Billy (31 page)

closer.

Tears seep through Gumpy's closed eyes. Billy leans closer to Deputy Hill.

James Maben picks up a
rock
and throws it at Gumpy's back.

Gumpy jerks, his
eyes
flash open, and he screams. Deputy Hill pushes him on.

Sheriff Tom quickens his pace.

Melody Curran spits on Billy, then
grabs
at his arm. Deputy Hill
shouts, "Ya
all get back, get away,
ya
hear.
"

Andrew Miller gets Gumpy's arm
and snatches
him awa
y
from Deputy Hill.

Gumpy is flung to the ground. Melody Curran kicks at his face. Andrew Miller kicks at his
side.

Carmella Dean brings her
heel
down
onto
his
back.
Gumpy's face scrapes
against
the
street.

Sheriff Tom turns
around.
Deputy Hill reaches
for Gumpy.

James Maben
snatches
Bill
y
from
Depu t
y
Hill. Billy
screams
as he is thrown to the
ground.

Sheriff Tom
shouts,
"
Get
outta
here
,
god
damn
it, get on
out of here."

Billy
is
kicked
and dragged.

Deput y
Hill
pushes James Mab
e
n
away, shouting, "Get
outta here, Jimmy."

B J L L Y
I
137

Shouts fill the street, "Get em. . . . Get that one. . .
.

Niggers . . . ."

Melody Curran gets her foot on Billy's face and squashes it. Billy screams.

Sheriff Tom barrels into the
c
rowd and pushes folks back. Deputy Hill gets Gumpy and grabs for Billy.

Helen Marks stands on the courthouse steps, smiling. She watches the crowd surge onto the nigger prisoners and the sheriff pushing and tossing them back.

Harvey Jakes runs and climbs up on the courthouse fence, gets his Speed Graphic camera up to his face, he clicks the shutter, the flash bur
s
t, he smiles.

Sheriff Tom's face is rigid and twisted, his shouts are like growls, his hands grab and push like claws.

Deputy Hill pulls the two screaming prisoners under his arms.

Ely Hampton looks out the window and shakes his head
.
Caroline Hempfield looks out the same window and says,

"That's just awful."

Helen Marks is still smiling with excitement as Sheriff Tom and Deputy Hill drag Billy and Gumpy up the courthouse steps.

Billy's eyes are glaring, he catches a glimpse of Helen Marks and keeps staring until he is yanked away.

Deputy Hill pushes the courthouse door open and st
e
ers Billy and Gumpy through.

Sheriff Tom stands at the door and fac
e
s the crowd, th
ey
back off slowly. Then he turns and follow
s
Depu ty Hill and his two prisoners into the dimly lit courthouse corridor.

Ely Hampton comes out of his office and rushes u p to Sh
e
r
iff
Tom, saying, "Look
s
l ik
e
you had a littl
e
LrouLl
e
g
e
tti n them over here, Tom."

l.'Ul I Albert French

Sheriff
Tom's breath is heavy.
"Goddamn
hotheads, I'm
gonna
knock the livin hell out of
em."

"Get em
on in here and let's get this over with." Ely Hampton speaks quickly and then glances over at Billy and
Gumpy and says, "Cecil,
take em on in there, get
em cleaned
up
some, can't
have em lookin like that," and points to the rest room.

"Can't
take them in there, these is niggers, Mister Hampton."

"We ain't got
Lime to run
em downstairs,
just take em on
in,"
Ely Hampton
says
quickly.

Inside Courtroom C, a
small
hearing
room
at the end of the first-floor corridor,
clerks and
secretaries
are
buzzing around
the open
door. Banes County Commissioner A ustin Hunt stands inside, puffing and
chewing on
his two-inch
cigar.
Banes Mayor Devin
Marshall stands beside
Austi n Hunt. Both were talkative men, but they
stood silent
amidst the babble in
the
hearing
room
and
corridors. Matthew
Brady, the
chief county
clerk,
stands
behind
the
large table with
all
his legal forms
for
the
arraignment spread out before
h im. Harvey Jakes
comes rushing into
the
room all
red-faced
and his cam era swinging, saying, "Folks got a
little
nasty out
there." Helen Marks
follows
him
through
the door.

The
corridor chatter stills
into
a ga
s
ping sound. Sheriff
Tom and
Deputy
Hill
push
Billy
and Gumpy
through the
crowd and
up to the ta ble. Th
e
i r
faces are battered and
bruised, their
arms are still
held behi nd their backs, their
screams
now muffled into whimpers,
each battered
head is hung low. They
stare at
the floor
where
their tears fall.

Matthew Brady looks down
at
Billy and Gumpy, then glances over to
Austi n
Hunt. Austin Hunt nods his head
and

B I L L Y /
139

Matthew Brady turns back to Billy and Gumpy,
stands
quietl
y
for a moment, then
says,
"Quiet, please."

Room C becomes
silent
except for the
whimpers
of
its pris
oners. Matthew Brady begins, his
voice
is in a
singsong
rhythm.

"Let
the record
show
that on August twenty-three
of our

year
nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, Bill
y
Lee Turner, ag
e
ten, and Roy Thomas, age twelve, both
residents
of Bane
s
County, Mississippi, are being arraigned and
charged wi th
murder in the first degree, in the
stabbing
to
death of
Lori

Pasko, age fifteen,
also
a resident
of
Banes County, Missis-
s1
.
pp1
.
.
'
'

Billy and Gumpy
stare
at the floor, they only hear th
e
sounds
of words battering inside their battered heads.

"Billy Lee Turner and Roy Thomas,
you
are to remai n in
carcerated
in the Banes County jail u ntil a heari n date
ca
n be set.
If
you do not have legal counsel, one
will
be appointea by the court to represent you."

Out on Front Street, Fred Sneed had
set
back down but Melody Curran was
still
strutting back and forth. She'd ju
s
t turned twenty and had that Pasko-Curran red hair
,
but i t
was
her face
that
lit with fire when she
saw
the nigger
standing
with the packages in his arms and the
smile
on his fac
e
.

"Whatcha smilin
at, nigger?" Melod
y
Curran yells.

Shorty had heard
so
many screams and
s
hou ts of
"nigger"
that
h
e
did not realize the woman was
yelling at
him until h
e
saw her eyes glari ng at him, then he kn
ew.
He'd
stood and
watched
the
crowd
surge
on Billy and
Gumpy,
had
watched
Sheriff Tom bust into the
crowd
and
push
and beat
folks
back.
He
was waitin to
see
if they would do
it
again when th
e
sheriff brought Billy and Gumpy back out
,
bu t now h
e
t urn
s

140 I Albert French

and starts
up the
sidewalk
and back to
Norma
Purvis' with her packages.

Shorty's
bounce is
swift
until he hears the sound of foot
steps
rushing up behi nd him and the
shouts
coming closer of
"Get
his ass,
come
here, ya little runt nigger." He turns and looks over his shoulder, then stumbles before he can break into a run. He darts into the alleyway, between Macky's store
and
the Rosey Gray, and rushes through
its
shade, but the
shouts
and footsteps follow. Norma Purvis' packages are fall ing from his
arms,
he
slows
to pick them up, then
feels
the hands reaching and
swinging
at him. He is
caugh t
and dragged out behind the Rosey
Gray.

The
crowd
gathers.

Andrew
Miller kicks at Shorty's back
and side.

James Maben beats
Shorty with a board
he's
picked
up.

No one is trying
to
stop
Melody
Curran from
k i
c
ki n the
smile
off
Shorty's face.

9