sneak out a back door to a second Cadillac after these proceedings.? The petulant young man looked up at us as though he?d really stung it to us. ?Following the grand jury session,? he continued without aid of his pad, ?Mr. Terrell will entertain questions from the press outside.? With that, Terrell?s son stalked out of the room.
Well, you?ve heard the speech Terrell gave several times over these past few sad years in America.
It?s the one that never fails to bug your eyes and put a ringing in your ears. It?s the same speech that proved that Nixon, and Mitchell, and Connally, and all the others, despised us to the point of ridiculing us to our faces.
Standing up on the white courthouse steps, Terrell seemed overly casual to me. Confident. Thoroughly despicable.
And in the sincerest voice I could remember hearing out of him, in a voice choking with moral outrage, he said that he ?welcomed the chance to prove his innocence once and for all, before a judicial system that he for one still believed in.?
Some people booed loudly; more people cheered.
He went on to say how he was confident that ?the courts will vindicate me.? And he said, ?I swear to you before my Lord and Savior, that I have done nothing wrong, and nothing to be ashamed of.?
It was as strange and scary then as it was the first time I heard a grown adult serve up that kind of tripe to a group of other adults.
An even more frightening thing was in store for me that afternoon.
I?d gone down near the Fleetwood to observe the crowd up close. I was standing with a long-haired
photographer putting it all down on film.
To a man the people down by the Cadillac had that sick, hurt look I?ve never seen so much as at the Bible Belt showings of a movie called
is a documentary about a young, very well loved evangelist who openly admits how he?s been lying to and defrauding the people of the South. I want to tell you that the people around here cried after seeing that film. They are basically trusting, and they can?t comprehend deceit at that high a level.
At any rate, I was busy watching this fussed-up crowd, and I never saw Terrell until he was practically on top of me. In fact, I only saw him because the photographer started snapping away like a madman.
Johnboy never stepped one foot out of his chosen path, but he raised a stubby index finger and pointed at me from about ten feet or so away.
He looked at me with all the pride and Son-of-God feelings power can give a weak man. He looked and pointed, and all he said was ?You.?
I?ve got the photograph to prove that, too. It?s hanging safe and sound, blown up into proportion over my fireplace up here in Poland County.
Standing in front of the Tennessee state courthouse that day, October 12, I took the wild guess that Terrell would never be tried and convicted. That turned out to be right.
Nashville, June 30
A wasted American dreamer, Jefferson Terrell is 99% fat now. He has greasy, cardboard-colored hair slickly parted down the middle, but ducktailing in back. He constantly smells of tobacco and mash whiskey, and since he?s developed high blood pressure his plump face is tomato red. Johnboy also has a big, lazy accent. He pronounces words like pleasure, ?play-sure.?
But there is a smoldering brain in the wreck of Terrell?s body, and he is the man who finally got Thomas Berryman.
They met to exchange money in a top-floor suite in the old Walter Scott Hotel near the Old Opry Building and Tootsie?s Orchard Lounge. Berryman showed up late. He wore a yellow rubber terrorist?s mask for the meeting.
Still, an open Amana freezer couldn?t have dominated the tacky hotel sitting room any more than Johnboy. The man had presence; he?d always had it.
He?d ordered Beam?s Pin, and he was lounging over a squash-yellow davenport, drinking the overrated whiskey without ice. He told Berryman that he looked like a State Farm Insurance agent. His clothes did. Terrell said nothing about the mask, though it clearly had surprised him.
Trapped inside the stuffy room, Berryman wanted to be back outdoors. Where it was breezy and sunny and quiet. More than that, he wanted to be done with this job, and with the
?You may consider it foolhardy that I?ve chosen to meet with you myself,? Johnboy said. ?Well, I agree. It is foolish. But it?s the way I?ve always done things. I am a southerner, an empiricist. I wanted to talk to you. To evaluate you. To see you, I had hoped.?
Thomas Berryman nodded. He was catching sun-streaks in the brass minor behind Terrell?s head. He was remembering Oona Quinn coming out of the Atlantic Ocean like the girl in the famous airline commercial.
?Now you stop me if I?m not making sense ??
?You?re doing fine,? Berryman spoke through the rubber mask.
Terrell slowly sipped his bourbon. He examined Berryman like a rich man undecided about a new stud horse. ?I was curious about the kind of man you are. I was damn curious after that row with poor Wynn.?
Berryman found himself smiling at the fat man?s manner. ?And what do you think now??
?Why, I find you a complete surprise,? Terrell laughed. ?You?re so smart, you see.? He laughed again. ?I even begin to wonder why you bother with this sad business.?
?Sometimes I wonder, too,? Berryman said. ?But I guess I?m wondering more about the rest of my money right now. In fact, I?m beginning to worry. I thought you understood that I was to be paid before I do any work. I may be smart, but I?m also very expensive.?
