Sam's arms were both swollen, and when he clumsily peeled away the clothes he wore, he saw two purplish-yellow bruises inscribed diagonally across each biceps, as if laid there by an expert. One was not harder than the other. In fact, they were mirror images. No bones were broken, no skin cut, just the rotted oblong tracing exactly the impact of the billy club upon his upper arms, each delivered with the same force, at the same angle, to the same debilitating effect. Sam's arms were numb, and his hands too unfeeling to grab a thing. He could make but the crudest of movements. When he had to pee in the bucket in the corner, undoing his trouser buttons was a nightmare, but he would not let these men do it for him, if they would, which was questionable.
He knew he had been beaten by an expert. Someone who had beaten men before, had thought critically about it, had done much thorough research, and knew where to hit, how to hit, how hard to hit, and what marks the blows would leave, which, after a week or so, would be nothing at all. Without photographic evidence, it would only be his word against a deputy's in some benighted Mississippi court room, in front of some hick judge who thought Arkansas was next to New York, New York, the home of communism.
His head ached. His temper surged, fighting through the pain.
It was some kind of cell in the woods, and he had a sensation of the piney woods outside, for he could hear the whisper of needles rustling against each other in the dull breeze.
He said again to the bars and whoever lurked down the corridor, 'I
DEMAND to see the sheriff. You have no right or legal authority to hold me. You should be horsewhipped for your violations of the law.'
But no one bothered to answer, except that once a loutish deputy had slipped a tray with more beans, some slices of dry, salty ham, and a piece of buttered bread on the plate, as well as a cup of coffee.
Was he in the prison?
Was this Thebes, where uppity niggers were sent to rot?
He didn't think so. There was instead a sense of desolation about this place, the stillness of the woods, the occasional chirping of birds.
The window was too high to see out of, and he could see nothing down the hall. His arms hurt, his head hurt, his dignity hurt, but what hurt even more was his sense of the system corrupted. It cut to the core of the way his mind worked. People were not treated like this, especially people like him, which is to say white people of means and education.
The system made no sense if it didn't protect him, and it needed to be adjusted.
'Goddammit, you boys will pay!' he screamed, to nobody in particular, and to no sign that anybody heard him.
At last?it had to be midafternoon, fourteen or fifteen full hours after his capture?two guards came for him.
'You put your hands behind yourself so's we can cuff you down now,' said the one.
'And goddammit, be fast about it, Sheriff ain't got all day, goddammit.'
'Who do you think?'
'I think you gimme lip, I'll lay another swat on you, Dad, and you won't like it a dad gum bit.'
So this was the fellow who had hit him: maybe twenty-five, blunt of nose and hair close-cropped, eyes dull as are most bullies', a lot of beef behind him, his size the source of his confidence.
'G'wan, hurry, Mister, I ain't here to wait on your dad gum mood.'
At last Sam obliged, turning so that they could cuff him, a security measure that was, in a civilized state like Arkansas, reserved for the most violent and unpredictable of men in the penal system, known murderers and thugs who could go off on a rampage at no provocation at all. It was for dealing with berserkers.
Once they had him secured, they unlocked the cell and took control of him, one on each arm, and walked him down the wood corridor, then into a small interrogation room.
They sat him down, and, as per too many crime movies and more police stations than Sam cared to count, a bright light came into his eyes.
The door opened.
A large man entered, behind the light so that Sam could not see details, but he made out a dark uniform, black or brown, head to toe, with a beige tie tight against his bulgy neck, and a blazing silver star badge on his left breast. He wore a Sam Browne belt, shined up, and carried a heavy revolver in a flapped holster, his trousers pressed and lean, down to cowboy boots also shiny and pointed.
'Samuel M. Vincent,' he said, reading from what Sam saw was his own wallet. 'Attorney-at-law, Blue Eye, Polk County, Arkansas. And what is your business in Thebes, Mr. Vincent?'
'Sheriff, I am a former prosecuting attorney, well versed in the law and the rightful usage of force against suspects. In my state, what your men have done is clearly criminal. I would indict them on counts of assault and battery under flag of authority, sir, and I would send them away for five years, and we would see how they swagger after that.
Now I '
'Mr. Vincent, what is your business, sir? You are not in your state, you are in mine, and I run mine a peculiar way, according to such conditions as I must deal with. I am Sheriff Leon Gattis, and this is my county. I run it, I protect it, I make it work. Down here, sir, it is polite of an attorney to inform the po-lice he be makin' inquiries.
For some reason, sir, you have seen fit not to do so, and so you have suffered some minor inconveniences of no particular import to no Mississippi judge.'
'I did not do so, Sheriff Gattis, because there were no deputies around.
I spent most of yesterday looking for them. They prefer to work after midnight! I insist '
'You hold on there, sir. You are getting on my wrong side right quick.
Any nigger could have told you where we are, and if they didn't it's ' they thought you's up to no good. God bless ', they have the instinct for such judgments. So, Mr. Vincent, you're going to have to cooperate, and the sooner you do, the better. What are you doing in Thebes County?
What is your business, sir?'
'Good Lord. You set up a system than cannot be obeyed, then punish when one does not obey. It is?'
Whap!
The sheriff had not hit him, but he'd smacked his hand hard on the wooden table between them, the room echoing with reverberation from the force of the blow.
'I ain't here to talk no philosophy with you. Goddamn you, sir, answer my questions or your time here will be hard. That is the way we do things here.'
Sam shook his head.
Finally he explained: he was after a disposition or certificate in re the death of a Negro named Lincoln Tilson named in a will being probated in Cook County?that is, Chicago?Illinois.
'Thought you had a Chicago look to you.'
'Sir, if it's your business, and it's not, I have never been in the state of Illinois and know nothing at all of it.'
'What I hear, up there, the Negro is king. Ride ' in fancy Cadillac cars, have white girls left and right, eat in the restaurants, a kind of jigaboo heaven, if you know what I mean.'
'Sir, I feel certain you exaggerate. I have been to New York, and that town, progressive though it may be, is nothing as you describe.'
'Maybe I do exaggerate. But, by God, that ain't goin' happen in Thebes.
Down here, we got a natural order as God commands, and that's how it's goin' to be.'
'Sir, I feel that change will come, because change is inevit?'
'So you are one of them?'
'Uh?'
'One of them.'
'I'm not clear?'
'One of them. You talk like one of us, but you be one of them.
Northern agitators. Communists, Jews, God knows who, what or why, but up to nothing good. Is that you, Mr. Vincent? Are you a communist or a Jew?'
'I am a Democrat and a Scotch Presbyterian. You have no right to?'
But the sheriff was off.
