The Dusk of the Good Ole Boys

"Lil Smurf"

2011-02-06T22:10:00.001-06:00

There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.

~George Bernard Shaw

After a case is indicted by the Grand Jury, the DA always sets a plea recommendation. She bases it on the crime, the evidence we have, prior history, the likelihood that it will go to trial. Rapes are the worst. Most of the time, we set no recommendation, and force them to plead open, throw themselves on the mercy of the court, or we force them to trial. Statutory rapes are different. When the girl says yes, we drop the recommendation way down. Sometimes even reduce the charge to sexual battery, like we did here. Most of the people here believe in consent as a defense. A lot of the jurors might have had their first baby when they were her age, and they didn’t prosecute anyone. Why ruin someone’s life over something as little as that? Maximum exposure on sexual battery is 30 years. We offered five. Would probably serve two. He was 18. She was 13. When they are 13 though, the game changes. If she had been 14, he would have only faced up to fifteen had we left it at statutory. But at 13, he’s facing twenty to life. What a difference a year makes. Is the new 13 really 13?

Shay Baby was hanging with her 17 year old cousin, Shantina. Got a phone call from Ryant, Shantina’s boyfriend. We had just convicted Ryant’s twin brother, Bryant, in an armed robbery case earlier in the week. Shantina handed the phone to Shay Baby, so one of Ryant’s partnas could hollar at her. Lil’ Smurf. I am not sure what they hollered about, but after they got done hollering, later that evening , Shantina and Shay Baby snuck out of the house. Went over to Ryant’s. Lil’ Smuf was in the bed. Ryant answered the door. “This is the girl I got for you.” Shantina jumps in the bed with Ryant, and Shay Baby got in the bed with Lil’s Smurf. Never met him before in her life.

He says he asked her how old she was. Said it on his audio confession as well as on the stand. She initially told him she was 17. Being 18, Smurf saw no problem with that. Wasn’t much to talk about. All four of them started having sex. On their respective sides of the room of course. With their respective partners.

Apparently Smurf and Shay did it several more times over the week. After all that action, Shay Baby can’t quit bleeding. Her mom, who wasn’t a day over 30, takes her to the woman’s clinic here. They tell her that Shay is sexually active, and that she has gonorrhea.

The momma, Melinda, presses charges. Signs papers against him, as she put it. It was almost a month after the incident.

My old buddy Capt. Doyle with Clarksdale PD picked up Lil’ Smurf for questioning. After waiving his rights, Smurf says yeah, I had sex with her. I don’t know her name. She told me she was 17. That’s about it. Well Smurf, you’re wrong. She’s 13. Audible gasp at the other end of the audio recording. So Smurf launches into a long dialogue about how Shay Baby had sex with Ryant too and they all had sex together. A big old party there.

Didn’t change the fact that she was 13.

And with the reduced plea offer and confession, I didn’t really focus on the file. Had a couple of capital murders that I had to work up. But it got to be a week before trial, there was no movement, so I had to start calling the family.

I met Shay Baby and her mother on a Thursday afternoon. Like a plaintiff’s lawyer pulling up to the scene of an accident, I wondered how “good” the damages were. They were good. Shay Baby didn’t look a day over 12. Some of these 13 year olds can pass for 17 or older. Had she walked in here all filled out with curves and swagger, I’d have a hell of a problem. But she was thin as a rail. No boobs or butt. Glasses and braces. Hair in pigtails with big plastic beads on the end. Green shirt, yellow pants, blue socks. Real quiet girl. Smurf knew he was fucking a child. And she was nervous as hell talking to me about sex and stuff, being there in front of her momma and all. So I give them a tour of the courtroom, where she was going to sit on the witness stand, what direct and cross examination was going to be like, etc. I didn’t care about her. I needed her to say they had sex, and point him out in the courtroom. That’s it.

After the tour and the 10 minute sell, as I did with every victim I put on the stand, we came back to my office. They’re sitting across the desk from me, obviously not sure if they should trust this white boy. Not sure if they should even be here. I hate victims like that.

“Well, I’ve been talking a lot about the trial and all, is there anything you want to tell me?

“Well there is one thing.”

Shit. “What’s that?”

The mother looked down into the grease spot on her massive breast.

“Well, you might be kinda mad about it.”

“Go ahead. Whatever you tell me doesn’t leave this office.” I propped my boot up on the corner of my pull out file drawer. Black people don’t like white men in cowboy boots.

“Well, Lil Smurf’s family offered me $500 not to come to court.”

Shit.

“Alright.” I put my boot back on the floor, leaned in and put my arms on my desk. “You take it?”

“Yeah. See I had this gas bill I had to pay, and I really needed the money.”

You just pimped out your 13 year old daughter for a goddamn gas bill?! I glanced at Shay Baby, but she wasn’t looking at me.

“Alright.”

“But don’t worry Lawyer Carr, I’m gonna come to trial. I told them it would take $1,000 for me not to come to trial.”

Wasn’t comforting, though it was meant to be.

“Now listen ma’m. You can’t be talking with the family like that, taking money from them and all. I mean, your daughter got attacked by an 18 year old guy, and you don’t want to come to court? How can I protect her if you are taking money on the side? How can I get up there and argue that you are harmed and that you deserve justice. Now you gotta stand up for her. This is a crime.”

There was a pause as she thought about the money she could make.

“Naw now, I’m gonna come. I’ll be there. I’ll take the $1,000 but I’ll still be there.”

She nodded her head to reassure me. I looked her straight in the eye. Black people don’t like that either.

“Alright then. I’ll see you Monday.”

And they left the office.

The morning of trial, I got halfway to Clarksdale from Cleveland and realized I left my trial binder sitting on the kitchen counter. I called my soon to be ex-wife, told her the problem, and she said she would sit it on the front porch. Twenty minutes later I pulled up in the driveway and grabbed it. She didn’t come outside. I didn’t thank her.

Half hour later, I made the turn into Clarksdale off New Africa, crossed the second bridge over the Sunflower Rover and onto First. The pickup at the stop sign in front of me had a bumper sticker: “Happiness Is A Belt Fed Weapon.”

I called Shay Baby’s mother on my cell.

“Ya’ll ready to come to the courthouse?”

“Well, I’m coming, but Shay says she’s not coming.”

“She’s not coming?”

“Yeah, she says she’s at her aunt’s house and says she’s not coming.”

“Let me explain something to you. You’ve been summoned by a court order. If you don’t come to court, an arrest warrant will be issued for you and you will go to jail. Same with your daughter. This court will not hesitate to put a 13 year old in jail. Now, I’m going to ask you again, is your daughter going to come to court?”

“Well I don’t know.”

It was time to be helpful. I loved offering the county taxi service.

“Well, I can send a sheriff’s deputy to come pick her up from her aunt’s house…”

Pause.

“Or can you manage to get her here yourself?”

“Oh, I can get her here. I can get her here.”

“Good.”

Sure enough, by 8:30 they were there in my office. And they were hot, boy…. Hell, they are the victims in the case! Mad at me because I was giving them their day in court.

We start voir dire, I ask a lot of questions about people’s opinions on consent and mistake of age, explain that they are not defenses, and try to get as many older black women and white people in the box as I can. Luckily black men and young people don’t often register to vote in this county, so the jury looked pretty good.

State can now commence its case-in-chief. I put the investigating officer on the stand. There wasn’t much to ask. Name? Doyle. Occupation? Police officer. Rank? Captain. Did you arrest the defendant and read him his rights? Yes. Did he agree to waive those rights and speak to you? Yes. What did he say? He told me he had sex with the victim.

I put the momma on the stand. Asked her did she become aware that her daughter had a problem? Yes. When? When she couldn’t stop bleeding. And what did you do? Took her to the Women’s Clinic. And what did they say was the cause? Objection. Hearsay. Response? Mississippi Rule of Evidence 803(4) – Statement Made For Purpose of Medical Diagnosis or Treatment. Objection Overruled. You may answer the question. They told me she was having sex, and that’s why she was bleeding. No further questions.

I braced for a ripping cross. One that would get into how this woman took money from his client’s family not to prosecute. But the defense attorney couldn’t touch it, even if he knew what I knew about the offered bribe. Walter was right. He couldn’t touch the subject, because it would automatically make his client look guilty. No questions.

My final witness was Shay Baby.

“Please state your name for the jury.”

“________”

“Do you go by any other names?”

“Shay Baby.”

How old are you?

“Thirteen.”

“What grade are you in?”

“Sixth.”

“Did you fail a grade?”

“My mother didn’t have the money to get shots when I was young, so I started kindergarten late.”

“Now you have kind of a soft voice, so I’m just going to ask you to speak directly into the microphone do the jury can hear you. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do you know why we are here today?”

“Because I had sex.”

“Do you know who had sex with you?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“What do you call him?”

“Lil’ Smurf.”

“Is Lil’ Smurf in the courtroom today?”

“Yes.”

“What was that?”

“Yes sir.”

“Will you stand and point him out for the jury?”

And like a champ, she stood up and pointed directly at him. Didn’t bat an eye.

“Please let the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant.”

“The record will so reflect.”

“Now, before the defendant had sex with you, did you tell him how old you were?”

“I told him I was seventeen.”

“Did you ever tell him how old you really were?”

“Yes.”

“How old did you tell him you really were?”

“Thirteen”

“What was his reaction to that?”

“He told me to get out his face and stop lying.”

“And when I ask you did you have sex, what I mean is, specifically did he put his penis in your vagina?”

I hate having to ask that. Hate it. So antiquated. So formal. So scientific. But part of the indictment. Have to say the buzz words.

“Yes sir, he did.”

“No further questions.”

Again, no cross. There wasn’t anything more to discuss. I rested.

The Judge, after advising the defendant of his rights, asked if he wanted to testify. He did.

So the defendant takes the stand. I love when they take the stand. His attorney started the direct examination.

“Now we’ve heard a lot of testimony here today. I’m going to cut straight to the point. Did you have sex with this girl?”

“No sir.”

“Not at all?”

“No sir.”

“Well did you do something with her?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, what did you do?”

“She got in the bed with me, we messed around, and I ejaculated on her stomach. I never put it in her.”

“You never what?

“I never put it in her?”

“So, when you told the cops you had sex with her, is that what you meant?

“Yes.”

“They never defined sex for you?”
“Oh no sir.”

“Can you expand on that?”

“Yes sir. See, my definition of sex is different. When I say ‘sex’, what I mean is ejaculation. And they never even bothered to ask me what I meant.”

“Never even bothered to ask you, huh?”

“Oh no sir.”

“Nicholas, have you ever had gonorrhea?”

“Oh no sir. That’s nasty.”

“Do you think that if you would have put it in her, you would have gotten gonorrhea?”

“Objection. The witness can’t speculate as to whether he would have gotten gonorrhea or not. He’s not qualified as a medical expert.”

“Sustained. Next question, counsel.”

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

So I got up there on cross examination, and I threw him a few hit and miss questions, trying to let me impeach him with the audio tape of his police confession, but Lil Smurf never denied that he told the cops he had sex with her, so I couldn’t play it. He said on the tape he had sex with her. Cops never asked him what he meant by sex. Cops never asked if he “put his penis in her vagina”. Stupid buzz words. I went with plan B, backed him into a corner about how he defines sex differently than the rest of the entire world, and how he failed to mention that to anybody until this very day when he was on trial. Then I rested.

We got to closing arguments.

I started on the first half of my closing argument. Went through the elements of the offense and how the State has met its burden according to what was outlined in the jury instructions, blah blah blah, and that the only issue was penetration. That mistake of age was not a defense. That consent was not a defense. That the only issue was penetration. And the best evidence the jury had, besides the victim’s testimony, was the fact that she was bleeding and had to go to the Woman’s Clinic. Simply put, vaginal bleeding isn’t caused from ejaculation on a 13 year old’s stomach. Or anyone’s stomach. But that’s all I had.

Time for defense close. The public defender walked slowly to the podium, an older white man who had been doing this for thirty years and had whipped my little ass up and down the courtroom many a time. He stretched out both arms, leaned them heavily against the sides, and looked down over the top of his glasses at his audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sad sad situation. A situation where a young man’s life is at stake for a mistake he made. Now I know that mistake of age is not a defense. As well as consent is not a defense. But these were truly factors in this situation.”

Ass.

“Now the State tells you that the best evidence you have that this young girl was penetrated was bleeding. Heck, that can happen at any time, from what I understand about these things. (laughter from the jury) Irregular menstrual cycle. They’ve brought no doctor in here that examined her to see if she was penetrated. They’ve got no DNA evidence. There was no rape kit done. They’ve got nothing here but her word. And she has gonorrhea. Gonorrhea! Does my client have gonorrhea? No. And if my client had slept with her, had penetrated her, he would have had gonorrhea as well. Didn’t happen folks. Flat didn’t happen. The cops didn’t even bother to ask him how he defines sex. They just asked him ‘did you have sex with her’ and they didn’t even bother to take it a step further. To make sure everybody was talking on the same page. And they weren’t, because you heard my client come in here and tell all of you that sex means something different to him. He didn’t have sex with her. You heard him. I ask that you find him not guilty.”

I had five minutes left. I didn’t know where to start. So I just started….

“Ladies and gentlemen, did you hear what I heard? I just heard a defense attorney get up here and tell you that the best evidence you have to consider in this rape case of a 13 year old girl is whether or not the defendant has gonorrhea. The old if-he-doesn’t-have- gonorrhea -he’s-innocent defense. I love that defense. Asks you to disregard an eyewitness, being the victim, asks you to disregard the bleeding and trip to the Woman’s Clinic and their determination that she has been sexually active, and asks you to disregard the fact that the defendant admitted to having sex with the victim.”

Then I had to soften the blow to win a bit of favor.

“And the defense attorney is right on a few things. I can’t disagree. I don’t have any DNA evidence or rape kit. The evidence was washed away the next time she took a shower. This little girl was trying to hide it from her momma. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she was ashamed that the let this guy talk her into opening her legs for him. The only reason her momma found out and pressed charges was because there was a problem. If she hadn’t started bleeding, well, we wouldn’t be here. Lil Smurf would have gotten away with this. We’re here today, because we have a momma who cares about her daughter. And when she saw her daughter having problems, she took her to the doctor to protect her. In a twisted way, we’re lucky she started having problems, and we’re lucky her mother found out. Because that momma cares. Just like each and every one of you who are mommas would.”

And I looked over at the bitch.

“Now the victim comes in here today, for the first time ever, conveniently on the day of trial, and tells all of us that he defines sex differently than you and me. The old Bill Clinton defense. And I’m asking you not to buy it. Who has the motive here? You think this 13 year old girl wants to get up on this stand and tell you twelve jurors and two alternates - 14 complete strangers - that she’s been out having sex? That she got in the bed with this guy, then went back to her 6^th grade classroom? No. Look at her. She’s a little girl. She needs your protection. And when she tells this predator, this Lil Smurf, how old she is, he tells her to get out of his face, that he doesn’t believe her. That’s what we’re dealing with here folks. Willful blatant disregard for her age, so he can stick it in her. That’s right. Stick it in her because he’s in a position of power. He’s an adult, and she’s a child. And that’s a crime, and our laws are designed to protect children. Her mother wants to protect her. I want to protect her. So I ask you to follow the law as it has been given to you, and protect this child.”

And though the mother and daughter wouldn’t talk to me during deliberations, mad at me because I prosecuted “Lil Smurf”’, those fourteen strangers found him guilty two hours later.

A week later, the judge sentenced Smurf to twenty years, with fifteen suspended and five to serve. The victim’s mother begged for mercy. The defendant’s mother vomited on the floor in open court. The money was never mentioned again.

Witness Prep

2011-01-30T18:55:00.000-06:00

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them.”

Oscar Wilde –
The Picture of Dorian Gray - 1891

Darryl ushered him down the hallway, while Fred held Aunt Lafonda’s hand. The walls were off-white, bare, cracked in some places, and his new shoes squeaked as they shuffled across the industrial carpet. The ceiling was much higher than the one at his house, and the bright lights made him blink.

“Fred, this is Walter. Walter, this is Fred.”

Darryl walked back to his office while Fred put his hands his pockets and looked up at the broadly smiling white face behind the desk.

“Come in Fred, come in! Sit down.” And Walter motioned him in.

Fred climbed up into the wooden chair in front of Walter’s desk as if it were a ladder, turned around, and sat down hard on his rear. He placed his arms up on the armrests, up by his ears and swung his little legs in front of him, looking around.

“I like your shirt, Fred. Who is that on it?”

Fred pulled his shirt out from across his belly, and looked at it upside down.

“Spiderman.”

“Spiderman? Wow! That is so cool! Spiderman was around when I was little.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I used to read about him in comic books. Do you know what those are?”

“No.”

“That’s ok. They were around when I was a kid. I guess you watch him on tv?”

“Yeah. I like watching tv. We have a big tv in our apartment.”

Silence. Fred looked at the pile of papers on Walter’s desk, the out of style ties crumpled across the back of the door, the diploma hung haphazardly right above Walter’s shiny head. Walter fumbled around for something else lighthearted to ease into it.

“What do you like to do other than watch Spiderman?”

“I like to ride my bicycle.”

“Does your Aunt Lafonda take you to the park to ride your bicycle?”

“She says not to go to the park. There are bad people there. I just ride it in front of our apartment?”

“In the parking lot?”

“Yeah….Do you ever go out and play, Mr. Walter?”

“Sure. I was little once like you. And I used to go out and play. But then I got big. And it’s a lot more fun being little than it is being big.”

Fred furrowed his brow for a minute, but didn’t agree with Walter.

“Fred, do you like to color?”

“Yeah.”

“I bought you some coloring books. Would you like to color with me?”

Walter placed a new Dora the Explorer coloring book on his desk. Fred slid down the chair, scooted it forward with a couple uneven tugs, and clambered his pudgy little body back up. He picked up a red crayon and began scratching away. It broke in his hand because he was pressing too hard.

“Do you know what else I like Mr. Walter?”

“What’s that Fred?”

“McDonalds.”

“I like McDonalds too. So do my kids. They love McDonalds here in Clarksdale a lot. They have a big slide and a helicopter. I can’t get them to eat all their chicken nuggets because they are too busy playing on the slide.”

“You only have two kids? You look old.”

“Well, it took us a little while to get started on kids.”

“Do you like football?”

“Yes. What is your favorite team?”

“I like baseball.”

“Do you play with a wiffle ball or a real baseball? I don’t like playing with a real baseball because it hurts my hand.”

Fred put down the two pieces of his red crayon and picked up a brown one.

“I’m going to color me and you.”

Fred wrote his name above Dora and began to shade it in with his crayon. Then he paused for a minute, looked at his brown crayon, and put it down.

“What color should I color you?”

“Um, Fred, do you want some peanut butter crackers?”

“Sure.”

“Will you walk to the machine with me to get some?”

“Ok.”

“Do you want to meet the other people I work with on our way?”

And he took Fred by the hand and helped him out of the chair.

“This is Mr. Mike.”

I quickly minimized her autopsy photos on my computer screen and smiled as big as I could manage.

“Hey Little Fred!”

“Mr. Mike works across the hall from me.”

“He’s got more hair than you do, Mr. Walter”

“He sure does.”

I waived and watched them walk down the hall, then shut my door when they returned.

“What are you going to do this afternoon, Fred? Color some more?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds good.” And Fred was quiet.

“Mr. Walter, will you come over to my house?”

“Sure….um, I can’t come today, but I will come over soon.”

“My house is right over there. You just turn this way and that way and then that way and then you are there.” And he motioned with his hand in the air.

“Ok, that sounds good.”

More coloring.

“Mr. Walter, where did Aunt Lafonda go?”

“She went to the store. She’ll be back soon.”

“She sure is taking a long time at the store.”

“Maybe she likes shopping. My wife likes shopping, but I don’t. Do you like shopping little Fred?”

“Yep.”

“What if you go shopping for something you don’t like?”

“I always like going shopping.”

“What’s Diego doing in that picture?”

(inaudible)

“That looks like fun.”

After a few more minutes of coloring, Walter realized he had had too much Diet Coke.

“Fred, I have to go to the bathroom.” Walter got up from his desk. Fred dropped his brown crayon, and followed Walter down the hall to the bathroom. Squeak squeak.

“Um, but you’ve got to wait outside the door, ok Fred?

“Ok.”

Flush.

“Now I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Will you come with me?”

“Um, I’ll wait outside the door. Is that ok?”

“Sure.”

And Fred closed the door. He opened it after a bit.

“Did you flush?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Fred looked at the floor, and put one new shoe on top of the other.

“Why don’t you try one more time? You just push this lever and it flushes. Here, you do it.”

Back to the office. Fred banged his left knee trying to squeeze between the chair and the desk to get to his Dora picture.

“Can I take these colors home?”

“But if you take them home, how are you going to color here?”

“But I ain’t got no colors at home.”

“Will you bring them back with you the next time you come?

“How old are your kids?”

“They are five and two.”

“Five is just one more than I am….will you ever bring them over to play?”

“Do you want to play with my kids?”

“Sure.”

“Well, they are at the academy right now, but maybe one day after school I will bring them over.”

“Ok, that would be fun. We can ride bicycles at my house.”

Quiet.

“So, little Fred….do you want to go see the courtroom with me?”

“Sure.”

And he took little Fred’s hand, and led him back down the colorless hall, up the winding steps to Courtroom I. The solid oak doors were heavy, and Walter had to pull the polished brass handle with both hands to open it.

The door slapped shut. Fred breathed in the musty smell of oiled wood and dusty drapes.

“They sure have a lot of chairs in here. Looks like when I go to church.”

“You see that big chair up there? That’s where the judge sits. Have you ever seen a judge before, Fred?”

“I saw one on tv before.”

“He wears this big black robe. And he talks into this microphone and he tells people what to do.”

Fred thought that was pretty cool.

“Fred, if the judge ever told you what to do, would you do it?”

“Uh huh.”

“Ok…you see this chair over there next to the big chair? That’s called a witness chair. People sit in that chair, and they tell the judge their stories….do you want to go sit in that chair, Fred?”

“Yeah. That looks big!”

“Come on. Let’s go sit in it! I’ll race you!”

And they ran down the aisle, past the bar, up the steps, and Walter let Fred win.

“Whew! You sure are fast!”

Still breathing heavy, (since it had been a good while since Walter had run, well, anywhere) he picked up Fred, put him in the soft leather chair, latched the gate in front, and took five steps back to sit on the prosecutor’s table.

“I’m just going to stay down here and I’m going to talk to you. Is that ok?”

“Uh huh”

“So, Fred, what are your brother and sister’s names?”

“Jazlyn Young, Shy’Anna Gillespie, Montavius Webb, and Deyonte Young.”

“Sorry Fred, I can’t hear you. You have to speak up really loud.”

And Fred repeated the names best he could remember.

“See, that’s better. Because down here, I could hear you unless you talked really loud.”

Walter then moved to where there were a bunch of chairs on the side of the courtroom, where the choir probably sang, and sat down in the one farthest away from Fred.

“Fred, can you say those names again? I want to see if you can make me hear you when I am sitting over here.”

Fred said the names again at the top of his little voice.

“Good job Fred! Do you think you could do that again another day, maybe when there are other people in here besides me?”

“Uh huh.” And he nodded. He was fidgeting in his seat, thinking about his bicycle.

Walter took a minute to look at Fred sitting there in his Spiderman t-shirt, brown eyes slightly wide looking around at all the different things in this big room, swinging his legs in this much more comfortable chair, and digging in his ear with his left hand at something that itched. He hadn’t asked for it. He hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

Walter reached in his shirt pocket, and unfolded a piece of paper. He walked towards the child slowly, and held it up for Fred to see.

“Can you tell me who is in that picture?”

“Yes.”

“Here, you hold it and tell me who it is.” Fred took it in his little hands, looked at it, and after a moment, set it face down on his lap.

Walter watched intently for any hint of expression.

“That’s me.”

“Is there anybody else in that picture?”

“Aunt Lafondra.”

Walter paused for a minute. It was only Fred’s first day. There would be three or four more visits after this before it was time, before it mattered. But he pushed on.

“Is there a there a third person in this picture, Fred?”

“I don’t want to do this any more. I want to go color.”

“We’ll go color in a minute. Right now, I need you to tell me if you recognize that third person in the picture with you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Try really hard, Fred.” Walter leaned in closer to him.

And Fred was quiet and he looked down in his lap. He thought of the yelling, the smell of her perfume and axel grease, the trunk of his momma’s Cadillac, the sticky stuff on his face and on his momma’s face and on the back of his momma’s head and how her hair was all stuck in it, how the wire hurt his hands and feet, how the mosquitoes bit him on his neck and his belly when he was in the bushes behind the church, how his momma had taught him to find a toilet when he needed to go but he couldn’t find one and couldn’t move and how he just went on himself and how warm it was and that his momma was going to be mad and that he was going to get a spanking…how his momma wouldn’t answer him and she just laid there while he laid there on her and peed on her and how his daddy told his momma that she wasn’t supposed to have other boyfriends and she wouldn’t listen and how she told him to call the men uncle and he had so many uncles and how his daddy was mad that he had so many uncles.

Fred looked up at Mr. Walter.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s fine Fred. That’s fine…..Will you come see me next week?”

“Can we have peanut butter crackers again?”

“Yes.” Walter nodded. “We can have peanut butter crackers.”

Harvard Law & Merigold, MS

2011-01-23T12:03:00.000-06:00

“Jook” is a word for “Negro pleasure house”, often a “bawdy house” where black workers “dance, drink and gamble”.

-Zora Neale Hurston

“Juke” - Gullah, meaning “disorderly” or “wicked”

Ely was sitting on his couch at the Cuckoo’s Nest, playing Call of Duty, and had just put a new log in the wood burning stove when Roach walked in with a tallboy.

“What’s up man, what you doin’?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s go over to Crawdads and see if they got some girls.”

Ely was pissed anyway because some ten year old kid from Rhode Island had been whipping his ass for the past hour, so he threw his headset on the coffee table, picked up his .45 laying right next to it (“cause they don’t make a .46”) and shoved it down the front of his Levis. Grabbed a new pack of cigarettes and downed the last of his beer.

Followed Roach out of the heavy warehouse door that served as the entrance to the Nest, and as they passed Ely’s 2500 Super Duty, he reached in, laid the gun on the console, and rummaged around the empty boxes of Marlboro 72s, dried up pouched of Levi Garrett, and empty Nabs packs until he found his Zippo.

Crawdads was across the street. Gravel parking lot with dirty brand new pick up trucks. Only Fords and Chevys. Farmers. SUVs for the females with stickers of the private academies their kids attended on the backs, vanity plates on the fronts supporting the crop their husbands or their daddys grew.

A lawn sprinkler sat on top of the building, run during the summer, fanning right to left, keeping the tin roof cool. But no need now in the middle of deer season. The smell of grilled red meat filled the air, and slapped them in the face when they walked inside. Manager politely saying hello, though he had asked Ely before not to come back. Fuck him.

Walk down a couple of narrow halls, and then the room opened up to the bar and dance floor. Neon signs for Miller and Bud. Skinny white boys in Columbia shirts and Polo hats with the wrap-around hair bartending just because they were Pikes and making mixed drinks to their best guess. Calling the drinks stupid names like “Delta Martini” and “Merigold Mint Julep” and “Mississippi Mud Slide”. Women in their mid 30’s and early 40’s, tight jeans and tops made to hide their bellies but enhance their boobs, mad cause their husbands are at hunting camp and won’t have sex with them anymore and looking for greener grass that would be nice to their kids. Men in Mossy Oak hats and four-day growth and muddy boots hunting for a version of what their wife used to look like so they could take her back to hunting camp and justify why he wasn’t ever killing anything.

Back 40 was the band. Coupled with the occasional yell and drunken request for “Free Bird”, it was a typical Thursday night.

There were three girls sitting off at a table to the right by a stuffed loggerhead turtle. One black, one white, and one half black with a little Jap off in her or something. Ely wasn’t real sure, even the next day. But she was the hottest one out of all of them, which pissed the mid-30s & 40s former beauty queens. Coupled with their short hair, lack of makeup, and the fact that no men were talking to them despite their relative attractiveness, one could tell these three weren’t southern women.

Southern women carry themselves a certain way. They do not chase men. They are taught that by their mothers and grandmothers. Instead, they attract men. A proper southern woman, if she just looks at him right, can pull a man from a group of friends, through clouds of blue smoke, over two tables and maybe even cause him to spill his beer. This has happened more times than I care to acknowledge.

They are queens of flattery, both to men and to each other. They can say things that sometimes take you two or three minutes (or up until the next day) to figure out the meaning of. At that point you decide whether it was genuine or doublespeak. Flattery is a sacredly held art form, developed in a southern woman’s early years at debutante balls and cotillions and pilgrimages and given its final touches during the four (or five) years of sorority life.

Southern women flirt, and do it quietly and well. They touch you lightly on your shoulder, laugh at your jokes while locking eyes just for a moment then look away and intentionally give you the impression that you are the most interesting man in the world. And you walk away feeling that you are.

Southern women sit whenever they can. They do not stand up to talk to you. When they must walk, they walk with their shoulders back and their chin up, exposing their throat, eyes just a little above the horizon. They do this not just to establish dominance among other men and women but also often to prominently display whatever shiny thing they likely have around their neck which keeps us lesser creatures in check, and slightly envious.

They wrap a napkin around the label of their bottled light beer, if that’s what they choose to drink. They don’t stand when they smoke, and they can make a cigarette look delicious, even though it is not.

They don’t discuss politics or religion, but not because they can’t. And when you talk about the War, they get quiet.

Though a lot of attributes of southern women have been lost through the generations, such as cooking or sewing or other assorted antiquated attributes…propriety in public is not one of them.

And when a southern woman turns the lights off, so is her propriety.

But it is proper not to discuss it.

Ely played it cool as he always did. Walked to the bar, took his cigarettes out of his front pocket, lit one and ordered a Bud Light. Nodded to the bartender in a plume of blue smoke, knowing that he used to beat his ass and chase him through the mud with his own truck back during hell week when he was a Pike. Nothing needed to be said. The fraternal feeling was already there. Ely got his beer for free. Roach, however, being from New York and therefore not as coached in the cat and mouse game of meeting women, couldn’t help himself and immediately tromped his way over to the three foreigners. After about ten minutes, and ordering them shots he couldn’t afford, he motioned for Ely to come join them.

They girls were from Harvard Law. Brittney (black), Aeriel (white) and Natasha (the one that was half black half something). The girls were working in Clarksdale, as part of the Innocence Project. Proud of it too, as if all we did around here was throw them in jail for being B.I.P. Or as if the prosecutors had some racist agenda or were trying to get their numbers up. Hell, they couldn’t understand that we were lucky to even get a conviction here in the Delta with some of our jury pools and outstanding police work. But as the night wore on, and the cheap beer and shots flowed, the topics of conversation went from serious to sundry things, and finally the girls let on that they wanted to go to Monkey’s.

Every tourist wants to go to Monkey’s. Every one. Ever since it appeared in the March 2, 2007 edition of the New York Times, we’ve had all kinds down here. One night, I was sitting in there a few summers ago…hot…steamy…a blues band rocking at full blast, the place kept flipping the circuit breaker due to the window units running at big snowflake. Finally, Mr. Monkey announced in the pitch black we could either have air or turn the band down, and the whole place yelled fuck that and we sweated on. That’s the kind of place it was.

The same night, a charter bus pulled up from North Carolina containing giggling little white girls and half the Wake Forest basketball team. They were doing a two week tour on poverty in the south for some class that was supposed to make a difference, and they were driving from New Orleans to Chicago, basically stopping along the way just to look at poor people. So they stopped in to take a look at us. I stayed in the corner and sipped my beer, and they didn’t speak to me, as if I was some white oppressor monitoring my flock. The basketball guys just shot pool, thanking god they didn’t grow up around here. And after about an hour of the white girls taking party pics with random old black and broken field hands, clutching their just purchased 32 oz beers, I, while slightly blinded by the flashes, realized why orangutans throw their own shit back at you when you are at the zoo.

But now it was Thursday night, and therefore Family Night, so it was a good time to head out there. Ely, Roach, and Harvard Law loaded up in Ely’s truck, parked back in front of the Nest, and they swung by One Stop to get a twelve pack.

HotRod was standing out front by the “No Loitering” sign, with his M&M’s jacket on and skull cap, smoking a Newport and being everybody’s “partna” just trying to “hold a dolla” when he recognized Ely walking in and asked him what’s going on.

“Whattup Sly?”

“Shit, nothing to it. Got some girls in the truck. We about to go to Monkey’s. They wanna get naked.”

“Fo real?”

“Yeah, fo real. You ought to slide past there. Maybe get you a little something something.”

“They down to give it up?”

“Yeah, they with me, ain’t they?”

“Aight then. Cool cool. I’ll be out that way.”

The girls had stayed in the truck. Who was that? Aw just a guy who used to work on my daddy’s farm, and we used to pay his wages in cornmeal. They got wide eyed and quiet. Ely’s daddy built custom cabinets. Ely worked with him too. Always had. They never had no farm. And his daddy never spent any money. Hence the “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter” sticker on the back window of the 2500. The girls had thought he was Church of Christ or something.

The glass packs roared south down Hwy 61 and turned right by the Pemble Farms sign. Then they cut left and hit gravel, spinnin and spraying and winding down next to the bayou where the cypress knees stuck out of the icy water. Monkey’s was right there on the left, under the orange sodium light. It was cold, and no one was outside, despite the hoopties and occasional Cadillac clogging up the limited parking. The music was spilling out of the cracks and patches of the clapboard building. Ely pulled up in the field next to it, and went ahead and put the truck in 4H so they could get out when it was time to go.

They walked up to the front, girls wide-eyed. Ely held the door open for them, his lone stretch on being a southern gentleman, but Harvard Law collectively motioned for him to go in first. They could hold the door themselves. It slapped behind them.

Monkeys was dark and the ceiling low, toy monkeys hanging everywhere. Posters for beer commercials, old blues concerts, and Elvis. The DJ was spinning Bobby Bland, there wasn’t a live band tonight. But the girls were into it anyway. Everyone went up to the counter which separates the juke joint from his bedroom, and Mr. Monkey was leaned over the front of the bar in his red and white suit with matching hat, whiskey glass by his hand and cheroot pinched in the side of his mouth. He smiled, recognizing Ely as “good people”, asked them what they wanted. Couple of 32oz Bud Lights.

They sat in an old airplane seat off to the side, and just watched. Skinny old black men in caps and hats with feathers out the top and collars that were in style thirty years ago. Large black women who knew they looked good, gyrating and grinding both on the dance floor and at the tables. It didn’t matter.

Music pumping, vibrating, mouths moving but hearing no speech, smiles, gold and silver flashing, grease running down cheeks and across foreheads, sweat, bodies, stink. One got down on all fours on the dance floor, drawing attention from Harvard Law, while two men took turns sliding their bodies back and forth behind her. Black fat looking better than white fat. Cold on the outside, hot on the inside, steam rising from the roof into the orange night light. Ely smoked in the dark, the ember periodically showing a flash of his face. Grinning.

HotRod slid in the side door to avoid the five dollar cover, brushed his waves forward one last time, winked at the airplane seat, and strutted onto the dance floor to take his turn.

Uptown Bennie Brown's

2011-01-16T20:04:00.001-06:00

It was my birthday, so Kemp told me we were going to eat at Uptown Bennie Brown’s over in Jonestown, a few miles outside of Clarksdale. Makes Clarksdale look…well…developed. Fifty-two percent of the population is below the poverty line. The per capita annual income for the town was $8,528.00 in 2000. Sheriff’s deputies don’t go alone at night. No white people live there. I don’t know if they ever did. But Kemp said it was worth the fifteen minute drive to eat at Uptown’s. Claimed I’d have the best fried pork chop I’d ever eaten. So we went.

For the majority of Mississippi’s history, there were certain places where black folks couldn’t go. Everyone knows that. We learn it in school. We’re reminded every February. And there were some places I guess that were considered in-between, that is, blacks were allowed to be there, so long as a white person was at least present or accompanying them somehow. Kind of like a chaperone or someone who could vouch for them or something. The unspoken “don’t worry, he’s not going to steal anything or hurt you. He’s with me." But even then, the poor guy would get looks, like “What the hell does this black guy think he’s doing here?” And people would make him feel as unwelcome as possible, so he would never want to come back, and the separate worlds would remain. Still happens to this day.

Well, Jonestown is the same way in reverse. Kemp and I didn’t go without our chaperones, Chilean and Samson. Two of Kemp’s co-workers, nice guys, funny as hell, and, most importantly, they had the requisite blackness for us to enter Jonestown. Yep, requisite blackness. Street credit if you will. Chilean and Samson understood the rule. We never talked about why.

Since I started in the DA’s office I had heard about Jonestown, specifically not to pick a juror from there because they were always going to side with the defendant, who in this circuit court district was almost always black, or, more often than not, jurors from Jonestown were related somehow to the defendant we were trying. Extended relationships which I didn’t understand. Extended relationships they never revealed upon voir dire questioning. Stereotype or not, it’s just one of those considerations you have to make. Even my DA, who was a black female, would tell me that.

But I had never been to the town itself. Kemp said his co-worker, Fred, one of the few Jewish guys left in Clarksdale, found the place awhile back because he and a buddy were out dove hunting one afternoon and had run out of beer. Despite the seriousness of the no-beer situation, and balancing safety issues, Fred elected not to get on the highway but rather amble on in to Jonestown to get another case. Uptown Bennie’s was the only place that sold beer and food. Fred tried the food, liked it, and the hospitality was great.

This general store is the first thing you see in downtown, paint faded on the west side by years of the summer Delta sun beating on it. Has an old mural of what purports to be the Jonestown skyline, paint flecking off in leaded confetti. According to the mural, there were several skyscrapers in Jonestown. Clearly I had missed its heyday.

We pulled up to the side in Kemp’s F-250, nose out so we couldn’t get blocked in or needed to scat ass. Just in case. Hell, Chilean and Samson recommended it. Newest truck on the lot by far. As the dust settled around us and I got out, a man with no legs zipped on past in his powerchair, orange flag coming out of the top. He didn’t look at us. Just kept on pimpin by.

To my left, the lone Jonestown police officer had what appeared to be a ten year old kid pinned up against his patrol car zeroed in on him with a can of pepper spray. I mean, getting in his face and really hollering at him. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but I knew I wanted no part of it. What was going on? Drugs? Burglary? Bennie told me later the kid had been skipping school.

We walked up on the sagging front porch, my leather boots resonating on the wood planks. Clomp. A broken old fellah man eyed us suspiciously as he leaned up against the side of the boarded-up building next door, then he spit on the ground. I just nodded, grabbed for Bennie’s screen door, and walked in.

“Alright now.”

“Alright.”

Bennie’s was busting at the seams with absolutely everything, from watermelons to school uniforms to imitation cologne and pirated CDs. The seating area was the back where the food was served. Like a Wal-Mart in the Congo. Bennie greeted us with a big smile, wiping his hands on a dishrag. Chilean was the first to speak.

“Hey now Mr. Bennie. What you know good?”

“Man, ever thang’s workin. Who you got with you today?”

Kemp explained to me later that he always ask that question, because he’s got some illegal video poker upstairs that makes this place happening on Friday and Saturday nights. Knowing the routine, Chilean just passed me off as on of their co-workers. I don’t know if I would have gotten served otherwise.

“Ya’ll got any pork chops?

“Fried about a half hour ago.”

“Gimme one of them, some greens and some mac and cheese pleasesir.”

“You want a side of cornbread? Got butter beans in the back.”

“Cornbread be fine. No beans though. Got any peach cobbler today?”

“Not today.”

“Alright then. That’d be fine.”

And Uptown went through the routine with each of us, all us wanting cornbread, none so big on the butterbeans.

He slapped the food in a styrofoam go plate, with the pork chop taking up the top end and the greens and mac taking up the other side. Dine in only in a take out box. I had to carry it face open with both hands. I went and got an RC out of the cooler next to the sweating High Life tall-boys.

When you’re a minority in a place like this, which for some reason gives you the feeling of invitation only, you’ve got to be conscious of how you sit. You can’t sit segregated, you’ll look like you’re uppity or uncomfortable or flat don’t like black people. So I sat with Chilean and Kemp sat with Samford. The booths there in the dining area had been taken out of an old Pizza Inn or somewhere like that, maybe a McDonalds from back in the 1980’s – with burnt orange plastic seats bolted down to a metal frame which was supposed to be bolted to a concrete floor. Uptown had oiled wood planks, with no bolts. You had to be careful not to lean too hard one way or your food would slide clear on to the floor.

The Louisiana hot sauce was passed around. I doused my pork chop and dug in, grease running down the back of my hand making my fingers shiny. No napkins. Plastic forks.

“Morning gentlemen!”

I had my back to the door, which I generally try not to do anywhere since I was a prosecutor in this county. Hell, last week I’d prosecuted an armed robber from here. But with the somewhat authoritative voice, I thought the police had come in there after spraying down the ten year old. So I turned. A fellah had walked in, in a wife beater with suspenders and a sweat encrusted old bowler hat covering his jerry curls running down the back of his neck. Not wanting to stare, or even look him in the eye, I looked down at my food but kept track of his feet. He came in, skin so dark that when he smiled his head looked like a black dot with a strip of white-out splashed across the front of his face. Big as you please, but you could tell Bennie, up there by the cash register wiping his hands on his stained apron, wasn’t going to give him the same greeting he gave us.

“Hey Smurf. How bout it?”

“Aw doing good. It’s all good. Hey Miss Inez, howyoudoin?”

And he reached forward to shake her hand, and when she held hers out, he grabbed it and kissed the top of it. Like a chivalrous gentlemen from times of old. She snatched it back.

“Don’t be comin in here ‘Miss Inezing’ me! What you want Smurf?”

“I just gettin’ one of these cold beers. Ain’t nothing to it.”

White out smile again.

“Yeah, well you better get one and be on your way.”

“Aight I’m going I’m going”

So he reached in and got a High Life, and he paid with quarters. I looked down at my foot again as he strutted back past. Miss Inez was hot.

“Damn black ass think he can come in here and kiss me on the hand. I’m gonna slap that stupid ass smile off his face one of these days. Beat him down to the white meat.”

“Stay cool Sha Baby. He was just playin.”

“Playin hell. He was meddlin.”

“Well, just let him go on and be.”

We didn’t say a thing except to compliment the foot. Finished up, crunched up all the Styrofoam and threw it in the trash, thanked Bennie, no we don’t need any sunglasses or mosquito spray, and we hit the front door.

“You boys are welcome back anytime.”

He didn’t specify who he was talking to.

“Appreciate it Mr. Benny. We’ll holler at you later. Good as usual.”

Stepped out on to the front porch, tried to avoid Smurf sitting down the other end, swinging his feet off the front, with his big ass smile, and asking if he could hold a dollar, and we went to the truck and headed back to the pavement.

In the side view mirror, a little orange flag poked out of the top of our dust trail.

Death Qualified

2011-01-09T22:13:00.000-06:00

There were seventy of them left, and they had been in the courtroom for nine hours. Judge Higginbotham, still distant and commanding despite the many hours spent with his electorate, began bringing them in to the courtroom – groups of fourteen - for final qualification. Higginbotham was a large man, imposing from the bench, his black robe falling over the sides of his chair when he sat down. The first group of fourteen sat in the audience, nervous, fidgeting, some not daring to look up as the prosecutor, defense attorney, staff, and defendant stared them down. Trying to read their faces. Trying to look into their eyes and souls to see if they were strong enough to do what was asked of them, one way or the other. The judge leaned forward, clicked on his microphone at the front of the bench, and spoke.

“Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is the portion of the trial where I will determine whether you are qualified to serve on the penalty phase of this capital case. You have heard the allegations. Fred Flowers is charged with kidnapping, felony child abuse, and capital murder. You have shown the court that you are capable of voting guilty if the evidence proves that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Now we must determine whether you are competent to serve as jurors in the penalty phase. I will ask you two questions. Your answers to these two questions will determine whether you can serve.”

The fat lady on the second row to the left shifted. The chair creaked under her.

"As I stated to you earlier in the proceedings, it may be necessary for you to make a determination in regard to the imposition of the death penalty or some other penalty. Remember, any penalty you consider should be done as if it is absolute and will be carried out in this case. Your conscientious, religious, or other objections to the death penalty are not grounds for you to be excused as a juror. Do you understand these statements?"

The jury silently affirmed.

"Are any of you religiously, morally, or otherwise against the imposition of the death penalty?"

A young white girl in glasses raised her hand. By her accent, flannel shirt, barely visible neck tattoo, sitting front row and center in a predominantly African American jury pool, she wasn’t from around here. Paleface proudly affirmed to the judge and the rest of the members on the jury panel that she was so against the death penalty. Probably one of those hipsters from the Midwest following the Mississippi Blues Trail and working off some white guilt.

I hate hipsters.

“Mr. Prosecutor, do you have any questions for this witness?”

“None, your Honor.”

“Mr. Walls?”

“Yes, your Honor, a few. Now ‘mam,….”

Walls leaned over the podium, paused for a minute in his very genteel way of commanding attention and setting the mood, and kindly looked into her green eyes.

“I am not going to ask you specifically why you are opposed to one of the potential sentences my client may get if he is convicted. That’s your decision. But I am going to ask you what it is based on. Are you basing your decision on religion?”

“Yes. My religion tells me that I shall not kill.”

My religion. As if she had her own special hipster brand.

“I understand that. I understand…. But do you also understand that religion, and I am assuming that you are a Christian….?”

“Yes.”

“I am too.” He straightened his back and his smile widened. Walls looked at the entire panel at this point, affirming to them that they were all members of the same club.

“….religion teaches us many things. Ms….Schable, do you read the good book?”

“Yes.” She was breaking a bit.

“The Bible teaches us that we must follow the laws of man. Are you familiar with 1 Peter 2:13 where he states ‘submit yourself to every ordinance of man’? Or Romans 13:1-2 which tell us to be in subjection to the superior authorities even as we are to God’? Are you familiar with that?”

“Sure.” But unconvincing.

“So are you telling me that, as a Christian and a reader of the good book, you can follow the laws of man?”

“Of course.”

“You can do that for me and for my client, Fred Flowers?”

“Yes.” She looked at Fred sitting there at the defense table, a cloth draped over the front so the pool couldn’t see his shackles chained to a steel bolt in the floor.

He grinned.

“Do you understand that one of the laws man created for the State of Mississippi is to at least consider the imposition of death in a murder case like this?

“Yes. I understand that.”

“Therefore, are you telling the court that you can follow the laws of the State of Mississippi?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, you will follow the law, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you pledge to do so throughout this trial?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” He turned to the judge. Walls never asked her if she could consider the death penalty. He didn’t have to. He had his magic words. The best attorneys knew when to stop before the dreaded one-question-too-many.

“May we approach the bench?”

“You may.” The prosecutor and Walls huddled in at the front of the bench, and the judge clicked off his mic.

“Your Honor, we ask that she remain on the jury and not be stricken for cause.”

“Judge we object. The first thing out of that girl’s mouth was that she could not vote for the death penalty. And if she can’t vote for it, she can’t serve.”

“Counsel, while that is true, Mr. Walls, through more detailed questioning made it clear for the record that she said she could follow the law in this case. And when a juror says he or she can follow the law, I have no reason to strike them off my panel. This juror remains.”

That was how Walls did it. The white girl with glasses, prospective juror number 93, was back on. There were several others who swore that they had religious or moral or convictions otherwise that would not allow them to vote to kill someone. Some proud about it, some rather meek yet outspoken. Four little black grandmas, two nurses from the hospital, one young white man. Walls walked through each systematically, surgically, with that grandfatherly smile and pleasant demeanor, convincing each one, whether through scripture or logic, that they could follow the law. That is, to say that they could vote to kill someone, when less than a minute earlier there was no way.

But this eventually begged the next question.

"To those of you who are not against the death penalty, are there any of you who are in favor of the death penalty in every case where a murder has been committed?"

One lone white male, surrounded by black faces, raised his hand. Late fifties, thinning but well-kept gray hair, oxford button-down and pressed kakis. Possibly a farmer.

“Well, I think that in general, if you kill someone, you should be killed too.”

My boss’s eyes shimmered for a split second. After the Judge gave a nod, the DA let into him.

“Now sir, are you telling this Court that you would have to vote for the death penalty?

“Well, no.”

“It’s not automatic in your mind, right”

“No, nothing is automatic.”

“That’s right. In fact, you will make sure this man gets a fair trial, wouldn’t you.”

“Of course.”

“You’re duty bound under the law to do that, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And if you determine that he is guilty, and I’m not sayin’ he his, but if you find it so, then you can also consider both penalties, that is, life in prison or death, am I right?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Then you can follow the law, right?”

And that is how the other side worked. The magic words. Each attorney worked the crowd, reeling every juror back into the middle when one would actually let known his or her beliefs for or against.

The death qualification lasted three more hours. And bit by bit, the women and minorities were stricken from the jury for cause, as they tended to be against the death penalty, despite efforts by Walls to rehabilitate them…to get them to say otherwise. And since they could not vote for death, they could not serve. They were clearly not qualified.

At 10:02 pm on November 11, in the Circuit Court of Coahoma County, Fred Flowers had a jury of his peers. Eight white males, two black females, one farmer, and one hipster.

Larry Lamb, Sr.

2011-01-02T19:25:00.002-06:00

Was sitting in the new courtroom. 9:00 am and I had 15 sentencings. The Judge was late, and orange jumpsuits cluttered the other side of the courtroom, with one broken down old bailiff as the only protection between me and them. Violent ones with tattoos and big muscles. The stamp “Coahoma County Jail” faded across their backs. I was pissed that my date with my little fourth year med student didn’t go well this past weekend. Worst. Date. Ever. She passed out at the bar within the first hour, and someone’s husband had to take her home. I ended up curbing the rims of my Audi on the pockmarked streets of downtown Jackson after some Caprice Classic pulled out in front of me. I looked out the window to avoid the stares of the jumpsuits. It was raining outside.

The first couple of sentencings were for statutory rape. First was a 19 year old with a 13 year old. The second was 16 with 11. Both were consentual. Both got 20 years and registry as sex offenders. The mommas were falling out in the aisle, doing the African wail. One threw up in the courtroom. The other said she was going to kill the DA. Hey, don’t fuck children. I just sat there, so pissed about my rims. I don’t think it can be buffed out. I needed to give Hankins Body Shop a call.

“Court calls State v. Larry Lamb Sr.”

An old white man with a cane stepped forward. I got the next file off the stack, and walked up to the bench.

“You Larry Lamb, Sr.?”

“Yessir.”

“”You understand you have pled guilty to the sale of Dilaudid and are now standing for sentencing?”

“Yessir.”

“To the State, have you reviewed the pre-sentence investigation report?”

“Yes, Your Honor. It is proper in all respects.”

I quickly flipped to the back of the report.

“I would like the Court to note Mr. Lamb’s four prior felony convictions, all here in Coahoma County. Specifically, Your Honor, I would like the Court to note a conviction in ’74 for burglary, ’77 for Burglary, ’92 for Felon in Possession of a Firearm, and ’00 for three counts of Uttering Forgery. I ask the Court to take these into consideration prior to sentencing.”

I really didn’t care. The old bastard could barely even lean on his cane. The jail didn’t want him, so we had just released him without bond. You don’t want one to die on your in there. Gets messy. I’m surprised he showed back up.

“I see, Mr. Lamb, that you have some military service.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I served in Vietnam.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Well, Your Honor, I was in the Navy, and in 1963 I was deployed to Vietnam on the U.S.S. Kearsarg out of Long Beach, California as a field assistant for the medics.”

“What did you do during the war?”

“Oh, lots of things….I helped set up field hospitals, transported the wounded out of the jungle and base camps. Helped stitch up guys, administer CPR, set up IV’s, just basically help out the doctors.”

“And you received an honorable discharge in 1969?”

“Yes sir.”

“What did you do after the war?”

“Well, I first got addicted to painkillers when I was over there. Then I started breaking into people’s houses to get them, passing bad checks, manufacturing checks, just whatever I had to do to get some drugs. I got caught a few times. I know, Your Honor. I accept responsibility for my actions. I served some time in the ‘70’s. In 1980, enrolled in the Texas School of Medicine, but I only made it two years. Went back to doing drugs.”

“And after that?”

“I came back to Clarksdale. Started drawing disability for some of the chemicals I was exposed to during the war. I don’t know what they were. Had a wife, and my son, Larry Jr. But they’re gone. Doctors told me a few months ago that I had cancer in my spine, and they can’t do nothing about it. Said I’ll be on bed rest in six months. I’ve got about a year.”

His voice quivered at that point. The Judge looked down.

“But I’ll accept whatever sentence you give me, Judge.”

“Let’s take a brief recess. Counsel, I want to see you in my chambers.”

I put my silver fountain pen in my jacket pocket, and followed the public defender into a side room. The Judge sat down and unzipped his robe. Put his elbows on the table.

“Alright Mike, what do you want to do with this guy?”

“Well, Judge, he is a dealer.”

“He sold one pill.”

“It’s a sale charge Judge. He sold within 1500 feet of a school. That’s an enhancement. He can’t get drug court and non-adjudication. Barred by the statute.”

“I know that. David, your thoughts?”

Wilbert Tisdell was a gold-toothed reverend lawyer. Had a Cadillac and thousand dollar suits. Was absolute hell in front of a jury, at least in this jurisdiction. He could play that Uncle Remus routine so well. Oh please don’t throw me in the briar patch, Brier Fox! Before you knew it, you had your ass whipped. I really enjoyed working with him.

“Well, Judge, he’s not a threat. Like Mike said, it’s one pill. I just ask, Your Honor, that he get a lot of probation.”

“DA object to that? You don’t want him to die in my prison, do you?”

“No sir.”

“Good. That’s what we’ll do.”

And we walked back out in the courtroom. Everyone always stares at us, trying to tell from facial expression what kind of deal was reached. I looked at Lamb’s white shoes.

“Why were you selling these pills, Lamb?”

“Well, the VA had given them to me, and I don’t get enough from disability to live on. Not even enough to pay my rent. So I’d sell one or two on the side to cover bills.”

“Alright.”

The Judge slowly leaned back in his overstuffed chair and put his glasses on the desk, as he always did before changing lives.

“The Court sentences you to time served plus ten years of post release supervision in the custody and control of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Five of those years of post release supervision will be supervised. Five will not. You are to report to your probation officer every month. The terms and conditions of your post-release supervision are as follows. You will commit no further offense against the State of Mississippi. You will avoid people and places of disreputable character. You will never again have in your custody any firearm or other deadly weapon as outlined by federal and state statutes. You will report to your probation officer when directed. You will waive extradition from any other state to this state. I am not going to demand that you stay in the State of Mississippi in case you have to go out of state for medical treatment. I order that you pay court costs and the costs of indigent defense. You are fined $1,000 to be paid to the Circuit Clerk of Coahoma County. Mr. Carr, can you think of anything else?”

“There is a crime lab fee of $150.00, Judge.”

The Judge looked over and half glared at me. I just shrugged.

“You are further ordered to pay a crime lab fee of $150.00 for the cost of analysis of the substance. Anything further for this defendant?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“The Court is in recess on this issue. Good luck, Mr. Lamb.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

And Larry Lamb slowly clicked his way out of the courtroom and into the rain.

Chickens

2010-12-19T21:30:00.000-06:00

Poop got Shannon a chicken that day. A big mean-ass one with orange shoulders and a white belly. They called him Poop because he was a Mexican. He only knew Taco Bell spanish, and thought it was funny to screw with the black ladies at the drive through. On Thursday, a one-toothed sharecropper named Slim who worked for Shannon’s daddy (and Shannon’s daddy’s daddy) on the rice farm had mentioned something about a cock fight at Otto’s in Beulah coming up Saturday afternoon. So Shannon told Poop to get him a chicken. A money maker. Poop’s stepdad had a coop out at his house south of Shaw, so Poop, Moody, and Shannon headed over there in Moody’s white Ford Taurus, windows rolled down and Duff Durrough on the radio.

The road from Cleveland to Shaw is flat and straight. Four lane built with stimulus money. You turn past the McDonalds at South Street and 61, and head south. You got Lee Street Liquor and the Country Platter on your right, pass the Sky King Lounge and the old auto garage that they turned into Mt. Bethel Temple of Praise Missionary Baptist Church, and once you pass the Wishy Washy where some years back they found the mayor’s daughter ass up in a Caprice Classic with two members of the East Side football team, well it’s about 7 miles on from there.

Shaw, Mississippi – “A Small Town With a Big Future”, or so the sign read. The stimulus money also encouraged the Board of Supervisors to put in a stop light at the one intersection where Highway 61 runs through the eastern edge, and after about three car wrecks and minor injuries sustained, folks started remembering it was there. Take a right at the old Leadway Grocery Store where the Quongs were shot in the back of the head trying to fill a prescription, go down the bayou a piece, and Poop’s dad’s trailer is to the right.

I had never met Poop’s dad. He wasn’t an illegal from what I understood. Just Mexican. But he loved some damn chickens. Loved them so much he raised his own. Couldn’t just stop and buy them in the store like the rest of us. Just country folk. Shannon heard them squawking as the car bounced up in the dirt drive, the dust settled, and the chickens were a little less pissed off.

“Right around back here,” said Poop.

“Alright. Yeah man, that’s it there. Hop your ass in there and get one.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“You climb your big ass up in there and get one.”

“Man, I’m not going in there with all that shit. Got my good boots on. Go on.”

“You’re a real sonabitch, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Listen Poopaloop, you still owe me.”

“For what?”

“You know what.”

“Ooooh tell me again.”

“That DUI we almost got on the riding lawnmower going down Memorial Drive.”

“I didn’t think it qualified as a ‘motor vehicle’.”

“Well, it does.”

“Did you?”

“Not at the time. Now hop your ass over that fence.”

“Damn gate is locked.”

“Well, find you a feed bucket and hop in there. Yeah, that one in the corner. See that?” He slapped Poop on the back.

“Pick me out a winner Bobby.”

So Poop pulled up a cinder block near the edge of the coop, sat it up on its side, and walked back to Shannon. He took his shirt off.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“You ever tried to catch a chicken?”

“No.”

“Tough.”

“You only catch chickens shirtless?”

“You know what a redneck’s famous last words are?”

“What?”

“Hey ya’ll, watch this.”

And Poop flexed his muscles and got a running start.

Hopped up the cinder block, swung his front leg over the top, and got his shorts caught on a nail. Ripped them clean off.

“Shit!”

“What?!”

“My good drawers.”

“You wear underwear?”

“Aw hell with it.”

Feathers were flying everywhere. Poop jumped out a minute later grinning from ear to ear, in his boxers and his belt, with the rooster by one hind leg.

They all got in Moody’s car to drive back to town. Shannon turned about to say something to Poop in the back seat and stopped mid-sentence. Poop had the rooster hanging upside down by its two hind legs, and was softly blowing in its ass.

“Goddamn man! What in the hell are you doing that for?”

“It calms them down.”

“What?!”

“For real man, I ain’t shitting you.” Blood was running from a scratch down the side of his face. “See, you ain’t never caught no chicken. You don’t know. Look how calm he’s getting. There you go little buddy. There you go….”

And Poop sat back there quietly blowing up the chicken’s ass all the way back to Cleveland. When they got to the Pike dorm, Dan Short was in his room, trying to sleep off the night before. As usual. Poop ran down the hall, slung the chicken in his room, and slammed it shut. The chicken was mad as hell, and it just started going ape shit. You could hear Short hollarin all the way down the hall. Things crashing in the room. After it calmed down a bit and they couldn’t hear no more, Poop creeped up to the door and opened it up. The chicken had a wild-eyed Short cornered up on his top bunk, frantically dialing the Delta State police department trying to explain that he had a deranged chicken in his room that wanted to whoop his ass and could someone please tell his professor that he was gonna be late for Western Civ.

Cheese and Big Lip Chris

2010-12-12T20:30:00.000-06:00

The city of Clarksdale is divided into two sections: Riverton and The Brickyard. The Sunflower River with its brown, infested, slow-moving muddy water flows down the sides of these two neighborhoods, permanently separating them. You drive into Clarksdale, turn off U.S. 61, west on New Africa Road, and it takes you straight in. Kemp and I had done this a thousand times. Normally late.

Through Riverton, parallel to the Sunflower, turn right on Second Street, where a faded mural of Muddy Waters looks at the heavy Chevys parked in front of Corner Grocery. Turn left, at the intersection of Second and Sunflower, before you get to Madidi, and go to 121. City Hall. Clarksdale Police Department is in the basement, and that’s where Doyle and Torrez were leaned up against a cruiser, smoking cigarettes.

Captain Mickey Doyle is the chief of the Narcotics Division. He’s short and cockstrong. Glasses and a mullet. Thick fingers constantly curled around that Marlboro. T-shirt tucked in his Wranglers. Work boots with the steel toe and non-slip sole. Glock .40 on his side, handcuffs on the other.

Corporal Earnesto Torrez is his right hand man in the narcotics division. Tallest Mexican I have ever seen, checking in at about 240. Black moustache and a face that can switch from smile to steel before you look away. He’s one of those quiet Mexicans, that kind that you don’t really know what’s going on in his head just by looking at him. Got a mean open hand slap, coming from the left side cause that’s where they never expect it from. Doesn’t leave bruises like an open fist would. Especially on the darker ones. But that’s what Mickey says. Torrez doesn’t say much.

I consider Doyle and Torrez partners, though its not official. I know they have been thorough some scrapes together, gotten into some tight spots, and covered for each other….once or twice. Doyle told me early on that it’s all about how you write the report. That’s all I needed to know.

Their Chevy 1500 was gunmetal gray, with a big toolbox on the back of it for the ARs and tactical shotguns. Airbrushed license plate on the front that read “ToolBox”, but it wasn’t just a noun. It was a verb. As in “to be toolboxed” or to “get toolboxed”. Upon inquiry, they would just laugh and say it wasn’t something I wanted.

We would go ride through the Brickyard and Riverton, looking for white girls and checking in with people on the street. “Snowbirds” they called them. Nine out of ten were either buying drugs or hooking, you could tell by the type of car they were driving as to what they were into. We’d follow them around looking for some sort of probable cause to make a stop – a missing tail light or no seatbelt. Run their tag and see who it comes back to. Sometimes you would get a little dope, sometimes scales and sandwich bags. We’d just throw it in the backseat, and tell them not to come back to this part of town again.

Delarian Wide would ride with us every once in awhile. He was a short bald man, coal black, with broad shoulders and powerful legs. Like he was made to bust concrete for a living. Whenever the narcotics unit would breach a door, with their body armor and their shields, Wide was always the first one to go in with the fifty pound door knocker. People on the street called him Yak. Always a smile, but slow with a joke, when you put him on the witness stand his silly ass would just rock back and forth in that chair, chew the gum that I already told him to spit out, and answer questions best he could. Sometimes he would make the jury laugh, though he wasn’t trying to. But he was always honest. I don’t think he could come up with a believable lie. You couldn’t help but love the son of a bitch. His investigations were bad, his reports were worse, but goddamn he was fun to be around.

They were the Jump Out Boys. And that’s exactly what they would do. They would show up at a crack house or a whore house without notice in their unmarked truck. Jump out, bust the door, and start cleaning house. Picking up the crack rocks before they could be flushed. Run the 15 year old girls outta there. They didn’t do it for the money. They did it for the respect. And they sure had it. And when I rode around with them on those afternoons when things were a little slow at the DA’s office, I had some of that respect too.

There are two main gangs in Clarksdale: the Vice Lords and the Black Gangster Disciples. They are constantly at war with one another. For every felony case that came through the DA’s office, there were probably five or ten that, while they didn’t go unnoticed, they went undiscussed. And they got handled in the streets rather than in the courtroom, the way god showed us how in the Old Testament.

And that July, a hot dusty day when you could feel the sap rising in the veins of the young bucks walking up and down the streets, looking, eager, blood unnatural, toxic, waiting for something, we had a daylight execution in Riverton

His name was Cheese. He was a Gangster Disciple. More than a soldier, but not yet a boss, Cheese had sold some fake dope to the wrong person. Called it “rabbit food”. It literally was. Just the kind you can buy at Wal-Mart. Green and wrapped in a tight brick. Some of the dope boys, to punk each other and make extra cash, would take the wrapping off, put real marijuana around the outside, and re-wrap it themselves. It still like it, felt like it, and weighed the same. But it wasn’t.

Big Lip Chris didn’t take too well to Cheese selling him rabbit food. And that afternoon, outside of the Walnut Game Room at the corner of Walnut and Adams Alley, in Riverton, Big Lip Chris and a handful of Vice Lords caught Cheese alone, walking back to his momma’s house. Made him get on his knees and shot him in the head with a Taurus .38 in front of four eye witnesses, one of them being Cheese’s momma. Just like that. Big Lip Chris was found a few hours later, hiding in a tote basket in the closet of his cousin’s house. We put him in solitary, with a Bandit on his leg. 50,000 volts with the push of a deputy’s remote. For his own safety. After we hosed him off.

Two nights after the murder, Cheese’s mother had selected to use Century Funeral Home owned by Mayor Espy to lay Cheese’s body in repose.

The visitation lasted for five hours, the line stretching outside of the funeral home, into the cracked and broken parking lot of the Brickyard. The Africans in their dark mourning clothes with hints of color, the women falling on each other’s shoulders covering their faces, sobbing, their bodies in the hot July sun sweating out cocoa butter and Johnson’s baby powder. Fat feet stuffed into too-small church shoes. Just waddling and wailing. The old men with their caps on and best suits. The Gangsters, with their black t-shirts from wal-mart and cheap designer jeans, dark blue tattoos barely visible against the skin of their necks and forearms. Sunglasses and huddled off to the side. Talking. Planning. Not going inside. Watching their backs on this side of town. Staying in groups.

At about ten o’clock that night, after all the singing and crying and praying and telling the world what a child of God that Charles “Cheese” Taylor was…everybody went home. And the body lay still, quiet, undisturbed, and dead.

I was sitting in my backyard, smoking the last cigarette of the day and listening to the cicadas. Mosquitoes buzzing in my ears and popping as they hit the blue bug zapper. Air sweet with honeysuckle and magnolia. Rocking in my chair. Half drunk. Doing nothing. Aggie asleep at my feet, his tail thumping once or twice as I scratched his back with my boot. That was about all he was good for these days. He knocked over my empty PBR cans when he saw a frog.

The scanner clicked on through my screened-in back door. “Clarksdale FD all FD units…..” I grabbed my badge and my keys, and went to 506 Ashton.

The blaze had started from Cheese’s coffin using an accelerant. Maybe Coleman lantern fuel or Zippo lighter fluid, according to the state fire marshall, Borganoni. Nothing explosive, just something to cause a good roast. The body had been burning for about 20 minutes before the Clarksdale Fire Department was able to put it out. There was a five point star in red spray paint on the outer wall, representing the Vice Lord dogma of Love, Truth, Freedom, Peace, and Justice. An upside-down pitchfork was stabbed through the body, the charred handle resting against the wall.

Doyle and Torrez where there, spitting and smoking, excited as hell. Chief had told them to post up on the top of Metropolitan Second Baptist Church with the ARs.

I watched the patrolmen wind yellow crime scene tape around the building as we waited for MBI.

Willie B. Johnson

2010-12-05T18:57:00.002-06:00

I used to be married to a lawyer. She started her own law office right across the street from where I was a slave to the practice of insurance defense. We bought a house two blocks away a year before we were married, and subsequently were often invited to church by the Baptists and the ladies in the Garden Club. We never went. We would walk together to work in the morning. We would walk home together in the evenings. Sometimes we would sneak home and made love during lunch, if the tides were right and she was in the mood. Those raw moments of passion where you come back to work and your hair is matted to your head in the front, birds nest in the back, and you have to lie and say you were napping but your secretary just smiles and knows better. I was happy.

Michelle’s office was on the ground floor of the old Masonic Temple, not a temple in the traditional sense, but rather a three story red brick number built around the turn of the century. Some jackass in the 1940’s elected to stucco the outside in grey concrete and cover all the windows. A communist Moscow feel. Or like the buildings in downtown Jackson. The only way you could tell it was the Masonic temple was due to a faint stencil on the upper right side – a compass with a right angle ruler underneath and an eye in the center, always starting back at you. Inside was faux wood lining on all walls, buckling around the baseboards where the inner brick had crumbled over the years and was creating a pile of masonry behind the walls. There was no air conditioning and no hot water. On Thursday nights when the sole green light underneath the outside awning came on and all the pickup trucks were there, you could hear the men creaking up the back steps, going to do whatever it is that Masons do. They had a piano and bells.

In May, seven people came to see Michelle at this office. Two males and five females. All black. Said they wanted to make a claim on an estate. That their father, Willie B. Johnson, had died a few months ago and they were the rightful heirs to his money. They claimed to all be his children. This posed a problem, because Willie B. Johnson had never been married. In Mississippi, the children of a union are presumed to be the rightful heirs. But when there is no union, in the figurative sense at least, well, the court requires more assurance.

“How long has your father been dead?”

“About two months.” Several answered at once. They looked around, nervous at being in such a formal place. They didn’t look her in the eye. None would sit down. One of the children they brought crawled around on the floor and picked at the bulge in the wall near the corner. Another had a full diaper.

“Do you know if an autopsy was done?” Michelle asked the oldest one, a Ms. O’Hara.

“Say what?”

“Nevermind. Do you know what he died from?”

“The Lord said it was his time.”

Not if his kids wanted his money. Money is always the hardest part of taking a case. You have to make a judgment about how much it is worth. If you get your retainer up front, well, it doesn’t really matter if your clients get a goose egg at the end of the day. You got paid. But ethics require inquiry into these subjects, and some take estates on contingency. Crap shoot. What if the estate turns out only to be a doublewide and a beat up Chevrolet? Often the case. And you don’t need that if your life. Especially with seven new heirs.

“Do you know what size of an estate your father had?”

“He had a habitat house and a real clean ’95 Coop de Ville with rims.”

“Any other assets? Bank accounts, real property, stocks, anything like that? ”

Ms. O’Hara looked down. Black folks don’t like talking money with white people. And understandably so. Three centuries of mistrust, lying, stealing from each other every chance they get – just to get even or get ahead – and I’m talking about the whites and the blacks here - has never made for, um, unified business relations. We’re not like the Italians or Jews. Or the Asians. There has never been any common cause to bring us together. No sense of family. No mutual struggle. No war. No genocide or internment camps. Not even mutual poverty here in the Delta has created a flag for both colors to rally around. It’s simple. The rich whites have the money which separates them from the blacks. They don’t even have to think about that world. And as for the poor whites, well many of them believe, without ever saying it, that they may be poor, but at least they ain’t black.

After some thought about disclosure and risking trust, Ms. O’Hara answered Michelle’s question.

“About fifteen years ago, our father worked on the Pearson plantation as a cotton ginner. He was a very strong man, our father Lord bless him, and his job was to lift the hundred pound bales of cotton and throw them into the gin to get the seeds and stalks out. One day, he was throwing bales, and as he threw one, his shirt sleeve got caught on some of the bailing wire. Pulled his arm into the blades. The machine cut it off to his elbow before he was able to yank it back out.”

I watched the faces of the others in reaction to this story. Six were looking at the floor, some shaking their heads in memory of their father’s lost arm. The babies were beginning to pull books off the bottom two shelves. The room was starting to stink like diaper. Ms. O’Hara continued.

“They put our father in the bed of a pickup and drove him in to Cleveland, arm wrapped in an old towel or something. Bleeding everywhere. Boss told him to sit in the back rather than the cab so they could wash it all out with a water hose later. Like he did after deer hunting. He said he didn’t want nigger blood on his floormats. Cause I talked to Roosevelt one time, you know Roosevelt who used to work out there? They call him Left Eye, and Roosevelt told me that the boss said it just like that.”

Michelle glanced at me quickly for help. I turned away and became interested in one of her certificates on the wall. It was her rainmaking if she wanted it.

“While he was there, one of the nurses at the hospital suggested he call a lawyer and see if he could get him some money for his arm. So she looked in the yellow pages for him, called up one of these lawyers for people who get hurt, and that lawyer came to see him at the hospital that very day. Three months later, he got him a check right at $40,000. I think the lawyer got some of the money for fees and all, but yeah, $40,000. And he didn’t even have to go to court! I know he still got some of that money somewheres.”

“Where is he buried?”

“Symonds.”

“Do you know where his grave is?”

“Ain’t but about fifteen twenty out there. His is the new one.”

“If you want to claim heirship in this estate, we are going to have to move the court to get a DNA sample.”

“How you do that?”

So Michelle hit her with it.

“We have to exhume him and extract a piece of tissue.”

“He wadn’t buried with no tissues.”

“Ma’m, we’re going to have to get something from him to test to see if all of you are really blood kin.”

“You mean dig him up?”

“Yes. I mean dig him up.”

All of them looked at each other and didn’t say a thing. They could tell Michelle wasn’t joking. She never joked. I hated that about her. Yet while the idea of digging up their father clearly bothered these folks, it wasn’t enough to prevent all of them coming back the next day. To sign “papers.”

On May 27^th, 2007, at 9:33 am, Quanticia Cooper, Ketomesha Dye, Shaniya Johnson, Zyandria Fairfield, Jasmine O’Hara, Martavious Coffey, and Derrick Carter all moved the Chancery Court of the Second Judicial District of Bolivar County, by and through their attorney, to reopen the estate of Willie B. Johnson as claimants and rightful heirs. They paid Michelle’s retainer, signed the necessary contractual paperwork, and I swabbed each of their mouths with a q-tip. The q-tips were placed in separate ziplock bags, each marked with masking tape around the center and initialed as well as the names on the outside of the bag in permanent marker. Michelle put the sacks of q-tips in her mini-fridge, next to her apples and yogurt.

It was mid-June before we dug him up. We had to fight with the alleged rightful heir to his entire estate, some old crackhead woman Mr. Johnson was living with when he died. Inez Johnson (unmarried - no relation), with her prune face and bony shoulders, head wrapped in a colorful stocking, sat in the subtropical temperature of the chambers. Her street name was “Peaches”.

On that Thursday, we explained to the Judge that seven claimants have come forward on the estate and we were moving to exhume the body. Once it was explained what that term meant and what we intended to do, Inez was not supportive of this proposition. Doing the African wail and crying out to her god with hands in the hair, she fell out in her chair and had to be fanned by family members. Once they managed to get a pinch of snuff in her upper lip and whispered a psalm for strength, Peaches rallied and went on and on to the judge about how Willie’s soul will never rest if these other lawyers try to dig him up. And, of course, Peaches quoted the requisite scripture.

“Judge, you just don’t understand. You can’t dig up this man. The Lord say in Ecclesiastes 12:7 ‘then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.’”

Chancellor Willard leaned back in his chair and smiled above his glasses. He was a silver-haired southern gentleman if any existed. Deep baritone voice, 6’5 with his boots on, and had a wingspan so wide that when he did closing arguments, it looked like he could pick up an entire jury and hold them to his chest. And, as most southern judges who have to stand for election every four years, Willard was also a God-fearing man, thus well-versed himself. He responded in kind.

“Miss, I do understand. I don’t like the idea of digging up a resting body any more than you do. But, if these are in fact his children, then they have a right to their share of his estate. Remember, the Lord also says in Luke 20:36, ‘Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God.’ Willie is gone from this world. He can die no more.”

Peaches was stone-faced.

“Ms. Johnson, before I went to law school, I worked in a funeral home. I was alone with bodies of the deceased until late in the night, surrounded by them. And it made me scared. Sometimes, when the ambulance would bring a body in to the home, it would still have air in its lungs. You’d be sitting there, in the middle of the night, couple hours after that body was brought it, putting makeup on a lady’s face, and that air would escape out of those lungs and make a deep moan. Just uuuuuuhhhh. Like that. The first time that happened to me, and I dropped what I was doing and tore outta there like the place was on fire and my rear end was catchin’. You hear me now? I told my boss I thought some of them folks were still alive they way they sounded and all. He said to me he said, ‘Son, the dead can never hurt you, but they’ll sure make you hurt yourself.’ Do you understand what I mean?

Peaches didn’t.

“For the benefit of the possible heirs of Mr. Willie B. Johnson, the motion is granted.”

Symonds is near the center of Bolivar County, just north of number 8 highway. Population about two hundred. Eighty-seven percent black. Fifty percent of children live with their grandparents. The men with their brown paper sacks and hats turned back stand on the corner of Goon’s Grocery, one of the many old dilapidated chinamen stores scattered throughout these small Delta towns, reminders of how the imported Chinese said hell with this sharecropping shit.

On our way out to Symonds, we had picked up the pathologist from Bolivar County Medical Center, Dr. Wahida Jalal. She was of some type of middle-eastern descent. Maybe a Pakistani or Lebanese. Short woman, with long wild raven hair and smoky eyes behind her glasses. Aqua scrubs that fit nicely on her hips. Deep red lipstick, a box of rubber gloves, flashlight and a clipboard.

The three of us took the twenty minute drive and met Michelle’s clients standing in the sun by the backhoe at the only graveyard. They had brought extended family. The Mt. Vernon Pleasant Hill Cemetery was like most other black graveyards I had been to – the assorted plots all pockmarked where the poor had been buried in pine boxes and the ground sunk in as they decayed. Like a big green waffle surrounded with a wrought iron fence.

Mr. Johnson’s grave was the nicest in the yard, and as Ms. O’Hara mentioned, the most recent. A few weeds had grown on the top of the dirt pile. Plastic roses and wreathes left by loved ones were still there, though weathered by the June sun. Someone had even left a commemorative photo of Johnson in his three-piece lavender church suit. The polished granite headstone read:

William Baruch Johnson

April 1, 1944 – February 15, 2007

His true wealth was in his generous heart.

And what endless wealth he did have.

The diesel engine of the backhoe roared, and black smoke puffed from the exhaust. I walked under a shade tree and wiped my face with my pocket handkerchief, already sweating through my suit. The air was heavy and fragrant. No wind. The sound of the machinery drew the people from their houses. Just small herds of them coming out into the graveyard from behind abandoned buildings or farm equipment. First the women and children in front. The men came separately behind them. Less men than anything. All keeping their distance from Michelle and me. Watching. Wondering why these two white people were here, dressed in suits with some piece of paper in hand and digging in their graveyard. What do they want to take now? Cars with bad shocks and audibly worn fan belts slowed down on the gravel road that ran along the front of the cemetery as little children crawling in the backseat like ants pressed their noses to their windows. Caprice Classics and Crown Vics. A couple of Cadillacs. Dust swirling around all of them. Some parked and just sat. I could hear the thump of their music. The occasional bottle would turn up. Some smoked. And watched.

It took about fifteen minutes to get down to the vault. The backhoe left a deep scrape across the top from one of the teeth in the bucket. Some locals we hired cleaned around the edges with shovels, ran tow straps through the handles in the sides, and lifted it up. Shirtless Africans. Sweaty. Cussing. Arms made of rebar and wire veins. Struggling to raise the dead. The vault came to ground level, covered in mud on all sides, and finally rested somewhat unsteadily to the left on a mound of fresh black dirt. Per our instruction, the locals popped open the six steel clasps around the edges, and lifted the top of the vault off to reveal the coffin. The herds inched in closer, whispering to each other momentarily Then they stepped back out of respect or superstition.

Willie’s coffin was nickel and chrome, with hints of light blue. The edges and center were exquisitely ornamented in ivy and fleur de lis.

Dr. Jalal went to work, straddling over the head of the coffin and beginning to unlatch the left side. Her black hair brushed over the nickel and chrome, the tips dancing and swirling over the top making a design in the dust as a paintbrush would. She worked to get the latch free. Sweat glistened in the small of her well tanned back. She flipped her hair over her ear and shot a glance for assistance to the nearest worker leaned up against a shovel. He shook his head at the ground and took a step back.

“Here.”

I took off my coat, handed it to Michelle, and rolled up the sleeves on my white shirt. I popped open the right side while the good doctor worked on the left, and together we removed the lid of the coffin. Michelle walked back over to the shade tree.

For being almost four months dead, Willie didn’t look that bad. His skin had stretched tight, revealing a permanent smile. No teeth. Only gums. The eyeballs had fallen in, making his closed lids flat. The casket was lined in crushed purple velvet. Matched Willie’s church suit.

“Shit.” The doctor stopped what she was doing and sprang right up, still straddling Willie.

“What’s the matter?”

She searched the ground around the lid, near her box of rubber gloves and flashlight. She looked under the lit of the casket on the ground.

“I forgot my tools.”

“Forgot your tools?”

“Yeah. Shit.” She put her hands on her hips and looked into the crowd.

What do you want to do?”

“You got a pair of pliers?”

“A what?”

“Pliers? Does anyone here have a pair of pliers?”

I heard a shovel hit the ground behind me. I turned. An old man was walking back to his Datsun. He rummaged in the toolbox, found what he was looking for, and slowly walked back to the scene with a pair of vice grips.

“Dere go ma’m.” He handed them to the doctor, and retreated a few steps back to his people. Putting his hands in the pockets of his dirty overalls, he waited. The doctor snapped on two pairs of rubber gloves, and straddled the coffin again. Gently placing one hand under the back of Willie’s neck and the other on his forehead, she tilted his face to the sky. The smile was even bigger as his skin pulled tight. With her thumb and index finger, she spread open his mouth. He didn’t have any teeth.

“Grab that flashlight and shine it in here.”

I brushed the dirt off the light and clicked it on.

“Right down here. Yeah. To the back of his throat. I think I see a molar.”

Willie’s tongue had disintegrated, closing his esophagus and trachea. In the dim light, I could see two grey molars remained, one on each side of his lower jaw. The one on the left had a golden filling. The doctor adjusted the vice grips, narrowed them down, and slid the device to the back of his throat. After a moment, feeling skin on metal until the metal hit tooth, she locked them down and wiggled. Pushed. Pulled. A drop of sweat dripped down the tip of her nose as she worked. It fell on Willie’s face and rolled down what was left of his cheek.

With a quick snap of the wrist and a small pop, the vice grips came free. The gold filling shined in the sun as she held it in the air. A bit of flesh dangled from the roots.

The doctor also forgot to bring plastic bags.

“Here, take a glove and open up the bottom. I’ll drop it in a finger. No, no, blow it up first so it will fall straight to the bottom.”

I took the rubber glove, held the base to my mouth and inflated it like a balloon. Stretching out the open end, Dr. Jalal neatly placed the tooth inside. It rolled into the middle finger.

“Tie up the end of this and don’t let too much air in. I’ve got to fix his head.”

And with that, she leaned down over the casket for the last time, placing one hand under his neck, the other on the forehead, and leaned the head front and center back to its original position. Jalal pinched his mouth back shut, stripped off her gloves, and wiped her sweaty palms on the hips of her scrubs.

“All done. You can put him back now.”

We put the silver lid over Willie and clamped down the sides. The Africans did the rest of the work, reclosing the scarred vault and gently lowering the body back into the earth with the tow straps. The diesel engine roared again, and we walked to our car. Once Michelle heard the backhoe, she left her safe spot under the tree and joined us.

No one else was leaving. Not her clients. Not Peaches. Not the locals. All just stood silently, watching the machine rebury their dead. I felt like I should say something. That the show was over, or that he was finally resting, just something to ease the tension of what we had just done. I stopped and turned back to them, but as I did Michelle slid her fingers into mine and looked up at me. I realized for the first time in awhile that she was there. Her eyes were deep and green, and they smiled at me. She could tell I was nervous. That I wanted to make it better. It’s ok. Just let them be. So I continued on to the car, Willie’s tooth in one hand, my friend in the other.

I sat the rubber glove on my lap and started the Corolla.

“So, doctor, will you be sending this to the lab?”

“Nah. Just stick it in a Fed Ex envelope and mail it to that address I gave you in New Orleans.”

“You serious? I mean, don’t I have to write biohazard or something on the outside of it?”

“Nope. It’s just a tooth. It’s not gonna hurt anybody. I do it like that all the time. These folks don’t have a clue what they are delivering.”

And that was it. We dropped off Dr. Jalal at the hospital, paid her and thanked her, and headed to Michelle’s office. I got a flat mailing envelope and slid the tooth-filled rubber glove inside along with the seven plastic bags of q-tips. Michelle typed a quick cover letter, enclosed a check for the requisite testing fee, and we dropped it at the corner mailbox on our walk home.

In October, as the leaves were beginning to turn red and hickory smoke and football were in the air, Michelle got a package from New Orleans. Complete with the test results, a small grey molar with a golden filling rattled in the bottom. I picked it up and shook it like a prize in a cereal box. She didn’t laugh.

Delta Fourth of July

2010-11-28T10:56:00.005-06:00

You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.

~Robert Frost

I get a message from Tommy before noon and in his Delta gourmet language tells me he's put on a shitload of ribs, come over & have some. Coming back from Kroger, I see him at his shop where he makes security doors & he tells me Carme’s gonna do the baked beans with black molasses, coleslaw, and something with cool whip for dessert. Since the wife left, I might as well.

Aggie's too damn old & nervous to ride shotgun anymore, plus I hate having to lift him up in the back of the Trooper. I can feel him whimpering with, well, pain, gratitude, what I guess would be embarrassment (if they can get embarrassed), not being able to do the things he used to. Like jump in the truck. Or fetch. Or have sex. I know what he means. I used to do all those things too. But that was before she left. So I rubbed him on his black head and scratched his behind his years like he likes it, he looked up and understood. Left him and went west with a 6 pack of Busch fence posts and a quart of the homemade figs Wilson & I put together. It's hot, blue sky, and the fat clouds sit still.

The buildings got smaller, the pavement changed from four lanes to two to gravel. The rows of cotton and beans on both sides looked like running spiders trying to keep up with me. Maybe running squid or whatever the plural of running octopus is. Met up with Tommy out at Mound City where he lives on Dick Shelby’s land. Greeted by a bunch of bastard dogs. Barking and biting each other’s ears. The sweet hickory smoke makes a grey haze in the still air. Go to the source round back by the shed. Tommy’s got his boots and an XXL shirt to cover his whiskey gut. Hat with some chemical company’s label on it. Gray hair sticking out over his ears. White Styrofoam cup of Segram’s 7 and Coke, double cupped with crushed ice like the kind you get from the Sonic. Tommy’s just eased back in his broke down Dodge, door open, listening to The Band and watching the ribs. As if that’s going to make a difference. One leg out on the ground. Resting the cup on his belly.

“Where you ‘won go?”

“Hell man, I don’t care. Head west I guess.”

“Hold on, lemme make sure my drink’s too strong. Ah.” And smacked his fat lips.

“Yep, let’s go.”

The levee is highest point in the Delta where you can still drive, and when you are ridin’ proper on a state or federal holiday, or just a weekend, that’s where you go. Just winding around the oxbows, cows, and fishing shacks. Watching the boats on the water when the woods broke. Slops down about a hundred feet on your right with more cotton fields, rice, and beans. An occasional sharecropper shack with a sodium light and broke down cars in the yard. Rusty old farm equipment. Tractor parts. Yell at the cows. Laugh when you see them shit. Dust swirling behind us, coming around the side of the truck and making the sides of my mouth gritty. Don’t have to say a thing. Just ride. Just ride. Turn up a good song when it comes on. Give a two finger wave and a smile to the people you pass. Keep your speed low. Keep your drink low. Aviators on. Watch your left arm turn red. Hit a washboard and Tommy got beer crack. Whiskey crack. Cussin and spittin. Not that he was wet. Lost some of his drink.

Big Ford pickup full of black folk pass us fast hauling a boat. About a hundred yards ahead, the trailer throws a wheel and one of them is running down the levee chasing it. They forgot to grease the bearings, the axel is shot. We stop. Can't help. They were just looking for a place to put in. Wanted to boat on the lake with the rednecks. They were laughing & drinking.

We ride on back to Tommy’s shack at Mound City. Backroads all the way home. Swing through Gunnison, Malvina, back out toward the Bogue Philia. Sit out by his metal barn under the shade tree with the shop fan rattling keeping the bugs off. Mosquito spray sweats down my eyes and burns. Later the kids come in from the lake, sunburnt, barefoot and happy. We eat, tell lies. Talk about women we used to know. Watch the kids run around. Drink some more. Hours pass. Clouds still not moving. They pack me up a bunch of food when I'm ready to go, including a shitload of ribs.

At 10 pm the scanner kicks on, EOC calling for members, a boat is stranded on the river. Some country boy with a belly full of Bud I'm sure. Bought beer. Forgot gas. They have to put in at Log Loader in Rosedale instead of Terrene Landing because the river is so low, go up the chute and out towards the White River inlet, just north of Terrene & across on the Arkansas side. I had canoed the White further upriver where the Buffalo River comes into it years ago, when I was a younger man. I mix the last one of the day, and sip it slowly with Aggie at my feet in the backyard. Just us. Sittin in the dark.

Scanner kicks in again: A mobile home is on fire south of Rosedale on Hwy 1.

Riverrat

2010-11-23T11:58:00.003-06:00

The only real, independent & genuine gentlemen in the world go quietly up and down the Mississippi river, asking no homage of any one, seeking no popularity, no notoriety, & not caring a damn whether school keeps or not.

-Mark Twain in a letter to Will Bowen, 8/25/1866

The other side of the levee. The land the law forgot, or perhaps felt just wasn’t worth noticing. Thousands of acres of subtropical forest and rich ebony soil, filling the gap between the Great River and the Depression-era levee protecting us from it. Stretching from the bluffs of Memphis to the gates of Vicksburg, the other side is fit only to sustain the likes of reptiles, insects, and riverrats. Once inhabited by Choctaws, glorified by Finn, mystified by Johnson, always plagued with the likes of Rafer Haydock.

The 80’s model Ford pickup rattled to a halt under the camouflage of a water oak enveloped in a cloud of kudzu, and all was still. Heat like he remembered in ‘Nam. Crickets. Blue smoke curled its way back into the open window of the cab. Always made him dizzy. Rafer put in a dip to steady himself, the stray grains swirling past his molars and sliding down his throat as the rush of new salvia welcomed the tobacco. Fresh Cope always satisfies. The truck door painfully creaked as it was opened, piercing the humidity that is a Mississippi Delta July. He lifted it slightly in closing, resting the door on the frame of the truck after he stealthily slid out. The required slam would have blown his cover. Other riverrats are always about.

Rafer walked to his crop, again taking a different path as to not trample the same johnson grass. Daytime mosquitoes buzzed around his head. He spat. The juice ran down into his beard, mixing with black grime that ringed his neck like the stump of a cut tree. Or a coon.

It would be a good crop this year if the goddamn armadillos would quit cutting through the root bases digging their goddamn tunnels, he thought. The recent rains and the natural greenhouse of the thick forest had put the plants above his head. Rafer snapped off the top of a stalk and inhaled deeply. Its sticky sweet incense gloriously filled his hairy gray nostrils. He sucked on the stem for a moment, and spat again. With the fluidity and coordination that only a sharecropper’s son can have, his hands quickly plucked the largest and most richly colored leaves from the dozen or so plants and stuffed them in his threadbare overalls. The green ends poked out like money. Another padded path on his return. He took the picked pieces from his pockets and fanned them out in the bottom of the ever-present Johnson boat in the bed of the truck, the already scorching aluminum surface a natural oven to dry the leaves. They could be touched but not touching. These deliveries alone will make $50. Money to pay back his wife. Or money to go to Tunica. Definitely Tunica. Hell, it was more fun than her anyway. The billboards say they have the loosest slots around.

A plane roared low overhead. Shit. He instinctively disappeared into the kudzu cloud, a spotlighted coyote dashing after the first rifle shot. There weren’t cropdusters this side of the levee, and a mosquito sprayer would be a waste of time. Maybe this one didn’t have the technology on board. Maybe it did not see the heat of his farm. Or the heat of him. Maybe he didn’t care any more.

The drone died, and Rafer cast his cane pole for awhile. Just on the edge of the bank, the sweet gumbo mud warm between his toes. Pants rolled up knee-high. Watching the orange jig bounce in the coffee-colored water, his mind wandered to the farm his father left him in Washington County. Maybe he should build a shack out there. On stilts in case the Bogue Philia flooded. Yeah, with a wrap around porch. He could swap some carp for some of that tin that old field black Roosevelt had. Call it the Love Shack. He jerked his line up, and skillfully tossed it over in a bubbling section where the something was spawning. Pulled up one, two, three, four. He was running out of bologna. Maybe check the nets in the Blue Hole later. Keep the spoonbill. Throw out the gar and the soft shell turtles. Those don’t sell well at Po’Monkeys.

As the sun died down and the woods got louder, Rafter went back to the boat to gather his harvest although it was still not dry. He stuffed equal amounts in envelopes, addressed them to the special houses on his route, and the truck coughed to life on the third try. Rising from the steam of the fragrant swamplands, the pickup ambled its way along the gravel path to the top of the levee. Take a right to run the route in Rosedale. He put his left arm on the windowsill, which was of course much tanner than the right, and placed the yellow blinking light on the hood of the vehicle. Strapping on his navy hat and stuffing his newly-made letters into the mail bag riding shotgun, he drove on to his day job, the Delta sun blurring his vision as it radiated up from the road.