Blues for Mister Charlie (10 page)

BLACKTOWN
: Man, that’s the southern white lady you supposed to be willing to risk death for!

WHITETOWN
: You know, this is a kind of hanging in reverse? Niggers out here to watch us being hanged!

THE STATE
: What is your relationship to the accused?

JO
: I am his wife.

THE STATE
: Will you please tell us, in your own words, of your first meeting with the deceased, Richard Henry?

WHITETOWN
: Don’t be afraid. Just tell the truth.

BLACKTOWN
: Here we go—down the river!

JO
: Well, I was in the store, sitting at the counter, and pretty soon this colored boy come in, loud, and talking in just the most awful way. I didn’t recognize him, I just knew he wasn’t one of
our
colored people. His language was something awful, awful!

THE STATE
: He was insulting? Was he insulting, Mrs. Britten?

JO
: He said all kinds of things, dirty things, like—well—just like I might have been a colored girl, that’s what it sounded like to me. Just like some little colored girl he might have met on a street corner and wanted—wanted to—for a night! And I was scared. I hadn’t seen a colored boy act like him before. He acted like he was drunk or crazy or maybe he was under the influence of that dope. I never knew nobody to be
drunk
and act like him. His eyes was just going and he acted like he had a fire in his belly. But I tried to be calm because I didn’t want to upset Lyle, you know—Lyle’s mighty quick-tempered—and he was working in the back of the store, he was hammering—

THE STATE
: Go on, Mrs. Britten. What happened then?

JO
: Well, he—that boy—wanted to buy him two Cokes because he had a friend outside—

THE STATE
: He brought a friend? He did not come there alone? Did this other boy enter the store?

JO
: No, not then he didn’t—I—

BLACKTOWN
: Come on, bitch. We
know
what you going to say. Get it over with.

JO
: I—I give him the two Cokes, and he—tried to grab my hands and pull me to him, and—I—I—he pushed himself up against me, real close and hard—and, oh, he was just like an animal, I could—smell him! And he tried to kiss me, he kept whispering these awful, filthy things and I got scared, I yelled for Lyle! Then Lyle come running out of the back—and when the boy seen I wasn’t alone in the store, he yelled for this other boy outside and this other boy come rushing in and they both jumped on Lyle and knocked him down.

THE STATE
: What made you decide not to report this incident—this unprovoked assault—to the proper authorities, Mrs. Britten?

JO
: We’ve had so much trouble in this town!

THE STATE
: What sort of trouble, Mrs. Britten?

JO
: Why, with the colored people! We’ve got all these northern agitators coming through here all the time, and stirring them up so that you can’t hardly sleep nights!

THE STATE
: Then you, as a responsible citizen of this town, were doing your best to keep down trouble? Even though you had
been so brutally assaulted by a deranged northern Negro dope addict?

JO
: Yes. I didn’t want to stir up no more trouble. I
made
Lyle keep quiet about it. I thought it would all blow over. I knew the boy’s Daddy was a preacher and that he would talk to the boy about the way he was behaving. It was all over town in a second, anyway! And look like all the colored people was on the side of that crazy boy. And Lyle’s always been real good to colored people!

THE STATE
: On the evening that the alleged crime was committed—or, rather, the morning—very early on the morning of the 24th of August—where were you and your husband, Mrs. Britten?

JO
: We were home. The next day we heard that the boy was missing.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: Doesn’t an attempt at sexual assault seem a rather strange thing to do, considering that your store is a public place, with people continually going in and out; that, furthermore, it is located on a public road which people use, on foot and in automobiles, all of the time; and considering that your husband, who has the reputation of being a violent man, and who is, in your own words, “mighty quick tempered,” was working in the back room?

JO
: He didn’t know Lyle was back there.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: But he knew that someone was back there, for, according to your testimony, “He was hammering.”

JO
: Well, I told you the boy was crazy. He had to be crazy. Or he was on that dope.

BLACKTOWN
: You ever hear of a junkie trying to rape anybody?

JO
:
I didn’t say rape!

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: Were you struggling in Mr. Henry’s arms when your husband came out of the back room, carrying his hammer in his hand?

JO
: No. I was free then.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: Therefore, your husband had only
your
word for the alleged attempted assault!
You
told him that Richard Henry had attempted to assault you? Had made sexual advances to you? Please answer, Mrs. Britten!

JO
: Yes. I had—I had to—tell him. I’m his wife!

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: And a most loyal one. You told your husband that Richard Henry had attempted to assault you and then begged him to do nothing about it?

JO
: That’s right.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: And though he was under the impression that his wife had been nearly raped by a Negro, he agreed to forgive and forget and do nothing about it? He agreed neither to call the law, nor to take the law into his own hands?

JO
: Yes.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: Extraordinary. Mrs. Britten, you are aware that Richard Henry met his death sometime between the hours of two and five o’clock on the morning of Monday, August 24th?

JO
: Yes.

COUNSEL FOR THE BEREAVED
: In an earlier statement, several months ago, you stated that your husband had spent that night at the store. You now state that he came in before one o’clock and went to sleep at once. What accounts for this discrepancy?

JO
: It’s natural. I made a mistake about the time. I got it mixed up with another night. He spent so many nights at that store!

JUDGE
: The witness may step down.

CLERK
(Calls)
: Mr. Joel Davis!

LYLE
: Why’d you run down there this morning, shooting your mouth off about me and Willa Mae? Why? You been bringing her up here and taking her back all this time, what got into you this morning? Huh? You jealous, old man? Why you come running back here to tell me everything he said? To tell me how he cursed me out? Have you lost your mind? And we been knowing each other all this time. I don’t understand you. She ain’t the only girl you done brought here for me. Nigger, do you hear me talking to you?

PAPA D.
: I didn’t think you’d shoot him, Mr. Lyle.

LYLE
: I’ll shoot any nigger talks to me like that. It was self defense, you hear me? He come in here and tried to kill me. You hear me?

PAPA D.
: Yes. Yes sir. I hear you, Mr. Lyle.

LYLE
: That’s right. You don’t say the right thing, nigger, I’ll blow your brains out, too.

PAPA D.
: Yes sir, Mr. Lyle.

WHITETOWN
: He’s worked hard and saved his money and ain’t never had no trouble—why can’t they all be like that?

BLACKTOWN
: Hey, Papa D.! You can’t be walking around here without no handkerchief! You might catch cold—after all
these
years!

PAPA D.
: Mr. Lyle Britten—he is an
oppressor.
That is the only word for that man. He ain’t never give the colored man no kind of chance. I have tried to reason with that man for
years.
I say, Mr. Lyle, look around you. Don’t you see that most
white folks have changed their way of thinking about us colored folks? I say, Mr. Lyle, we ain’t slaves no more and white folks is ready to let us have our chance. Now, why don’t you just come on up to where
most
of your people are? and we can make the South a fine place for all of us to live in. That’s what I say—and I tried to keep him from being so
hard
on the colored—because I sure do love my people. And I was the closest thing to Mr. Lyle, couldn’t nobody else reason with him. But he was
hard—
hard and stubborn. He say, “My folks lived and died this way, and this is the way I’m going to live and die.” When he was like that couldn’t do nothing with him. I know. I’ve known him since he was born.

WHITETOWN
: He’s always been real good to you. You were friends!

BLACKTOWN
: You loved him! Tell the truth, mother—tell the truth!

PAPA D.
: Yes, we were friends. And, yes, I loved him—in my way. Just like he loved me—in his way.

BLACKTOWN
: You knew he was going to kill that boy—didn’t you? If you knew it, why didn’t you stop him?

PAPA D.
: Oh. Ain’t none of this easy. What it was, both Mr. Lyle Britten and me, we both love money. And I did a whole lot of things for him, for a long while. Once I had to help him cover up a killing—colored man—I was in too deep myself by that time—you understand? I know you all understand.

BLACKTOWN
: Did he kill that boy?

PAPA D.
: He come into my joint the night that boy died. The boy was alone, standing at the juke box. We’d been talking—
(Richard, in the juke box light)
If you think you’ve found all that, Richard—if you think you going to be well now, and you found you somebody who loves you—well, then, I would make tracks out of here. I would—

RICHARD
: It’s funny, Papa D. I feel like I’m beginning to understand my life—for the first time. I can look back—and it doesn’t hurt me like it used to. I want to get Juanita out of here. This is no place for her. They’re going to kill her—if she stays here!

PAPA D.
: You talk to Juanita about this yet?

RICHARD
: No. I haven’t talked to nobody about it yet. I just decided it. I guess I’m deciding it now. That’s why I’m talking about it now—to you—to see if you’ll laugh at me. Do you think she’ll laugh at me?

PAPA D.
: No. She won’t laugh.

RICHARD
: I know I can do it. I know I can do it!

PAPA D.
: That boy had good sense. He was wild, but he had good sense. And I couldn’t blame him too much for being so wild, it seemed to me I knew how he felt.

RICHARD
: Papa D., I been in pain and darkness all my life. All my life. And this is the first time in my life I’ve ever felt—maybe it isn’t all like that. Maybe there’s more to it than that.

PAPA D.
: Lyle Britten come to the door—
(Lyle enters)
He come to the door and he say—

LYLE
: You ready for me now, boy? Howdy, Papa D.

PAPA D.
: Howdy, Mr. Lyle, how’s the world been treating you?

LYLE
: I can’t complain. You ready, boy?

RICHARD
: No. I ain’t ready. I got a record to play and a drink to finish.

LYLE
: You about ready to close, ain’t you, Joel?

PAPA D.
: Just about, Mr. Lyle.

RICHARD
: I got a record to play.
(Drops coin: juke box music, loud)
And a drink to finish.

PAPA D.
: He played his record. Lyle Britten never moved from the door. And they just stood there, the two of them, looking at each other. When the record was just about over, the boy come to the bar—he swallowed down the last of his drink.

RICHARD
: What do I owe you, Papa D.?

PAPA D.
: Oh, you pay me tomorrow. I’m closed now.

RICHARD
: What do I owe you, Papa D.? I’m not sure I can pay you tomorrow.

PAPA D.
: Give me two dollars.

RICHARD
: Here you go. Good night, Papa D. I’m ready, Charlie.
(Exits.)

PAPA D.
: Good night, Richard. Go on home now. Good night, Mr. Lyle. Mr. Lyle!

LYLE
: Good night, Joel. You get you some sleep, you hear?

PAPA D.
: Mr. Lyle! Richard! And I never saw that boy again. Lyle killed him. He killed him. I know it, just like I know I’m sitting in this chair. Just like he shot Old Bill and wasn’t nothing never, never, never done about it!

JUDGE
: The witness may step down.

CLERK
(Calls)
: Mr. Lorenzo Shannon!

PETE
(Stammering)
: Lorenzo? Lorenzo. I was dreaming—dreaming—dreaming. I was back in that courtyard and Big Jim Byrd’s boys was beating us and beating us and beating us—and Big Jim Byrd was laughing. And Anna Mae Taylor
was on her knees, she was trying to pray. She say, “Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord, come and help us,” and they kept beating on her and beating on her and I saw the blood coming down her neck and they put the prods to her, and, oh, Lorenzo! people was just running around, just crying and moaning and you look to the right and you see somebody go down and you look to the left and you see somebody go down and they was kicking that woman, and I say, “That woman’s going to have a baby, don’t you kick that woman!” and they say, “No, she ain’t going to have no baby,” and they knocked me down and they got that prod up between my legs and they say, “You ain’t going to be having no babies, neither, nigger!” And then they put that prod to my head—ah!
ah!—
to my
head!
Lorenzo! I can’t see right! What have they done to my head? Lorenzo! Lorenzo, am I going to die? Lorenzo—they going to kill us all, ain’t they? They mean to kill us all—

LORENZO
: Be quiet. Be quiet. They going to come and beat us some more if you don’t be quiet.

PETE
: Where’s Juanita? Did they get Juanita?

LORENZO
: I believe Juanita’s all right. Go to sleep, Pete. Go to sleep. I won’t let you dream. I’ll hold you.