Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  I could see Gemma didn’t much care what I was worrying about, so I sat next to her on the bricks, puffing out a long sigh to make sure she knew I wasn’t happy about it. Once I got myself organized, I realized we had one of the best seats in the house. The window was just off to the side of the jury box and covered by tipped-open shutters, providing a perfect view between the slats while keeping our curious faces obscured.

  But I wasn’t going to tell Gemma she’d been right after all.

  There was no way for me to adequately arrange myself with that dress on, and I looked unladylike enough that Momma would have tanned my hide had she seen me. But I could better afford to be unladylike than miss the trial.

  Walt Blevins sat at the very front looking as evil as ever, an arrogant grin pasted across his stubbly face. When I caught sight of him, the whole feeling of that night came back to me, and I felt like an army of ants was crawling down my spine. My hands were clasped tightly on my lap, and every time I swallowed, I made a gulping noise, so by ten minutes in, I had started to swallow only when I began to drool.

  Once the judge called the court to order, the first thing we heard about was exactly what had happened to Elijah Joel Baker. He had been beaten, kicked, and tied to a wagon and dragged. The doctors didn’t even know if he would ever walk again. When the prosecutor held up photographs of Elijah after the assault, I was glad I couldn’t see from where I was. Those who could see gasped and hid their eyes, men and women alike. It was a horrible thing what had been done to that boy, just like his gran had said, and by the time we’d heard the whole story, Gemma and I were in tears like most others in the courtroom.

  From that point on, Daddy’s words about trials being boring mostly came true. There was a lot of stuff being said that I didn’t understand. I supposed I wasn’t the only one who felt that way since I could hear snoring somewhere in the building, and the man sitting behind Daddy kept bobbing his head up and down like he was trying his hardest to keep from nodding off.

  As for me, I was busy counting the dots on my blue dress. It was only when Walt Blevins took the stand and put his grimy hand on the sacred Bible that I popped my head back up. I thought it was a shame that a man like Walt should ever swear on anything that had to do with God, and I knew he’d lie even if he swore on his own momma’s grave. I figured that a man who didn’t know who God was wouldn’t care so much breaking an oath to Him.

  “Mr. Blevins,” the prosecutor said, “do you recall the events of June fifteenth, nineteen hundred and thirty-two?”

  Walt leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin like he was hard in thought. “Well now, that was more’n a month back. Maybe you’d better narrow it down for me.”

  The prosecutor sighed and looked at Walt over the glasses he had perched on his nose. “Let’s start with seven thirty that evenin’, shall we?”

  “Seven thirty,” Walt muttered. “Let me see . . . that was a long time ago. Can’t say as I recall what I was up to. Seven thirty . . . I was probably gettin’ me some supper over at Ed’s grill.”

  “That’s what you’ve said before,” the prosecutor said while studying a stack of papers. “Thing is, no one at Ed’s remembers seein’ you that night until nine o’clock. Not even old Ed himself.” He faced the jury of white men and said, “Now, you boys know Ed. He knows every face that comes in and out of that grill of his.” Then he turned back to Walt to say, “And Ed don’t remember seein’ hide nor hair of you till nine o’clock.”

  Walt shrugged. “Can’t say as I hold much stock in people’s memories.”

  “Yes, but the courts do, Mr. Blevins. It’s called witness testimony, and we have quite a few of those who recall seein’ you that night after nine. In contrast, we have absolutely no witnesses who can account for you bein’ there at seven thirty.”

  “Maybe I don’t stand out in a crowd,” Walt replied. “You got somethin’ else to talk to me about?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the prosecutor said, “I do. Would you mind tellin’ the court why you were even in Coopersville that night? Because my records show that you’ve been a resident of Calloway for over fifteen years. Isn’t that so?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So then, why were you in Coopersville?”

  “Seein’ friends is all. There a law against seein’ friends? Do I need to get a permit or somethin’?”

  “And these friends of yours . . . who were they?”

  “Mr. Frank Beauman and his son, Frank Jr. They’ll tell you I was here to visit them.”

  “That they have. No doubt. Problem is, they don’t seem to know much about that night either. Seems like they lost their memories too. But then, Mr. Beauman and his son were seen, along with yourself, crossing the railroad tracks over Beaver Creek just before seven thirty on June 15. So are you sayin’ that you don’t remember bein’ at the tracks on Beaver Creek?”

  “Didn’t even know there was tracks over Beaver Creek. Heck, I didn’t even know there was a Beaver Creek!”

  Laughter filled the courtroom, but the prosecutor went on. “Are you also sayin’ that it makes sense for you and Frank and Frank Jr. to all forget what you were up to on the evening of June 15?”

  “Well, old Frank . . . he’s known for takin’ some of that homemade whiskey of his,” Walt said with a laugh, tilting his head back like he was taking a gulp of something.

  The people in the courtroom laughed again at his words, but I couldn’t manage to smile over anything Walt said.

  “And Frank Jr.,” he continued, “he ain’t never been the brightest bulb in the closet. They’s probably not the best ones to ask about . . . what’d you call it . . . witness testimony?”

  The prosecutor scratched his head dramatically. “Well now, that’s a funny thing about this case. For one reason or another, not one person remembers where you were at seven thirty that night.” He paused, laying a finger across his pursed lips. “Except . . . ,” he said, holding that same finger up in the air, “except for one man. Mr. Elijah Joel Baker. This man,” the prosecutor declared, raising a photograph of a wounded Elijah. “This man knows who did this to him. He knows who beat him and kicked him, who instructed two other men to tie him up and drag him behind a horse-led wagon. He clearly remembers that face because he stared at it through swollen eyes while he was being tied to a tree in front of his grandmother’s home, leaving her to find him battered and bloodied, unable to move and barely able to breathe.”

  My heart raced faster as that man’s voice rose. It was like a preacher’s hellfire-and-brimstone sermon, with him standing on his toes the way he was. I was mesmerized by his speech.

  But the judge stopped him suddenly with a rap of his gavel after Walt’s attorney stood to object. “That’s enough,” the judge said. “If you have a question, Counselor, please get to it.”

  The prosecutor tossed his papers onto the table behind him. “I don’t have any more questions for this man, Your Honor. There’s no point in asking questions of a man who seems to have so conveniently lost his memory.”

  The judge asked Walt’s attorney if he had any questions for Walt.

  The man stood stiffly. “Yes, Your Honor. In fact, I do.”

  I disliked the man instinctively as I watched him stand in front of the big oak table. He was dressed in an ugly brown suit with a tie that wasn’t done up right, what little hair he had left combed crookedly to one side.

  “Mr. Blevins,” the attorney said, “did you assault Elijah Joel Baker on June 15 of this year?”

  “No, sir,” Walt said lazily. “I did not.”

  The attorney smiled arrogantly and sat back down. “No further questions.”

  I sat there with my hands squeezed so tightly together they were numb, and I couldn’t believe that was all that would be asked of Walt.

  The trial continued for another two hours or so, and by the time the judge handed things over to the jury, I was sure Walt would be found guilty. With testimonies and mounds of evidence, including a signe
d statement from Elijah Baker, the prosecutor had put forth a very convincing case.

  About half the people swarmed out of the courtroom once court recessed, and Gemma and I went off quickly to avoid seeing my daddy. We sat under a sprawling oak and munched on some leftover corn bread and a couple of apples a colored woman had kindly offered us.

  “Gemma,” I said thoughtfully, “think he’ll pay for what he done?”

  A colored woman nearby answered for her. “Ain’t no way he’ll pay,” she said with a sniff.

  I turned around and leaned my chin on my shoulder. “Why do you say that?”

  “You take a good look at that jury?” she asked.

  “’Course I did.”

  “What’d you see they have in common?”

  I stared at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t they all look alike to you?”

  “They’s just a bunch of men,” I said. “So?”

  “She’s tryin’ to tell you that a jury of white men won’t never condemn a white man for hurtin’ a colored one.” Gemma shook her head. “But there ain’t no reason to bunch all white people in together.”

  “Girl,” the lady behind us said, “you done fooled yourself if you think white people ain’t all alike. Just ’cause your little friend here’s white, don’t you start thinkin’ you’ll be seen any different. White’s white and colored’s colored. The two just don’t mix.”

  “That’s ’cause people won’t let them. It’s people’s thinkin’ that’s the trouble, not their color.” Gemma took my hand in hers and tugged at me. “Don’t you listen none to her. Maybe justice’ll be done; maybe it won’t. But I ain’t gonna lump everyone in together. You and me . . . we’ll just wait and see what happens for ourselves.”

  I turned around, but it didn’t keep me from hearing the lady behind me say, “Ain’t no one got to wait for this verdict. They probably already got the newspaper report printed up.”

  Gemma and I didn’t say much for the next hour. The lady didn’t bother us anymore, but we could hear her and others around her talking in the same way she’d talked to us.

  I was scared to death, worrying about what would happen if Walt didn’t go to jail. “He’ll come back for us,” I whispered to Gemma. “If they let him go, he’ll come back. And what if he knows something about Cy Fuller?” I sent my voice even lower so I could barely be heard and said, “If he knows I killed Cy, he might tell.”

  “You ain’t killed him,” she said angrily.

  “But what if I did?”

  “You didn’t!”

  “Gemma! If I did and Walt knows it, he might tell.”

  “What good would it do for him to tell anything about that night?” she asked. “It wouldn’t do him no good to go stirrin’ up trouble and tellin’ tales on himself. You best quit worryin’. Ain’t no good worryin’ about things you can’t do nothin’ about. Only God knows what happened to Cy Fuller, and only God knows how to handle a man like Walt Blevins. It ain’t for you to worry about.”

  But I was worried all the same. I tapped my feet and squirmed. Gemma tried to get me to eat the rest of the corn bread, but I could barely sit still, and I hopped up like a scared rabbit as soon as someone called out that the jury was back. I could barely get my wobbly legs to crawl onto the wall, and when I took my seat again, I had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. My head told me that there was no way Walt Blevins would walk out of that courtroom a free man, but my famous instincts told me differently.

  As the jury filed back into their seats, I grabbed Gemma’s hand. I could feel it shaking, and it made me ten times more nervous knowing that Gemma was scared too. The buzzing of chatter faded away as the judge returned, and barely a sound could be heard in the entire room.

  Every now and again in life there are those moments when time actually seems to stand still. Those are the times when sounds echo in your ears, and people look like they’re moving too slowly.

  That was one of those times.

  I wanted to look around the courtroom, but I couldn’t. My eyes were stuck in one spot, staring straight ahead at the judge through wisps of smoke that curled up from the jury box. Throughout the trial, several men in the room had smoked cigarettes and cigars, the smoke floating out the window to tickle our noses. It wasn’t until that moment, when my nerves were so raw, that I even noticed it, and I began to feel choked and breathless. My eyes watered, and I swallowed hard several times to keep from coughing.

  The chairs of those in the sweltering room let out vague squeals as the people nervously shifted in them. Finally getting my eyes unlocked, I let them wander over to where Elijah’s family sat, and I saw his grandmother rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around her middle, whispered prayers coming from her lips. The tears that streamed down her face made my throat feel tight, and I flashed my eyes toward the front, afraid to watch her anymore.

  Then the judge rendered the verdict. I couldn’t hear him over the whooshing noise in my ears, so I leaned forward, but it didn’t help. It felt like my ears had stopped working. I leaned forward even farther, almost falling into the window.

  I never heard the verdict. . . . I saw it.

  I saw my daddy’s head drop, his shoulders slump. I saw Gemma’s grip on my hand loosen and fall away. I saw Elijah’s family collapse onto one another in anguish, shedding painful tears.

  And I saw Walt Blevins’s self-satisfied expression.

  My stomach ached horribly, and my teeth chattered even though it was about a hundred degrees outside in the sun.

  “We better get back to the truck before your daddy,” I vaguely heard Gemma whisper. I let her haul me up, but then I stopped cold.

  Walt Blevins got out of his chair, took a deep breath, and gazed out the window. I could have sworn he was staring straight at me. I had thought my daddy was the last person in the world I wanted to have see me at that trial, but Walt Blevins was far worse.

  “Jessie,” Gemma said, “what’re you doin’?”

  “He’s starin’ at me,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

  “Who? Your daddy?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Walt.”

  “Don’t be stupid! Ain’t no one’s gonna see us through them shutters.”

  “Then he can feel me. I swear his eyes are burnin’ into my skull.”

  Gemma followed my gaze and then pulled at my arm good and hard. “Come on.” When I hesitated, she cried, “I said come on!”

  Gemma steered me toward the truck, through people moaning and crying, yelling and arguing. I tripped on a gnarled tree root and skinned my right knee on it, but she yanked me back up by my arm like Daddy did when I was little.

  In the end, all that dragging did us no good, because we took the same route back to the truck as we’d taken into the courthouse, right past the front steps. Just as we rounded the corner, Walt Blevins came sauntering out ahead of a group of his supporters, and we nearly ran right into him.

  He looked down at us with a sneer, lifting a hand almost as if he meant to swat us out of the way like pesky flies, but he stopped midway and stared. It took several seconds of quizzical inspection before it finally dawned on him who I was. “What’re you doin’ here, girl?” he snarled at me quietly. Then he looked over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers and hissed, “You aimin’ to stir up trouble?”

  I remained quiet, but I didn’t move even though Gemma was tugging at my sleeve desperately.

  “I done asked you a question. You and this girl o’ yours plannin’ on doin’ some cryin’ to the law? ’Cause I’m a free man today, girl, and I won’t be takin’ kindly to any troublemaker gettin’ the law on me again.”

  The lawyer behind Walt put a hand on his shoulder and said, “We’re in front of a courthouse. Don’t you go startin’ up trouble.”

  Walt slapped the man’s hand from his shoulder. “Ain’t got to tell me what to do no more, lawyer man. You done your job.” Then he put one meaty finger under my chin and said, �
�Now you just let me go on and do mine.”

  The simple nearness of him made my skin crawl, but I couldn’t move a muscle. It was as if my entire body was as afraid of Walt as my mind was.

  Gemma didn’t share my paralysis, though, and she smacked his hand away. “You get your filthy hands off her!”

  That was all it took for Walt to send her flying with a backhand that was so quick I could barely see it coming. I found my voice and let out a shriek, but when I tried to run to Gemma, Walt grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. Pain coursed through my shoulder, but within seconds I could hear a scuffle in front of me, people yelling and cursing. The grip on my arm suddenly released, and I fell to the ground, nauseated.

  Without glancing up, I crawled over to where Gemma was lying, her dress covered in dirt, her mouth bloody. I tried to call her name, but it only came out in a loud whisper.“Gemma, are you awake? Say somethin’!” I shook her a couple times and screamed, “Gemma! Gemma!” before she finally rolled over slowly and moaned.

  All I could do was lay my head down on her stomach and cry. What had developed around us was what my daddy called a riot. Through my tears I could see nothing but flying fists, tangled bodies, and sweat. The fists were colored as well as white, and they landed soundly with each punch. For once, though, I saw colored winning out over white. The anger over the injustice inside the courtroom had spilled out in violence, and the colored men swung their arms wildly, leaving Walt battered and bruised.

  There was such chaos, you couldn’t tell one person from the next, but I saw someone wade through that commotion, and I could tell him apart from first glance. My daddy came through that pile like he was cutting his way through a jungle, and besides the fact that I knew he’d be furious to find me there, I was more grateful to see him then than I ever had been.

  He swooped down between the two of us and picked us both up at the same time, nearly dragging us to the truck. He didn’t say a word. Instead he looked us over, inspecting us for injury, and when he was satisfied that our wounds were not severe, he ran back to the fight. “Break it up. Come on, now. Break it up!” He grabbed at any appendage he could get to, but I noticed that the only ones he tried to get hold of were colored. Finally one of the men stopped and looked at Daddy, and Daddy told him, “They’re gonna get extra law here in no time. You want to go to jail?”