Then white men came and the Negroes left, but there was too much agitation for me to escape and I had no desire to explain my presence to them, either. Soon enough the train pulled out, and here I am.'
'Shee-it, don't he tell a purty story!' one of the boys guffawed. All three had enjoyed it immensely. It connected with experiences they had either had or heard of, and it amused them no end to see a fancy talker, a man of education like Sam, brought low by the twin furies of drinking whiskey and high-yeller tail, which had been the ingredients in many a poor man's destruction in the houses of New Orleans.
'The niggers will teach you a lesson if they catch you alone and there ain't no other whites '. Way it is don't mean jack to them in that sityation. Way up where you live, y'all don't see that part of '. You just see ' and ',' but let me tell you, sir, they's got it in for us, always will.'
'I fear I have learned that lesson the hard way. You know, I am not without means. I have some money. I require only a night's lodging-preferably not in the drunk tank, as I can afford a hotel room?a shirt and some clean underwear, and I'll be on my way by bus tomorrow.' they took Sam to their prowl car, and then to Hattiesburg's best hotel, where a brief intervention got Sam a fine room, though of course he had to pay cash up front.
'Want you to see Mississippi hospitality at its finest, sir. Don't want you to think all's we do down here is fight the niggers for control.
It's a wonderful place to live and raise up your kids. You'd best call your wife with some story or other, ' I'll bet that old gal is all upset.'
This was the youngest, nicest and smoothest of them.
'I certainly will, Officer.'
'Dave, Mr. Sam. I'm Dave.'
Dave appeared to have conceived of some major affection for Sam, along lines that Sam would never understand. Perhaps it was that, being discovered at a total disadvantage, Sam never got into his more usual powerful personality, where he was the best of all men, the smartest, the most capable, the boss prosecutor. Or perhaps it was as a residue of his experiences that he no longer quite believed so fiercely in those attributes as his birthrights, having seen how quickly and totally the world will dispense with them, and allow mean young deputies the privilege of beating a tattoo against your skull with a nightstick. In any event, whatever it was, the young officer responded to it.
Sam called home; he spoke to his oldest son, who seemed not to have noticed that he had been gone three weeks instead of one and then his wife, who had made the observation, but just barely. He then called Connie Longacre, got drunken Ranee instead, but left a number, and she called back and they had a wondrous conversation, as they always did.
Sam loved her; he knew he'd never quite have the nerve to blow up his life and then hers in order to make a change, and this thing between them, this fondness, was all that he would ever have.
The hotel sent a room service meal to his room; he slept, dreaming I of Earl, convincing himself that Earl would make out just fine, Earl ' was all right, not to worry about Earl.
At eight someone knocked on the door, and he had a brief seizure of horror imagining that the news he was in some sense a wanted man had caught up to him, but opened it to find merely a portly gentleman from the Longbow Men's Apparel Shop with a selection of coats, shirts, and ties, from which Sam selected a new outfit and paid for it in cash.
After a nice breakfast in the hotel dining room, Dave the cop came on by and drove him to the bus station. Dave had done some checking and discovered that the 10:00 a.m. bus to Meridian would get Sam to the airport in time for a 3:00 p.m. flight by DC-3 to Memphis, where his car was parked. After the cross-state drive, he'd be home in time for a late supper.
Dave drove him through Hattiesburg, talking amiably of his life, his children, his hopes for the future he hoped to go to night law school and asked Sam some keen professional questions, and Sam gave him forthright but encouraging answers.
Finally, in a lull, Sam tried a bit of a probe.
'Say, Dave, you ever hear of a place called Thebes Prison for Colored.
Seemed like them black people down in Pascagoula was talking about it.
Got my curiosity up.'
'Well, sir, best bet is, don't get curious about Thebes. They got a big set of work farms over at Parchman in the Delta, but they send the truly lost niggers down there to Thebes. You don't want to know what goes on down there. It ain't a purty place, no sir.'
'Ah, I see. You'd think if conditions were so rough, they'd worry about escapes.'
'Sir, ain't nobody never escaped from Thebes. Never. It's so hellish a place, it breaks a man's spirit to be there, and he don't got the spunk for no escape. Plus, it's in the worst jungle on earth, and I hear they got the best hounds in the state, and a crew of guards that can run dogs and track like dogs themselves, all big boys who git ex try pay to work that camp. The state likes it that way: a place for sartain bad niggers, you know, so that the niggers always have a fear of it, when they hear the word, and that fear keeps ' fine. It's better that way. Better for us, but better for them, too, in some ways. They don't git their hopes up so high, and therefore live in constant disappointment and bitterness. They always know there's a Thebes somewhere.'
Sam nodded sagely, and said, 'Yes, very interesting sentiments,' by way of seeming to agree but not really having committed to a position.
The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly, and indeed he slept that night in his own room next to the indifferent form of his own wife, just down the hall from the indifference of his children. He'd thought he'd never make it back to such comforts, and yet he had.
And tomorrow he'd see Connie for lunch and have a fine old time.
But that was not the main condition of his mind. The main, the inescapable condition of his mind had to do with Earl. Over and over again, he confronted Earl's dictate: do not tell anybody, raise a ruckus, start a thing to come get me. That will get me killed soonest.
He parsed those words, as imperfectly as he remembered them, for a provisional escape clause, an intellectually justifiable principle of dispensation or modification, and concluded in the end that the contract was fairly drawn and that he must obey it. He did feel he had to make a report to his client, which he would do in the morning, and send off by special delivery, and he resolved to discover options within the framework of Earl's command that would enable him to engage the issue.
That was all he could do.
Earl, he thought, and it would not leave his mind: What of Earl?
The dogs took Earl down hard. It was their nature, but it also may have had to do with the blood that they smelled on him, his own and their cousins' and brothers'. They hit him simultaneously, strong young hounds in full power, growling savagely as they flew upon him like blurs, and in the next tenth of a second he gave up on any idea of catching the freight and concentrated only upon covering his vitals.
He went into a fetal ball, his knees locked to his forehead, his arms swaddling his head and throat, his face buried. This drove the dogs more insane. They knew how to kill him and their frustration was immense. But there was no way they could get their muzzles and teeth into a vulnerable, soft area, so they attacked his arms and legs, knowing that if they hurt him bad enough by reflex he'd unsnap from his protected position and they could get him where he would bleed out. So for a few moments, that's all it was, the dogs biting to get him to spasm while he fought the pain and the anger of them to stay locked up in himself.
But then the dogs were pulled off by men, and a general kicking commenced. At first it was just two men, and then three more, and they kicked and stomped at him, and cursed and spat and threatened. This went on for a few minutes until, finally, a last fellow arrived and imposed some order.
'Goddammit, boys, let him be, let us see what we got,' and the blows stopped whacking into him.
'Mister, you best get up or I will finish you as you lay there.'
Earl rolled over and uncoiled, looked up to see six men, that is, four deputies, the hound master and the sheriff, all of them sweated up and crazy-eyed from their ordeal.
'Don't hit me no more, please,' he said. 'I didn't do nothing.'
Whack!
It was a kick in the ribs, delivered with visible pleasure by the dog man.
'Kilt three fine dogs, you did, goddamn your black soul. I'll see you a-swing before this damn day is done.'
