Authors: Ernest Hill
“I’m sorry I wasn’t at your funeral … I wanted to pay my respects. But … I—”
Tyrone’s voice became heavy. His eyes became full. A tear fell from one eye, then the other. He picked up a small stone from the graveside and threw it into the woods. The sound of the stone tearing through the trees startled the rabbit. It fell to its feet, scampered a few paces to the right, paused, then disappeared into the darkness of the woods. Tyrone reached up and wiped his moist nose with the back of his hand. He filled his lungs with air and let out a deep sigh.
“I didn’t want to disgrace the family no more than I already had by showing up at your funeral in handcuffs and chains.”
Again, his misty eyes filled, and a long stream of tears
fell from the corners of his eyes. He paused a second time, took a deep breath, then compressed his lips and struggled to maintain control of his voice.
“Mama, Sarah Ann, and René all doing fine. Mama and Sarah Ann act like they happy to see me, but René act like she don’t know if she ought to be happy I’m out or scared I’m gone do something else to hurt the family.”
Tyrone was interrupted by the roar of an engine. Breaktime was over, and Dirty Red had climbed atop the little red tractor and resumed his work. It was hot, and though he had not removed his shirt, he had unbuttoned it down the front and pulled it out of his pants. He did not have on work gloves, but he was wearing a straw hat on his head and a pair of dark shades over his eyes. A slight breeze was blowing, and Tyrone could smell the sweet fragrance of the freshly cut grass riding the wind, scenting the air. Involuntarily, his gaze fell on the tombstone, and inside his head, he heard himself reading:
Albert Stokes. October 22, 1923-May 16, 1997
.
Suddenly, his hands began to shake; his lips began to quiver. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He let out a deep sigh, then paused, trying to compose himself. He stared in the direction of the woods, but he was not seeing them. He was imagining his dead father, dressed in his favorite suit, lying in a coffin, his eyes closed, his arms at his sides.
“Aw, Papa,” he said. “I need you so much … Why did you have to die?” The anger came from a place deep inside of him. A place that he no longer recognized. “Why did you leave me?” A floodgate had been opened; now he sobbed heavily.
His mind began to whirl; his head began to ache. He snapped to his feet and turned away from the grave.
Was this the fate that awaited his son? Would his body soon be laid to rest in a place like this, before people like him, who were powerless to stop the powers that be from doing the unthinkable? On that day, would he gather at his son’s grave, seeking solace in a soul-wrenching spiritual, or a God-inspired word, or a gentle touch from a friend or relative? Would he be there when they rolled him into a room, strapped him to a table, and injected him with the serum that would eliminate him forever? Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. His chest felt tight. He took a deep breath, paused, then walked away.
When he again became aware of himself, he was walking up the front gallery of his mother’s house. Both his oldest sister, Sarah Ann, and his mother were on the porch. Sarah Ann was sitting on the swing piecing a quilt, and his mother was sitting in a rocker drinking a cup of coffee.
When he pulled the screen door open and stepped onto the porch, neither one of them said so, but he knew that they were waiting for him.
“How you feeling, Mama?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m doing fairly,” she said, then paused. He leaned forward, and she kissed him on the forehead.
“How you, sis?” he asked.
“Making out,” she said.
“You ate?” his mother asked.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I ain’t hungry.”
“You ate since last night?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“Well, you need to eat,” she insisted.
“Mama, I ain’t got no appetite right now.”
“It’s some grits and eggs and bacon and sausage in there.”
“I ain’t hungry.”
“You find out anything?” Sarah Ann asked.
“Some,” he said. “Not much.”
She was quiet, and he knew she was waiting for him to tell her more.
“His lawyer gone try to git ‘em to let me see ‘im tomorrow,” he said.
“You need to put something in your stomach,” his mother said. “You want Sarah Ann to fix you some toast?”
“I can’t eat right now, Mama,” he said. “I just can’t.”
“You need to force yourself,” she said. “You ain’t gone do nothing but make yourself sick.”
“Mama, he gone eat directly,” Sarah Ann said. “Ain’t no sense in you carrying on so. He gone eat.”
“He gone git sick if he don’t,” she said. “Don’t make no sense sitting ‘round worrying on a empty stomach.”
There was silence.
“Maybe I should’ve made Pauline bring him to see me,” Tyrone said.
“You did what you thought best,” Sarah Ann said.
“But what if—”
“What if, nothing,” Sarah Ann said. “You ain’t the blame for this. If he did what they say he did, you ain’t the blame. He is.”
“Sarah Ann, why don’t you fix your brother a plate,” his mother pleaded. “I sho’ would feel better if he ate something.”
“I ain’t hungry, Mama,” Tyrone said a third time.
“Mama, I told you. He gone eat when he ready.”
“He didn’t really know me,” Tyrone said, speaking to no one in particular. “He should have known his daddy.”
“Did he know right from wrong?” Sarah Ann asked.
“I’m sure he did,” Tyrone said. “I’m sure Pauline saw to that.”
“Then, he knew all he needed to know.”
“Want some coffee?” his mother asked. “Ought to be some in there. Pot still on the stove. You welcome to it now.”
“Naw, Mama,” Tyrone said. “I don’t want nothing.”
“People sho’ can git theyself tangled up in some mess,” Sarah Ann said.
“I got to know,” Tyrone blurted.
“Know what?” Sarah Ann asked.
“Whether he did it or not,” Tyrone told her.
“How you gone know that?”
“I’m gone ask ‘im.”
“What make you thank he gone tell you?”
“I just know he will.”
“How you know he gone tell you the truth?”
“ ‘Cause he don’t lie.”
There was silence. He raised his eyes and looked at Sarah Ann.
“You think he did it?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said.
“Baby, why don’t you go lie down cross the bed,” his mother said. “Try to rest your nerves.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I believe I’ll do that.” He rose to leave, then stopped. “Lawyer say he’ll most certainly die.”
“Don’t make no difference what that lawyer say,” his mother told him. “Only matter what God say.”
H
e lay down in the bedroom just beyond the living room. This had been his room when he was a child, but now, it was a spare room, open to anyone who needed a roof over their head or a momentary place to rest their weary bones. Inside the tiny room, there was a bed, a night stand, a space heater, a chair, and a small dresser. The floor, like those throughout the house, was covered with a cheap, light-colored linoleum. The paneled walls were bare save for a large picture of the
Last Supper
that hung on one wall and an outdated calendar from the local feed and seed store that hung on the other. The only window was the tiny opening cut in the top half of the rear door, and the only other source of light was the single bulb that hung from the center of the ceiling.
Besides the entrance off the main hall, there were two other ways to enter or exit the room. There was a side entrance that led into the adjacent bedroom. That room had been shared by Sarah Ann and René when
they were children, but now, the twin beds had been removed and replaced with the queen-size bed that René shared with her husband, Jimmy. There was also a rear exit that led out onto a small side porch. Someone had left the side door open, and from where he lay, he could see outside. There was a large pecan tree just north of the porch and a fig tree just south of the porch. Beyond both trees was a fence, inside of which was a garden, and outside the garden was a road. Directly across the road, he could hear a group of neighborhood boys playing softball in a vacant lot. He started to go out onto the porch and watch, but reconsidered. Mentally, he was drained. He needed rest. He had just closed his eyes when he heard the loud, cracking sound of the bat making contact with the ball. Someone had just gotten a hit, and he could hear the others yelling frantically, encouraging him to run, willing him to score. In his mind, he could see the boy crossing first base, passing second, rounding third, heading home.
Tyrone was listening to the cheering of the excited children when he heard the sound of feet on the front steps followed by the sound of the screen door opening and closing.
“Morning, Miss Hannah,” he heard someone say.
“Morning, Brother Clayton,” his mother responded.
“You looking mighty fine this morning, Miss Sarah,” Mr. Clayton said in a tone that indicated more than a greeting; he was flirting.
“Clayton, I ain’t studin’ you,” Sarah Ann said sternly.
Sarah Ann had just turned fifty, and her mother was in her early seventies. The two women favored each other, only Sarah Ann was short and heavy-set, whereas her mother was tall and thin. Neither of them was dressed fancy. Sarah Ann wore a plain, bland duster
that hung just below her knees, and her mother wore a multicolored shift, the length of which must not have been satisfactory, for she had draped an old towel across her lap to cover that which her dress did not. Neither of them was wearing shoes. Sarah Ann did have on a pair of house slippers, but her mother’s feet were bare.
“Pull up a chair, Brother Clayton, and sat down,” Tyrone heard his mother say after a brief silence. “Take a load off your feet.”
“Aw, I ain’t gone stay long,” Mr. Clayton said. “I’m just checking on y’all.”
“We making out all right,” Miss Hannah said.
“Well, thank God for that,” he responded.
Tyrone heard a deep sigh, and he could tell by the series of creaks that Mr. Clayton had sat in the flimsy wooden chair that sat between Sarah and his mother.
“Clayton, what you got in that bucket?” Miss Hannah asked.
“Brought y’all a mess of fish,” he said.
“You fished today?”
“Yes, ma’am. Fished Gasoway this morning.”
“They biting good?”
“Pretty good,” he said. “Caught some real nice perch.”
Tyrone heard the sound of a chair scraping the floor.
“Yeah, Clayton,” he heard his mother say after a brief silence. “They is nice. Real nice. I’m gone get René to fry ‘em soon as she come home from work.”
“Want me to clean ‘em for you?” Clayton asked.
“Naw,” she said. “I’ll get Tyrone to clean ‘em when he git up.”
“He here?” Clayton asked.
“Yeah, he made it in last night,” she said. “He in there lying down.”
“How he look?”
“Done aged some and done put on a little weight,” Miss Hannah said. “Other than that, he look ‘bout the same.”
“He know ‘bout his boy?”
“Told ‘im this morning.”
There was silence, and Tyrone knew Mr. Clayton was turning things over in his mind.
“He take it awright?” he asked.
“Well as can be expected,” Miss Hannah said. “He went to see the lawyer this morning, but I don’t thank he got no satisfaction. Way that old lawyer talk, ain’t too much nobody can do. He say, mo’ than likely, they gone kill that child.”
“Well, Miss Hannah, I suspect he right.”
“What make you say that, Brother Clayton?”
“You know Mike Buehler, don’t you?”
“He the one that own that little catfish house over in Brownsville?”
“Naw, now that’s his brother Dale. Mike the one that own all them grocery stores. He live in Brownsville, but he got stores in Wilmington and Pinesboro, too.”
“Mama, you know ‘im,” Sarah Ann said. “He married Mr. John’s oldest daughter. Miss Annie Lou.”
“He a kind of heavy-set fellow?”
“That’s him,” Mr. Clayton said.
“What he got to do with this?” Miss Hannah asked.
“Old boy that work at the lumber shed told me that gal is kin to ‘im.”
“Sho’ nuff? “
“That’s what he say.”
“Close kin?”
“I don’t thank she supposed to be close kin, but she kin. Now, he told me that Mike Buehler done talked to the mayor, and the mayor done talked to the governor,
and the governor done fixed it so that it ain’t no way in this world that Marcus gone git out of this thang alive.”
“I sho’ hate to hear that.”
“Well, I hate to say it,” Clayton said, “but that’s the way it’s being told.”
He said that, and then it was quiet. Tyrone had been lying on his back, but now he rolled onto his side and propped his hand underneath his chin, listening.
“Well, I tell you what I hate,” Sarah Ann said. “I hate to see Tyrone have to go through something like this so soon after getting out the pen. I’m scared it’s gone send him right back to dranking and smoking that old dope.”
“He just gone have to stay on his knees,” Miss Hannah said. “Lawd ain’t gone give ‘im more than he can stand.”
“I know that’s right,” Mr. Clayton said.
“It might be right, but I still hate to see it,” Sarah Ann said emphatically. “It already look like he done just about worried hisself to death.”
“That’s why I made ‘im go lie down,” Miss Hannah said. “I’m gone make ‘im eat, too, soon as he wake up.”
“Well, all y’all can do is look after ‘im.”
“We gone do that.”
“If there is anything I can do, let me know.”
“We’ll do that, Brother Clayton. We sho’ will.”
“Well, I better be gitting on.”
“Ain’t no sense in hurrying.”
“I promised Phoebe I’d clean that fence row for her today.”
“Now, don’t you git out there and git too hot.”
“I won’t.”
“Tell Phoebe I asked about her.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And you tell her, when she see Fred, be sho’ to tell
him that that oldest boy of his passed here the other day and ain’t bit mo’ opened his mouth to speak than that tree over yonder.”
“I know he didn’t,” Clayton said, his tone indicating shock.