking event in their lives. 

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Matt Eich is a photographer who is based in Norfolk, Virginia.  His column, “In My Back Yard” appears every other Wednesday.  He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

In WDC, on assignment. Down-time. Check email. Friend request. Wander to Facebook. Oh, it's someone from Baptist Town. Confirm. A post on her wall makes me stop. It says "RIP Butta". Confused, but not yet alarmed, I go to another person's page. A post on Nikki's wall says the same. My blood runs cold. ...