Authors: Ernest Hill
Yes, she could have met him here. And yes, out here, in the middle of nowhere, theirs could have been what
ever they wanted it to be. Visible only to those eyes that cared to see.
They turned off the road and passed under an arch and followed a much narrower road up toward the main house. Near the house, they spotted a lone black man pushing a wheel barrow filled with what could have been sweet potato slips. Beggar Man pulled next to the man and stopped. The man looked up.
“You know Rooster?” Beggar Man asked.
The man nodded and pointed. “He in there.”
Beggar followed the road behind the house and stopped before a large building that Peterson used as a storage shed. They got out and walked inside. Rooster was in the shed, loading empty crates on the back of the truck.
“You Rooster?” Tyrone said.
“Some people call me that.”
“You work here?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“That your truck?”
He shook his head. “That’s Mr. Peterson’s truck. Why?”
“You the only person that drive it? Besides him, I mean?”
“Lots of folks drive it,” he said. “It’s a work truck. Why you asking me all these questions?”
“How long he had it?”
He furrowed his brow and looked at them, confused.
“‘Bout six … seven years. Why? You wanting to buy it?”
“How long you been working here?”
“What?”
“How long you been working here?”
“Seven or eight years.” He paused. “Who are you? Why you asking me all these questions?”
“I’m Tyrone Stokes.”
Rooster appeared even more confused. “Do I know you?”
“Don’t think so,” Tyrone said.
“Well, what’s this all about?” he asked.
“My son,” Tyrone said. “Marcus Stokes.”
“Marcus Stokes,” Rooster repeated the name, then squinted his eyes. “I don’t know no Marcus Stokes.”
“He supposed to die in a couple of days,” Tyrone said. “He supposed to die for killing that white girl.”
Rooster’s eyes widened, flustered.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice cracked. “I heard about that. That’s too bad. Hate to see it. Hate to see it happen.”
“You know my boy?”
“Naw.” Rooster shook his head violently. “I don’t know him.”
“You know the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The dead girl?”
“Naw.” He shook his head again, then averted his eyes, fidgeting.
“Didn’t she work up here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What you mean you don’t know, nigger,” Beggar Man butted in. “Don’t you work for Peterson?”
Rooster looked at Beggar Man, then back at Tyrone.
“Lot of folks work for Mr. Peterson. I don’t know all of ‘em.”
“You know P. K.?” Tyrone asked.
“Who?”
“Who!” Beggar Man shouted. “What’s wrong with you, nigger? You can’t hear? Answer the man.”
“P. K.,” Tyrone repeated.
“Naw,” Rooster said. “I don’t know nobody by that name.”
“I think you do.” Tyrone dismissed what he heard. “I think you know the girl. And, I think you know P. K.”
“Mister, I told you I don’t,” Rooster said, continuing to adamantly deny any knowledge of that which Tyrone spoke.
“And I told you, I think you lying,” Tyrone said.
“Mister, I got work to do.”
Rooster started to turn away, but Tyrone stopped him.
“I ain’t through talking to you,” Tyrone said.
“Well, I’m through talking to you.”
“Witness saw that girl get in a blue truck that night,” Tyrone said. “Saw her get in it like she knew the driver. What you know about that?”
“Nothing,” Rooster said.
“I think you lying,” Tyrone pressed him.
“Mister, it’s a free world,” Rooster said matter-of-factly. “You can think whatever you want to.”
“I think that’s the blue truck she got in that night,” Tyrone said, looking at the blue truck Rooster was loading.
“Mister, I got work to do,” Rooster repeated.
“How old are you?” Tyrone asked.
Rooster didn’t answer him.
“You ought to be ‘bout my son’s age, right?” Tyrone ventured a guess.
“I told you, I don’t know your son,” Rooster said.
“You from ‘round here?” Tyrone asked.
“Yeah, I from ‘round here,” Rooster said.
Tyrone paused and looked at him hard.
“So, you trying to tell me that a white girl ‘round here got killed, and the black boy they say killed her got death, and you ain’t heard nothing ‘bout it.”
Rooster returned Tyrone’s stare but did not speak.
“Nigger lying,” Beggar Man said. “Lying through his goddamn teeth.”
“You got any brothers?” Tyrone asked him.
“Yeah, I got brothers,” Rooster said.
“Any of them ever drive that truck?” Tyrone said, eyeing the truck on which Rooster had been stacking crates.
Rooster frowned. “Don’t none of them work up here,” he said, seemingly puzzled by the question.
“Any of them name P. K.?” Tyrone asked a related question.
“No,” Rooster said. “Ain’t got no brother named P. K.”
“What about cousins?” Tyrone asked.
“Ain’t got no cousins either!” Rooster said.
“Partners?” Tyrone said.
“Naw!” Rooster raised his voice, irritated.
“Who, then?” Tyrone asked.
“Nobody, I told you.” Rooster lifted another empty crate from the stack and loaded it on the back of the truck. “Mister, I got work to do.”
“I think you lying.” Tyrone dismissed his attempt to end the conversation.
Frustrated, Rooster turned from the truck and started to leave. Tyrone grabbed him by the arm, hard. “This ain’t over,” he said. “I think you know something. And this ain’t over.”
Rooster pulled away and headed toward the door. He stopped before Beggar Man, who was blocking his exit. Tyrone nodded, and Beggar Man stepped aside and let him pass. When he was gone, Tyrone spoke to Beggar Man.
“What you think?” he asked.
“Think he hiding something,” Beggar Man said.
“Can you find out what?” Tyrone wanted to know.
“I can find out,” Beggar Man told him. Tyrone paused, then sighed. “Man, we running out of time.”
“I know.” Beggar Man nodded sympathetically. “Give me a couple of hours. I’ll find out something.”
“I’m going with you,” Tyrone said. “No,” Beggar Man insisted. “Could get ugly. You on parole … don’t need to get your hands dirty.”
B
ack at his truck, Tyrone made two decisions. First, in a couple of hours, he and Beggar Man would meet at the old abandoned service station just off Willow Road. And secondly, while he waited, he would return to Cedar Creek to check on his ailing mother. He was worried about her. He was worried that the ordeal with his parole officer had been too stressful. Yes, she was too old and her condition too grave for such aggravation.
After bidding Beggar Man goodbye, he left the convenience store and drove down a side street for less than a mile, then along another paved street for another two or three miles, finally connecting to the main highway back to Cedar Creek. As he drove, he thought of many things. He wondered if Beggar would be able to uncover anything. He wondered what he would do if he could not. He wondered how Marcus was doing. He wondered what he was thinking. He wondered how he, himself, would go on if the unthinkable happened.
At the intersection near the lake, he turned onto
Lake Shore Avenue and headed toward town. Suddenly, everything stalled. Something was clogging the road. He inched along in slow-moving traffic, trying to see. Ah yeah, there was an accident. A big rig had overturned and spilled a portion of its load on the highway. Up ahead, he saw a police officer and a heavyset white man, who he assumed was the driver, standing on the shoulder talking. Oh, it was an omen, a bad sign. Yes, his life was a big rig, wrecked on some desolate highway, lying prone, desperately trying to avoid the authorities, while waiting helplessly for some merciful soul to happen along and do that which he could not do for himself.
He inched along until he came to Prescott Road. Then he veered off Lake Shore onto Prescott and followed the long, narrow road past the cemetery, around the bend, and into his mother’s neighborhood. As he cleared the bend and approached the house, he could see that she had company. An unfamiliar car, a long, white ninety-eight Oldsmobile, was parked out front underneath the pecan tree.
As he exited the truck to go inside, Sarah Ann came out onto the porch and sat down. He figured that she had just finished working in that hot kitchen and was taking a few minutes to cool off. He spoke to her in a low whisper, then asked her who the car belonged to.
“Cousin Daphne,” she said.
Cousin Daphne was his mother’s first cousin on her father’s side. The two of them had grown up close and had always sworn they were more like sisters than cousins. Cousin Daphne was nice, but just like his aunt Babee, she was a talker. And he just did not feel up to her today. There was too much on his mind.
“How long she been here?” he asked.
“Not long,” she said.
“Well, what she want?” he wanted to know.
“Just come by to check on Mama,” Sarah Ann told him. Then added, “She say she want to see you ‘fo she go.”
“I don’t want to see her,” he said. “I don’t want to see nobody.”
“Well, she want to see you,” Sarah Ann repeated. “Heard her tell Mama she gone try to wait for you. Heard her say she ain’t seen you in a long time. And she like to see you ‘fo she go.”
“Where they at?” he asked, still whispering.
“In there.” Sarah Ann nodded toward the living room.
He turned and looked.
“I just don’t feel like dealing with this today,” he whispered. “I just want to go lie down for a few minutes.”
“Feel like it or not,” Sarah Ann said, “she wants to see you.”
“How Mama?” he changed the subject.
“Complaining with her head some.”
He paused, then spoke apologetically. “Sorry ‘bout this morning.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Sarah Ann said. “Wasn’t nobody’s fault.”
“It upset her much?” he asked.
“Some,” she said. “But she ain’t blaming you.”
“Just wish it hadn’t happened,” Tyrone said.
“Wishing ain’t gone change nothing,” she said. “What’s done is done.”
He talked to Sarah Ann a little longer, then started toward the living room to check on his mother and to speak to his cousin. But no sooner had he entered the hallway than the phone rang. He heard Sarah Ann an
swer the phone. He heard her pause, then say, “Yes, I will.” He heard her yell, “Tyrone, telephone.”
He went back onto the porch. Sarah Ann had taken the phone out there to keep it from bothering their mother. When she gave Tyrone the phone, she immediately went back inside to give him some privacy. When he answered the phone, he fully expected to hear his parole officer’s voice or Beggar Man’s voice; instead, he heard the low, somber voice of his son, Marcus.
“Papa,” Marcus said, then waited.
When Tyrone took the phone from Sarah Ann, he had been standing; but as soon as he heard the sound of Marcus’s voice, his trembling legs became weak, and he slowly slid to the floor, clutching the phone in shaky, unsteady hands.
“Marcus,” Tyrone finally answered, struggling against surging emotions.
“They moved me, Papa,” Marcus said. “They moved me to the death house.”
There was silence. Tyrone closed his eyes tight. A tear rolled down his cheek.
“Papa,” Marcus called. “Papa, you there?”
“I’m here, son,” Tyrone said, his voice cracking slightly. He swallowed and composed himself. “You all right, son?”
“I’m all right, Papa.”
There was silence.
“Papa.”
“Yeah, son.”
“I ain’t scared no more,” he said. Then he was quiet.
Tyrone closed his eyes again, crying. He didn’t know what to say. An awkward moment passed. Then Marcus spoke again.
“Just want you to know,” he said. “I done made peace
with the whole thing. No matter what happens. I ain’t scared no more.”
“Son, don’t talk like this,” Tyrone pleaded. “We still got two days.”
“Wish we could’ve known each other, Papa.”
“Don’t talk like this.”
“Wish we could have known each other without all this.”
Tyrone was quiet, as tears flowed down his face.
“Seem like it’s always been something between us, Papa,” Marcus said. “Something always keeping us from each other.”
Tyrone listened but did not speak.
“A boy need to know his papa,” Marcus said. “He need to know his papa proud of him. I want you to be proud of me, Papa … That’s why I ain’t scared no more. I ain’t scared no more … And I ain’t gone cry no more.”
“I’m proud of you, son,” Tyrone heard himself say. “I always been proud of you. The day you was born—” He paused. His voice cracked. “The day you was born,” he started again, then paused. “I promised myself that I was always gone love you, and protect you, and be there for you. I promised myself that, son. And that’s what I’m gone do. I—”
“Papa,” Marcus interrupted him.
Tyrone didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He was crying.
“Papa,” Marcus called again.
“Yeah, son,” Tyrone whispered. He was emotional.
“Papa,” Marcus said, then paused to collect himself. “Just want you to know, I love you.” He paused a second time. “I ain’t never had a chance to tell you that. In all these years. I ain’t never said it. But I do. I love you, Papa. And I ain’t scared no more.”
“I love you too, son,” Tyrone said, sobbing.
“Come see me, Papa,” he said. “Come see me tomorrow. “
“I will, son,” Tyrone said.
“Papa,” Marcus called softly.
“Yeah, son.”
“Can you bring Mama,” he said. “I want to see my mama.”
“I’ll try, son,” Tyrone said. “I’ll try.”
Tyrone hung up the phone and was suddenly besieged with an overwhelming desire to speak to his wife. He called the hospital and spoke to the receptionist. She told him that Pauline was much better and that she would be released later that night. The receptionist rang Pauline’s room. Tyrone spoke to her. He told her about Marcus … He asked if she would go … He heard her father protest … He heard her say yes … He hung up the phone … He cried.