Neither of them saw me stir. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on. I went back to sleep.
I think it was around 5 a.m. when the gunshots woke me. There were two. They came very close to one another. Imagine the sound of a .30-06 rifle firing, and then think of the time it takes to snap your fingers four times to the tempo of “Thirteen” by Big Star. Then imagine it firing again.
I lay there for what feels now like a few minutes, terrified to move even a centimeter or even to breathe. My eyes darted around the barely lit living room for a clue about what to do. I knew without question what I’d heard—the unmistakable sound that takes a life—but I couldn’t quite comprehend that I’d heard that sound coming from the front yard that was just on the other side of the living room wall. I was only a few feet away. I wondered if it could’ve been thunder left over from the storm that came the day before or maybe another one coming. I wondered if it could’ve been something else that might imitate the vibrations from a cannon. No. I knew it wasn’t anything but what I knew it was. I’d been close enough to guns to recognize exactly the sound they make—a pop but a little longer than a pop. A burst, violent and hard, then the reverberation.
I told myself no, it couldn’t be what I knew it was, even as I simultaneously started rearranging every cell in my body to start accepting that, yes, it was. Yes, I knew that it was.
I got up off the floor where I’d slept and shook myself to the kitchen door. I was fourteen years old. I opened the door, which opened onto a carport, and called out into the thick early morning for Mama.
“Mama?”
I didn’t turn my head to the left, where I knew they probably were, and the darkness was merciful enough to give me no peripheral vision. I just stared straight ahead as I called her one time and not again. I knew there was no need to repeat myself and I wasn’t surprised there was no response. I couldn’t step outside.
I turned around to go back to the living room and met Sissy and Carolyn headed in my direction. Carolyn said something about hearing what she thought might’ve been a gun and that she’d looked into Mama’s bedroom and it was empty. I knew Mama wasn’t in her bedroom. I knew she was outside, though I hadn’t confirmed it with my eyes.
Sissy did. She walked straight out the front door into the approaching morning. She then walked back inside.
“Carolyn, keep Allison in the house. It’s Mama and Daddy. I’m gonna go get help.”
I could see the fuming energy running through her but she delivered the news like someone might mention something that was just a little more than a minor inconvenience. Maybe some kind of grace put the winter housecoat under Mama’s hand and guided it onto her body in her darkened bedroom before she got up and let Daddy in the house, otherwise Sissy would’ve been able to see even more than she did.
Possibilities
Daddy might’ve pulled the gun out of his van with the intention to kill only himself. Mama might’ve fought with him over it, begging him not to do it, and might’ve gotten shot accidentally if she pulled on it in an attempt to get it away from him. I don’t know why a person would do that but of course a person would. If that’s what happened, he would’ve panicked and turned the gun on himself immediately. He would’ve taken himself out as quickly as possible because each passing second would’ve allowed the reality of what had happened to sink into his brain and he wouldn’t have been able to stand that. He’d never been able to tolerate the thought of living without her, of not possessing her, so if she were dead, any shred of willingness he had to stay alive would’ve vanished. There wasn’t much willingness in the first place. Mama told Sissy and me a few months before that Daddy had begged her more than once to put him out of his misery and just kill him, then put the gun in his hands so it would look like a suicide.
That he wanted to die did not and does not surprise me. I’ve heard tell of a time when he was a different kind of man but I didn’t know that person. I only saw hints of him every once in a while.
I’ve known since they died that Daddy blew his head off, but I’ve never known how Mama ended up dead with him. There are only suggestions. Some days I think it doesn’t matter, because any scenario that I can dream still leaves them both gone, but some days it very much matters and I want to know. I wrestle around with the few facts I have—imagining, wondering, going over the sights and sounds I remember from that morning so long ago. Sights and sounds plus a few other facts I’ve managed to get my hands on.
THE WEBSITE FOR THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF FORENSIC SCIENCES provides a form to acquire death records. Send them a completed one with a self-addressed, stamped envelope plus a ten-dollar check, and in about a month they will send you what they have on the death or deaths in which you are interested.
On December 20, 2016, I called the number on the website and spoke to a nice woman named Alice about whether she thought they’d still have something on deaths that occurred over thirty years ago. She told me if they did, they’d send it to me, and if they didn’t, they’d send my money back.
I completed a form for each of the two people whose deaths I am interested in, one for Laura Lynn Smith Moorer and one for Vernon Franklin Moorer. In a large manila envelope, I included two ten-dollar checks and a self-addressed, stamped envelope for each report I hoped they could return to me. I marched it to the outgoing mail slot downstairs. I counted my steps as I walked from the elevator. Fourteen, the age I was when the deaths occurred. I’m always attaching meaning. I slid the envelope into the narrow opening and sent it off to Auburn, knowing I was entering new territory. Auburn, where Daddy had gone to college. More meaning.
In over thirty years, I had never seen the reports. I wasn’t even sure they existed anymore. I had reached that point in this process, in the poring over all of the details, in the asking of the questions, in the staring at the photographs, in the riffling through the briefcase, in the mental and emotional exhaustion. I needed to see something concrete about their deaths, some details that came from somewhere other than my faulty memory. I didn’t expect to find any big revelations—in fact, I don’t know what I expected—but I knew the time had come to find out everything I could and that seeing their autopsies was all of a sudden important. This is no murder mystery, but I still needed more, something tangible, with which to try to sort this out besides the sound of the two gunshots that still ring in my head. I thought the facts might be the more I was looking for. It’s hard to argue, excuse, or reason away black and white.
I received the reports on January 30, 2017. I knew they were coming because I looked at my bank statement that day and saw that the two ten-dollar checks had cleared the previous Friday. “They found something,” I thought. I turned my head away from my computer screen and told H. that the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences had cashed my checks.
I picked up my son from school at the usual time that afternoon. We walked home and stopped by the mailbox in the lobby of our building, just two steps from where I’d mailed the requests. The reports were both there, sitting on top of the other mail. There was no indication of which one was in what envelope. I gathered them up with the catalogs that would soon be put in the trash and the annoying flyers I hate for trees to be wasted on, and tucked them into the crook of my arm as we rode the elevator upstairs. I held on to my son’s hand with my free one. I plopped the envelopes on my desk after we walked through the door. I got my boy sorted with his afternoon music therapist and opened one of them at random.
Mama.
August 12, 1986, 10:30 AM.
64 inches, 126 pounds.
The body is received with a royal blue with white and navy blue trim robe, a dark beige with pink trimming nightgown and a pair of black panties. There are defects in the robe and the nightgown from a gunshot wound.
They didn’t take her housecoat off of her. I guess clothing is evidence.
Chest: Slightly asymmetrical, due to a perforating gunshot wound. There is a large 8-inch in greatest dimension zone of contusion
over the entire anterior portion of the chest. There is a ¾ inch in greatest dimension incision type scar with sutures scars in place 1-inch below the lower outer quadrant of the right breast.
Why are there sutures? Why did they sew her up? Was she still alive when the paramedics got there? Or is that something they just do when there’s a hole from a bullet?
Various little bruises on her body are described. She was always bruised up like I am. Everything shows on skin so pale.
There is a small ½ inch in greatest dimension abrasion over the medial surface, almost symmetrically placed on the medial surface of each foot, 1 inch below the middle malleolus.
She must’ve worn some shoes that hurt her feet. She loved shoes. She called those that were torturous “bear traps.” Sounds like the ones that bruised the tops of her feet would’ve qualified for that designation.
The toenails are painted with peeling lavender polish.
I’d wondered if she’d had her toenails polished. She did. Though I sort of doubt the polish was really lavender—that wouldn’t have been a choice she’d have made. The examiner might not have known what to call the color of polish on her toes. I bet it wasn’t lavender.
Upper Extremeties: There is a 4½inch in greatest dimension contusion on the anterior surface of the left forearm, 2 inches above the hand. There is a penetrating gunshot wound to the left arm, to be described in more detail subsequently.
The size of a man’s hand, if you measured it across the palm, would probably be around four inches. Two inches above the hand is where one would grab another to exert control. A hard, three-and-a-half- to four-inch grasp would leave something like a four-and-a-half-inch contusion on the arm.
I didn’t know there was a gunshot wound to her left arm.
Evidence of Major Trauma to the Body: There is a perforating gunshot wound to the chest and a penetrating gunshot wound to the left arm. This latter entry is a re-entry from the wound to the chest.
The entrance wound and exit site are described in detail. The bullet went into the front of the right side of her chest, ten inches below her shoulder, and made a half-inch hole. It came out of her upper left breast, five and a half inches below her left shoulder, leaving a one-and-a-half-inch oval-shaped hole. That’s about the size of an apricot. It then went into her left arm, where it stopped.
Direction of Missile Track: The missile track is from back to front, from right to left, and upward.
Path of Missile Track: The missile track perforates the skin, subcutaneous tissues, produces a 4 inch x 3 inch defect in the anterior chest wall, involving the fifth and sixth ribs, costal cartilages, the muscles and pleura between the fourth and fifth ribs, fifth and sixth, and sixth and seventh ribs. The missile lacerates the liver, lacerates the heart, pulpifies the middle lobe of the right lung and exits in the thoracic cavity in the region of the fourth left intercostal space. It then perforates the left breast and exits at the site noted.
Comment: As a result of the gunshot wound, there is a large defect noted in the chest. There is an estimated 1200 ml of blood and clot within the right thoracic cavity, 1000 ml in the left thoracic cavity; the pericardial cavity has been virtually destroyed.
Her liver was shot.
Her heart was shot.
Her lungs were shot.
Her right ribs were fractured.
The bullet wrecked her. It lacerated, pulpified, perforated, and destroyed her.
Reading the report makes me think there is little chance she lived very long after the bullet went into her. I am relieved and horrified. I already knew what gunshots can do but I am disturbed by seeing the details on paper of what one did to my mama. She might’ve died instantly. With any hope, that’s true and likely. But she might not have, instead smothering, suffocating from the blood that filled her chest cavity.
Two pieces of a copper jacketed gray metallic missile is recovered in the subcutaneous tissues on the lateral portion of the left biceps region in a zone 6 inches below the top of the left arm, 1⅜ inch posterior to the anterior surface of the arm. No bone is fractured.
English peas and rice were identified in her stomach. The Chinese food we ate the night before. She must’ve had fried rice.
Diagnoses:
I. Gunshot wound to the chest
A. Close range penetrating gunshot wound
B. Fractures of fifth and sixth right ribs
C. Laceration of right lung, laceration of heart, laceration of liver and contusion of left lung
1) Bilateral hemopneumothoraces
Bilateral hemopneumothoraces is when blood fills the chest cavity and compresses the lungs.
D. Superficial perforating re-entry wound to left arm
Evidence Submitted: Tissue specimen, blood specimen, urine specimen, photographs, gray metallic missile.
Cause of Death: Gunshot wound to the chest.
Manner of Death: Homicide.
I imagine the photographs. I cringe and my eyes burn.
Laboratory Results:
Exhibit 8. A semi-automatic “Remington” model 742 rifle, caliber 30-06 Springfield, serial number 6916622, identified as found at the scene. Examination of this rifle did not reveal the presence of any mechanical defects.
Exhibit 9. Two (2) expended “R-P” brand cartridge cases, and one (1) unfired “R-P” brand cartridge, all caliber 30-06. Laboratory comparisons reveal that each of the expended cartridge cases was fired in the Remington rifle submitted. Examination of the unfired cartridge revealed the presence of a firing pin imprint in the primer. It could not be determined if the Remington rifle submitted made this imprint.
There was a third cartridge. There were only two shots. What does the presence of the third cartridge mean?
I hope she didn’t hear me call for her. If I were shot in the chest and in the process of bleeding out in my front yard and heard my child call for me from the side door of the house, I can’t imagine I would die peacefully. The idea that Mama might’ve known I was looking for her haunts me. The idea that she might’ve died hearing me call for her, that my voice might’ve been the last thing she heard and that might’ve served as a terrible torment for her last conscious seconds, brings me an indescribable sadness. She couldn’t have known her time was up that morning when she was making that pot of coffee. She must’ve been in utter shock to find out that it indeed was as the bullet went into her and took with it all of her chances to be happy. To be, in any way, ever again. To laugh, to paint her toenails whatever color she chose, to dance, to eat a piece of cheese, to hold her daughters ever again.
Or did she know? Was Daddy clear about his intentions that morning? No autopsy will reveal that.
Was she cold? Could she see? Did she have her contacts in or was she wearing her glasses? Was she in excruciating pain? What was the last thought that she thought? Please, God, don’t let it be that she couldn’t get to me. I tell myself that she would’ve been gone by the time I got to the door, but I can’t be sure.
The ring on my little finger
Bobo, one of Nanny’s thirteen siblings, and her husband, Don, lived in Mobile. They were dispatched to come pick me up from the house on Barden Avenue and drive me up to Jackson to Nanny and PawPaw’s. Everyone in the family had become focused on Sissy and me and getting us within reach or at least in sight. I don’t know if there was any discussion between Mama’s and Daddy’s families about where we would go; it was probably understood that we would be with Nanny and PawPaw for the time being until some things were decided. There was a distance between the two families, not only physical but emotional. Both were heartbroken, but Daddy’s had to bear the guilt of what he’d done as well as the grief of losing him and Mama. Mama’s had to bear the grief of losing her as well as the anger and bitterness at what Daddy had done, plus try to find some grace to extend to the Moorers.
Katharine, Daddy’s only sibling, and her husband, Gus, were on vacation. They rushed back to Alabama. Dandy was home alone when Vance McVay, an old friend and form
er coworker of Daddy’s that lived near Frankville, went to tell him. I don’t know how long Vance stayed with him, but probably until some family could get there. I picture Dandy now, sitting in his chair by the window in the den, wondering what in God’s name had happened and what to do next. Nellie, one of his sisters, probably went over there or maybe Minnie Lou from across the road. He was probably struggling to get up and down from the surgery he’d just had. He probably sat by the phone folding and refolding a napkin, as that was one of his nervous habits. I can’t imagine his grief, though I know he must’ve already known something wasn’t right about his son and he couldn’t have been completely surprised by it all.
I didn’t want to leave the house on Barden Avenue without my sister, but she just hugged me tightly and pushed me into the backseat of Bobo’s car, assuring me that she’d be along directly. I still didn’t look at the front yard, even as we were leaving.
We stopped at Providence Hospital on the way out of town. Someone had to identify Mama’s body. I could see heat waves coming off of the asphalt of the hospital parking lot as Bobo got out of the car. I stayed put. Bobo wasn’t gone that long but it was one of those days that played with seconds and minutes—sometimes it sped up and sometimes it slowed down, making everything feel warped. I watched Bobo walk back to the car from the morgue, figuring silently that she had said yes, that is my niece with the new gunshot wound and no life in her.
I wonder now what it must have felt like to have to do a thing like look at a person you’ve known and loved since the day they were born and say yes, that’s her body. She only lived forty-one years, which isn’t long enough. I hate that she’s on this table worse than I hate the devil—she has two daughters who aren’t ready for her to be dead—this is my sister’s daughter—this is my blood.
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