One Mississippi (36 page)

Instantly I saw two possible answers. One was my new friend, the absolute truth. Mr. Beecham blundered out of his closet with the radio too loud. He died crossing the hall to say hello to me.

I found myself telling my first lie since I promised myself not to lie anymore, just a few hours ago. I told her that Lincoln Beecham ran toward the gym at the first sound of gunfire. He died trying to save Arnita.

“I knew it,” she said. “I just needed to be sure.” She reached out her hand to touch my shoulder, but decided against it and folded her hands. “Musgrove.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Beecham. It’s all my fault.”

“Not all,” she said. Then turned and walked away.

Minor Boy Kills 4, Self In Assault At School

By Thomas Noyer

Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer

An 18-year-old Minor High senior shot five classmates and teachers at the school Friday before turning his gun on himself.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, law enforcement officials said. Minor head football coach Bryan R. Worrell, 42, remains hospitalized with serious injuries.

The gunman was identified as Timothy Wayne Cousins, a senior honor student at the school, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ronald L. Cousins of the Oakview subdivision. Although authorities would not speculate on a motive for the shootings, Cousins was said by some students to have been upset by recent racial incidents at the mostly white school.

Among the dead were a star football player and a Minor High math teacher, Irene Passworth, 43.

The injured Coach Worrell led the Minor High Titans to their fourth Division B championship last season. Hospital officials said Friday night he was in serious condition following surgery for multiple gunshot wounds.

One of Worrell’s star players, Dudley Ronald “Red” Martin, 18, was apparently the first student killed.

Cousins entered the gymnasium at 9:32 a.m. carrying a duffel bag containing a 12-gauge shotgun, a 7.65mm semiautomatic rifle, a pistol, and a revolver. After a brief conversation, witnesses said, Cousins pulled out the shotgun and shot Martin.

Arnita Beecham, 17, who was elected the first black prom queen in the school’s history last year, was killed as she tried to intercede for Martin, according to students who witnessed the altercation.

The slain girl’s father, Lincoln Beecham, 48, the school’s janitor, was shot to death in a hallway a short time later, a police spokesman said.

Earlier in the week, Miss Beecham gave a speech on racial issues that incited a disturbance between white and black students at a school assembly. “She was an extremely bright girl with some confused ideas,” said Rollo L. Hamm, principal at Minor since 1963. “She was recovering from a serious accident, and had some trouble adjusting after that. This is a terrible tragedy for our school.”

It was unclear at press time what connection Miss Beecham’s controversial remarks may have had to the shootings.

After the initial assaults, Cousins began roaming the halls of the school, firing randomly at faculty and students of both races. Panic-stricken students were prevented from fleeing because some of the school’s exits had been chained and padlocked, apparently to stop the practice of “cutting classes.” Many of the students

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escaped through ground-level windows, while others remained in their classrooms throughout the ordeal.

As multiple units of Minor, Jackson, and Hinds County police responded to the scene, Cousins took up a sniper’s position in the principal’s office and fired dozens of rounds at arriving officers. One teacher reported that Cousins used the public-address system to taunt terrified students still hiding in the school. “This is fun,” he was reported to have said. “This is what I have always wanted to do.”

At 10:05 a.m. officers stormed the principal’s office and found that the gunman had turned his weapon on himself.

A 17-year-old student was taken into custody at the school and questioned at length but will not be charged, according to Hinds County Sgt. Jeffrey Magill. The boy, a friend of the gunman, went unarmed to the principal’s office during the shootings in an attempt to stop the assaults. The student was treated and released from West Mississippi Medical Center for minor injuries sustained during the assault. His identity was not disclosed due to his age.

“Tim was a bright kid, a nice quiet kid,” said Hamm. “He was different than some of the others, a bit of a loner. He had a rather sarcastic attitude, but he was very intelligent. His art teachers liked him. We were expecting great things from him. Certainly nothing of a violent nature.”

Police said Cousins had a prior arrest record, stemming from an incident in November 1972. Because he was a juvenile at the time of that offense, authorities would not release details.

Officials expressed surprise that Cousins managed to assemble a collection of firearms that his parents apparently knew nothing about. “He was not the kind of student who enjoys hunting,” said Hamm. “If I had to choose a student who I thought might become violent, (Cousins) would have been at the bottom of the list.”

Reached by telephone late Friday, the attacker’s father, Ronald Cousins, said he and his wife were praying for the victims and their families. He declined further comment.

3
0

D
AD WOULDN’T LET ME
go to the funerals. He said I would only make it worse for the families by reminding them of things they wanted to forget. For once, I think, he was right.

For eleven days I lived in my room behind the screen at the Twi-Lite Drive-In. (Grand opening was postponed until further notice.) I was allowed to read books but no TV or newspapers. It seemed strange to be grounded as punishment for Tim shooting five people, but that was Dad’s decision and I didn’t fight it.

Dad didn’t hit me, yell at me, or lecture me. He didn’t ask me about what happened that Friday at school. He didn’t want to hear about it.

Mom tried to listen but then she would burst out crying. Pretty soon I stopped talking to her.

Janie couldn’t stop asking. I told her everything she wanted to know. It only seemed fair, after all we’d been through together.

Arnita . . .

I couldn’t think of anything but her face for a while, then I lost track of her face and I was left with nothing but her name. I said it to myself, over and over. I started having dreams where she sneaked into my room, my old room in the Freak Annex, while I was sleeping. She climbed in bed with me. I could tell she didn’t understand what had happened to her. Those dreams made me afraid to sleep. I got out of the habit of sleeping.

The letter took a week to arrive — postmarked Friday, August 31, 1973, addressed to “Durwood Musgrove, c/o Twi-Lite Drive-In, US Hwy. 80, Minor, Miss. 39904.” I have no idea how he found out where we were living. Maybe he’d followed me to the drive-in when I wasn’t looking.

Two sheets of paper, folded in thirds. The first was a drawing of a spooky castle poking up through clouds, a sliver of moon in the dark charcoal sky. The second page was a letter in Tim’s careful cursive:

Hey Skippy,

I am alive while I am writing this, but when you read it I’ll be dead.
PSYCH
! You can show it to the cops, or burn it. Up to you. I don’t care, I’ll be dead.

I bet you will say this action is way too drastic & I shouldn’t have done it. I won’t argue that, but anyways a few things you should know.

1. My fault you got on Dudley’s list, sorry. He only went after you because you were/are my friend.

2. When Red put my report in the lockers, I could have told the whole school about him. He knew I would never tell.

3. Don’t drive yourself crazy wondering if this is the truth.

4. I am no better than L. H. Oswald or C. Whitman. I want the world to finally pay attention to me. Let’s be realistic, this is the only way that will ever happen. Plus, I can take care of everything in one day and it will be worth it.

5. Everyone on earth is lonely or angry or both. But nobody is listening to anybody. How can 1 person be so alone when there are three billion people on the planet? I didn’t want three billion people, Skip. Just you.

Love —

T

PS Did you really think we could get through high school without any casualties?

3
1

J
ACKO’S DEATH WAS
the dot at the end of the exclamation point. I thought I’d seen every barbed and sharp weapon fate could fling at me, but when I went to lift him out of bed that cold November morning and found him reduced to a little heap on the edge of the mattress, I found out that death is not a thing you get done with. Not ever. It keeps coming at you like a train, it comes on, it won’t ever stop, it has all the momentum in the world. First it takes out all the people standing on the tracks in front of you, then you are the only one on the tracks and the train keeps driving toward you, it just keeps coming, it never slows down.

Jacko had pulled the sheet up over his own face. When I pulled it away, he was so unearthly white that I jumped back, off balance, and fell to the floor.

I yelled
Mom!
She came running. Three days later we were standing around a hole in the iron-red Alabama dirt, the graveyard of Mount Zion Methodist outside Pigeon Creek, the plot next to Granny’s, as Preacher Bynum recited the Twenty-third Psalm.

When he got to the valley of the shadow of death I heard footsteps in the gravel behind me. I turned to find a man approaching, a big burly Marine in dress uniform, removing his hat as he came. Blocky head. Reddish prickle of hair on his scalp.

My first thought was: Buddy is dead, and this man has come to notify us.

And then I saw that this was Bud.

We hadn’t seen him in a year. He’d sent a few postcards since basic training, always some view of a beach in California.

He strode to the graveside and wrapped Mom in a big hug. I thought she might faint with joy. Buddy was her favorite. Her eyes shone with pure admiration for the big muscled soldier the Marines had made of him. Dad straightened up, flushed with pride to have a son who looked this fine.

Bud’s arrival caused such a stir that the preacher had to go back to the beginning of the verse and start again.

Afterward we crowded into the fellowship hall to eat ham, pimiento cheese, potato salad, deviled eggs. Buddy was mobbed by old ladies who could not get enough of his uniform, hugging and squeezing and stroking as if he were a big old GI Joe doll.

I fixed a plate and took it off to a corner, by myself. Some old lady came over and tried to talk to me but I didn’t talk. Soon she went away.

I looked at the food and decided I didn’t want any of it. I threw my whole paper plate full in the garbage. Another old lady told me throwing food away was a sin.

Oh lady, I thought. If you only knew. That is the least of it.

When people are murmuring your name trying not to be heard, you can’t help but hear it. Your name hums and bites at you like a mosquito. I heard the general buzz,
Daniel
that’s right wasn’t he
Daniel
involved with that terrible oh my God
Daniel
how awful they say he’s handling it fairly well considering
Daniel
weren’t they supposed to be close? Shot five but how many died? I don’t know, I’m afraid to ask.

“Well if it ain’t the Murderer’s Best Friend.” Buddy flung his arms around me for a quick, hard hug. “What the hell have you been up to, brother? Wait, don’t tell me. I heard.”

“Your timing is perfect,” I said. “One look at you, and everybody forgot it was a funeral.”

“I was late, I’m sorry. Don’t give me crap about it, okay? I just traveled ten thousand miles to see about you. Are you okay? Seriously.”

“Never been better,” I said.

“Don’t give me that, Danny. I couldn’t get here when it happened. This is as soon as I could come and not go AWOL, all right? I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like I was expecting you,” I said.

“Nobody told me you were in anywhere near that kind of trouble. Or I’d have figured a way to get you the hell out of here. Have you been in school, or what?”

“No, no school.” I wanted another subject. “How are you doing, Buddy? How’s California?”

“Actually my platoon is in Saigon right now,” he said. “We’re going up to Dien Bien Phu when I get back. Don’t tell Mom. She’d freak out.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. And shut up about it, okay? I mean it.” He gripped my arm. He knew me and my big mouth.

I said, “Do you really have to go back?”

“Oh, yeah. Monday. My CO had to move fuckin’ heaven and earth to get me here.”

“Jesus, Bud. I didn’t know you were — I thought you hurt your foot.”

“That’s what I told Mom.”

“Don’t go back, Bud. Stay here.”

“Wish I could, brother. I signed the paper. Don’t worry about it. Listen, how’s Dad?” he said, with a brotherly inflection meaning, How bad has he been lately?

I shrugged. “I guess you heard he went into the movie business.”

“Yeah. Everybody down here seems to have flipped out in their own individual way. I bet he nearly killed you when all that happened, huh?”

“Surprisingly not,” I said. “He mostly just leaves me alone since then. I think they’re kind of afraid of me.”

“Mom says you haven’t spoken a word to them since it happened.”

“What am I supposed to say? You got any suggestions? Really. If I could think of anything.”

He clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Damn, Danny. I am so sorry that happened to you. How the hell did you get mixed up with that crazy-ass son of a bitch?”

“That’s not how he was,” I said. “You had to know him, Buddy, he was a normal guy. He was great, he was funny . . . you would have liked him. He just — he had too much going on inside, I guess. Too many secrets.”

“But why’d he flip out? What made him do that?”

“God. That’s a long story. I don’t think you have time.”

“I told you, that’s why I’m here.”

Dad walked over. “Okay, boys, pack it up and get in the car. We are officially leaving.”

Bud frowned. “Dad, I’m only on my second plate.”

“Well, fill it up again and put a piece of foil on it. We are hitting the road,” Dad said.
“Now.”

We were too old to leap at the sound of his bark, but we did get up from where we were sitting because he had the keys, he was Dad, and it was easier not to fight him. We said goodbye to cousins, uncles, and aunts. Suddenly everyone was crying again, not for Jacko but for the trouble I was in, the notoriety I had brought down upon us all. At least that’s how it felt to me from all the tears and the long squeezing hugs that were meant to console me but only made me want to run and hide.

Janie was still out under the canopy at the graveside, weeping. She was the one who would miss Jacko the most. She had spent hours sitting with him, entertaining him with her magic tricks, listening to his stories of driving around in his goat cart. Now that he was safely in the ground, Dad was jingling keys in his pocket, ready to get the hell out of there.

I’d had enough death to last me the rest of my life. I followed the family down the church steps. Mom complained how rude it was for us to be leaving already, when people had come from all over two states to hug our necks and give us comfort in our time of need. “If you’re so almighty anxious to leave, Lee, you should damn well go ride around and come back when we’re ready to go,” she said. “Remember what you promised on the phone.”

Dad ambled toward the car. “How about the kids and I go home, and you stay here with your precious relatives? You seem to like ’em better than us anyway.” He glanced at Janie. Her head was trapped in the crook of Buddy’s arm, where she was receiving a Dutch rub. “Hey Janie, tell your mother we got along just fine without her.”

“Don’t be silly, Daddy,” she said, breaking free of Bud. “You were a disaster.”

“Thank you, Janie,” said Mom. “I’m glad someone in this family appreciates me.”

“Hey Mom, I do too,” said Bud.

“Of course you do, Buddy, you’ve always been so good to me,” Mom said. “And Daniel is sweet as can be.”

Oh yes. Thanks for thinking of me.

I opened the tailgate and climbed in the back where the dog of the family rides. Where Jacko used to ride, so he could see out the back window. Everybody else got in front. I stretched out the length of the wheel well and tried to mold myself into the plastic panel, to become part of the car. Maybe you think I was too old to be playacting like that. All I can say is, nobody tried to stop me.

“Turn the radio up, Daddy,” called Janie. “They’re talking about the flying saucers.”

The airwaves of Mississippi had crackled with UFO reports since the October 11 incident at Pascagoula. Two men called Charlie and Calvin were fishing on a riverbank when they said a mysterious blue-glowing spacecraft landed and took them aboard for physical examinations. The two men were so convincingly traumatized that the police believed their story, and within days a full-fledged UFO craze was sweeping the South. Charlie and Calvin had already appeared on
Merv Griffin
and
The Dick Cavett Show
.

I lay back listening to the latest report, aching for Mrs. Passworth. If she had lived another few weeks, she might have been a star.

Dad pulled onto U.S. 80, headed west toward Mississippi. Bud would ride with us to Minor for the weekend, then we’d drive him to the base at Biloxi for his return hop.

Mom turned down the radio and rolled down her window. “I know I shouldn’t be happy today, but I can’t help it. I’ve got all my chillun in one car again. I tell you something, Lee, it’ll feel good to be home.”

“Listen at you, Peg. You swore you’d never set foot in the drive-in again, and here you are calling it home. All I can say is, don’t get too attached.”

Mom pondered a minute. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” Dad said. “Why? Do I seem suspicious to you?”

“All of a sudden you do.” She turned her fish-eye on him. “What have you done? Lee? Oh, God, what on earth?”

Bud said, “Y’all. I’m just back for one weekend. Can you please not start up squabbling right this minute?”

Dad ignored him. “I wasn’t going to tell you today, what with the sad occasion and all.”

“Tell me what,” Mom said.

“I’ve got a little surprise in store for this family.”

Oh no. Please, no. The last time Dad said something like that, he blew up the house.

“Is this about your drive-in movie, Dad?” Bud said. “I want you to show me how to run the projector.”

“We’re not going to be showing any movies,” Dad said. “Change of plan.”

“What do you mean?” Janie glanced at me, horrified — the hours we’d spent helping Dad fix up that place!

“I looked at one of the movies that man sent over,” said Dad. “The one with Marlon Brando? If that’s what the pictures are like today, I tell you, I don’t want no part of it. I declare, you couldn’t eat buttered popcorn and watch a thing like that. So I put the ol’ drive-in up for sale. And got me a buyer, like that.” He snapped his fingers.

Disappointed groans from Janie and Bud.

“Okay, but your dumb old daddy not only unloaded the place, I got five thousand
more
than I paid. How you like that?”

“Oh happy day,” Mom said. “Thank God you didn’t have to take less.”

“The man wants to build some kind of indoor shopping center right at that interchange,” he said. “Turns out your simple-minded old dad landed us on a prime piece of commercial real estate. Can I hear somebody say, ‘Way to go, Dad’?”

“Way to go, Dad,” said Bud, and Janie said, “Yay, Dad.” I didn’t say anything.

Dad said, “Not only is your husband a real-estate genius, Peg. I called up old Charlie Fabricant and told him I was halfway thinking of getting back in the chemical business. He practically begged me to come back. It took some sweet-talking, but he finally got me to say yes.”

Mom turned full around in her seat. “You didn’t!”

“I did! We’re a TriDex family again!”

“Oh dear Lord,” Mom cried. “Oh Lee, tell me you’re not fooling. Did you get your retirement back?”

“Every penny,” he said. “Like I never even quit.”

He hadn’t quit, of course, he’d been fired. And if he’d been rehired, I know it was not Charlie Fabricant who had done the begging. A few weeks ago I would have had something smart to say about it, but since I had become a molded plastic piece of the wheel well, I chose not to offer an opinion.

“You hate Charlie,” Mom said. “You swore you’d never work for him again.”

“That’s the beauty part,” said Dad. “I’m getting a new territory, a whole different district, so I won’t have to report to that son of a gun.”

“What territory?”

He put on a hopeful smile. “Provo, Utah!”

“Utah?”
You could have scored glass with her voice.

“There’s a booming market for ag chemicals out there,” he said. “They’re growing cherries and apricots, and pears, and barley. Climate’s supposed to be real nice. Schools are great.”

“That’s a million miles from anywhere,” said Mom, “and anyway, aren’t they all Mormons? We’re not Mormons.”

“Well, that’s where we’re going,” he said. “This new manager Herman Foley seems like more of a straight shooter. At least that’s the impression I got on the telephone. Hopefully he’s the kind of man that doesn’t stab you in the back.”

“Dad. Y’all can’t move to Utah,” said Bud. “I’ve flown over Utah. It’s nothing but rocks.”

“They grow alfalfa out there,” said Dad. “And they’ve got a lot of mink farms. Do you know how much malathion it takes to keep down the red ants on a mink farm?”

“There’s not even a road across Utah,” Bud said. “There’s not a blade of grass. I seriously doubt they have cherries.”

Mom said, “I hope they have good divorce lawyers out there.”

Janie said, “I’ve never been west of Vicksburg. I think I would love to go to Utah.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t,” said Bud.

Janie said, “Danny? What do you think?”

Why was she asking me? Did she think I might answer? If she really knew me, she would not be talking to me.

I was thinking about the real reason Dad begged for his job back. If we did move to Utah it would not be for the mink farms or the cherries. It would be for me. For my sake. To get me the hell out of Mississippi.

For the first time in our lives, Dad was putting me ahead of everyone else. He knew I could not keep living in Mississippi, after everything that had happened. Dad was not the kind of man who believed in ghosts, but he knew you don’t hang around the graveyard when the funeral is over and the sun is going down.