Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

So he was not eager, not at all, to hear a soldier (a hero soldier, at that) speak over the cackle of women and the clink of silverware.

  The luncheon had become an event he must not miss when Circuit Judge Horace Tallman had called him into his chambers some weeks before.…

  “Good to see you, Your Honor.”

  “Likewise, Judah. Sit down.”

  The judge was redolent of cigar smoke and bourbon and had a coarse, backslapping manner that made him appear out of place in his book-lined chambers.

  “Judah, you know Edna Ritchie died last week.”

  “Yes, sir. A grand old lady indeed. A full life …” He hoped his eyes did not sparkle from the excitement he felt. It was common knowledge that the widow Ritchie had left an estate whose stocks and real-estate holdings were worth quite a lot.

  “Hmmm. Full life. Well, maybe. Anyhow, somebody’s gotta see that her estate gets administered properly, that everything’s in order when it comes before the court. Think you could handle it?”

  “Why, I’d be glad to. Yes, sir.” Judah was sure that his eyes must be sparkling like a child’s, was hoping that he didn’t sound too breathless with joy. The judge had just played Santa Claus, had just offered him the chance to make several thousand dollars, based on a percentage of the estate, for a few hours of routine work and one or two trips to the courthouse to be sure the appropriate tax stamps were affixed to the appropriate papers in the appropriate pigeonholes.

  “Good. All right, then. The court will assign you.”

  “And I guess I’ll be opening a few books to bone up on my tax law. Yes, sir,” Judah said, thinking that he had coated his words with just the right mix of self-deprecating levity and conscientiousness.

  “And you can do the court a favor, if you would,” the judge went on.

  “Of course, Your Honor.”

  “My wife is one of the ladies in charge of setting up a War Bonds luncheon …”

  Which was why Judah Brickstone had circled the date on his calendar, had persuaded a couple of friends to buy tickets, and had bought a pocketful of tickets himself and given them away to courthouse clerks.

  Judah parked his car under the shade of a palmetto tree; though it was only mid-spring, the days were getting hot, and by noon on the day of the luncheon the temperature was in the low eighties.

  He walked briskly from his car to the main door of the Calhoun House, quite consciously appearing and sounding more enthusiastic than he felt. “Hi, you … Ladies, how you all doing this lovely day? … Afternoon to you, ma’am …”

  Keeping his mouth fixed in a smile (though if anyone had looked closely, he would have seen no smile in his eyes), he paused for a moment just inside the restaurant. The carpet was a rich maroon, and on the oak wall near the main door stood a life-size portrait of the restaurant’s namesake in a splendid oratorical pose. Flanking Calhoun’s portrait were two slightly smaller paintings of Confederate cavalry officers from Clarendon County who had served nobly in the War for Southern Independence.

  The receiving line was just outside the door to the main dining room. There was Judge Tallman, his plump, smiling wife, a few other women next to their uncomfortable-looking spouses, and the hero soldier. The hero soldier, Judah knew, was from Manning, the son of a farmer. He was a private first class and had been wounded at a place called Anzio less than three months before.

  Working hard on his smile, Judah got into the receiving line. “Why, Mrs. Tallman, how nice to see you indeed. You’re looking lovely.”

  “And so nice to see you, Mr. Brickstone. The judge has spoken so highly of you.”

  “I’m honored indeed, ma’am.” He winced slightly from Mrs. Tallman’s denture breath, but he had known it was coming and prepared himself.

  “Your Honor, a good day to you, sir.”

  “Likewise, Judah.” The jurist’s palm was moist, his suit smelled of perspiration and tobacco smoke, and his person had an aura of bourbon vapors. The judge held Judah’s hand a moment longer than was normal and bent over to whisper in his ear.

  “A word with you after lunch, eh?” the judge said.

  “Surely, Your Honor,” Judah said. He was immediately curious, vaguely apprehensive, and longed to take out his handkerchief to wipe the droplets of his honor’s spittle from his ear and neck.

  “Well, soldier! Welcome home to you, and proud to have you back!” Judah Brickstone said.

  “I’m mighty happy to be back, sir.”

  Judah disliked the soldier immediately. His face was thin, his eyes dull, his mouth loutish, his breath stale. Moons of underarm sweat showed on his khaki. He wore a bronze star and a purple heart.

  After a moment, Judah felt himself being pushed along. At the end of the line, seated in a wooden wheelchair and attended by a middle-aged nurse and a colored orderly, sat a very old man. His toothless mouth had long before collapsed onto his gums, and great turkey wattles of skin hung from his neck. His hair was white as snow, and his eyes a bright, fierce blue.

  “Won’t you say hello to Mr. Cantrell,” a woman’s voice cooed in Judah Brickstone’s ear just before he could sidestep the old creature. “He fought with Stonewall Jackson.”

  “Well, sir. You look like you still have a lot of fight left in you,” Judah said. By now, it was a strain to smile.

  “I was a drummer boy, start of the war,” the old man croaked. “War’s end, I had a rifle. Shot at some Yankees. Think I hit some, too.…”

  “I bet you did, yes, sir.”

  “Yankees freed the niggers.…”

  “Well, sir. I sure do hope you enjoy the luncheon.”

  Sweet Jesus in heaven, Judah thought. Do deliver me.

  Judah Brickstone experimented with several sitting positions before he found the most comfortable—or, rather, the least uncomfortable. Finally, he discovered that if he planted his elbow firmly between his dinner plate and butter dish, and rested his chin in his hand, he could endure the boredom and look (or so he imagined) attentive and very serious.

  A succession of ladies trooped to the dais to giggle and cackle, speak flatteringly of the hero soldier (whose expression remained dull-eyed and loutish), and talk of flags and patriotism.

  Judah was seated beneath a fan. At first he welcomed the refreshing, cool stir of the air. Later, after the restaurant had warmed from the food and people, the air that swirled about his head was sleep-inducing. The thrumming and whirring of the blades was almost hypnotic.…

  The words sounded farther and farther away, as though they were from a dream. Fight for your home and mine … Our way of life … Our pride in doing our part …

  His arm teetered slightly, and Judah was startled. He recovered in time to prevent his head from falling into a gravy boat. He concentrated: Which of the words had he really heard, and which had he dreamed? But if he had dreamed some of the words, then he must have been asleep. Oh, dear Lord …

  Slowly, he turned his head toward the end of the main table, where Judge Tallman was seated. The judge was looking directly at him, his face stern. Judah Brickstone was horrified.

  He sat up, ramrod straight, and listened with his most practiced rapture to the conclusion of the soldier’s monotonic address. Actually, he could think of nothing but the awful unfairness of what had just happened to him. He had dozed off for a minute or two, at most, and had perhaps destroyed what it had taken him months to cultivate: the good graces of Judge Tallman. The judge was a man of great influence, from Columbia to Charleston, among lawyers and legislators. His power to make life rewarding or intolerable for a lawyer, especially a young lawyer, was quite simply incalculable. Dear God, please let his honor not have seen my eyelids droop, and I will think pure thoughts all the rest of my days.…

  As the last of the diners were leaving, Judah inched toward the end of the main table, where the judge and his wife were chatting idly with several luncheon organizers. The judge appeared to be relieved when he spotted him.

  “Ah, Judah. Darling, please excuse me. Judah an
d I have something to discuss.”

  The judge led the way to a small private room off the main dining room. Judah followed, trying not to betray his terror.

  The judge sat in a large stuffed chair and beckoned him to sit in its twin. The judge took off his glasses and laid them on the small table that separated their chairs. A middle-aged colored waiter in a spotless white coat approached.

  “Jerome, bring us two double-bourbons from the private stock,” the judge said.

  “A very nice affair …” Judah began, his fear not abating in the least.

  “Hmmm. Well, Judah, let me thank you twice. Once for coming, and secondly for confirming my own feelings.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes. I was feeling guilty about feeling so bored. Until I looked over and saw you nodding off in your chair.”

  Flushed, Judah Brickstone began to stammer an apology, but it was all but inaudible in the laughter that rumbled like thunder from the judge.

  “Well, I guess I’d better plead nolo contendere,” Judah said, immensely relieved.

  “Awful chatter. Just awful. My duty as a husband to come of course, but just awful. And that soldier. Godalmighty, he’s an infantryman, not a speaker. Awful stuff …”

  “Well, Your Honor. Perhaps the old Confederate could have been more entertaining.”

  The judge laughed good-naturedly, and raised his bourbon in a toast. All was good with Judah Brickstone’s world again.

  “To your health, Your Honor,” Judah said, letting himself savor the bourbon’s warmth from his lips down to his stomach.

  “Business,” the judge said, switching instantly to a serious, almost confidential manner. “The court approves of your handling of the Ritchie estate and will think of you in the future on similar matters.”

  “I’m most flattered and grateful.”

  “No need. Speaking now as an old attorney rather than as a circuit judge, I wonder if you’d be interested in serving on a state bar association committee for planning our convention next year in Charleston? A little work, not much, and a great opportunity to make contacts.”

  “I would, indeed,” Judah Brickstone said, meaning it.

  “Done, then. I’ll arrange it. You know, the years have gone by awfully fast. It doesn’t seem that long ago to me, it really doesn’t, when I was a young lawyer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Judah knew something was coming.

  “So I like to help out, I really do, help out a young fellow with a bright future. Like yourself.”

  “Sir, I’m most grateful for your kindnesses. I can’t put it any better than that.”

  “I know you are. You know, the court needs a favor now and then, too. Oh, I’m quite aware of my official powers to tell people to do this and that, but I still think in terms of favors on some things.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That messy business over at Alcolu, down past the mill. The two little girls that got killed?”

  “A terrible thing, yes, sir …”

  “Worse than terrible. Anyhow, the sorry-ass young nigger boy who did it needs to be defended. Can’t get justice done without him having a lawyer. The court would be most grateful if you would undertake this assignment.”

  Judah Brickstone was stunned. He had practically no interest in criminal law, and his total experience consisted in having defended a neighbor’s son in a minor assault case.

  “I know, I understand,” the judge continued, soothingly. “A murder case, and a messy one. You’re a little uneasy. Well, relax. Nothing to it. The boy confessed, and he’s got enough reading and writing to understand, and the state has a birth certificate showing he’s old enough to know what he did. Simple as can be. Guilty as can be. But there’s gotta be a lawyer to stand next to him. Simple as that.”

  “Of course, Your Honor.”

  “I said nothing to it. And of course, there’s not much money in it either.”

  “I assumed not, Your Honor. What about his folks? Decent stock and all?”

  “From the mill shanties. Nigger’s daddy works in the mill. Right good folks. Never any trouble, sheriff says.”

  “Hmmm.” Judah groped for words, but it took him but a moment to realize there was only one way to say what he had to say. “Begging the court’s pardon, Your Honor. But what do I do now?”

  The judge smiled as though he understood. “First thing, I guess you go see your client.”

  Hot and humid, more like August than May, and Judah’s white shirt stuck to his back. He had splashed shaving lotion on his cheeks and neck, even dabbed some on his armpits to mask the smell of sweat. He carried a roll of mints, and one after another he had been putting them in the back of his mouth. He had no desire to visit Linus Bragg in his oven-hot jail cell, and he hoped desperately that the vapors from the shaving lotion and the mints would deflect the odor of colored sweat.

  The gray work shirt on the deputy was perspiration-stained despite the fan on the desk. The deputy’s face glowed with moisture. He looked up, unsmiling.

  “I’m attorney Brickstone, here to see the colored boy.”

  “Ain’t you lucky,” Dexter Cody said, rising.

  “Don’t feel lucky at all,” Judah Brickstone said, trying to sound jovial.

  “Sheriff told me you was coming by. Said it was all right for you to talk to him alone. Guess I can take your word you ain’t got no hacksaw blade in that briefcase.”

  “No indeed.”

  “Too bad. Nigger could run it ’cross his throat and save us all some trouble.”

  The deputy pulled his lanky body lazily out of the chair, unself-consciously pulled at his pants to unstick them from his legs, and pulled a ring of keys from the desk drawer. “You can hang your coat over there,” he said.

  Linus had learned long ago that you did not fight the heat. You moved through it evenly, neither too fast nor too slow, but you did not fight it. It made no sense, but it was true: You tried as hard as you could not to try at all, in the heat. You just did not fight it, no matter what.

  His daddy had told him many times that the white men in the mill, most of them, had never learned that trick. They fought the heat, futilely, by cursing it, cursing their own sweat that ran into their eyes and made sawdust stick to their clothes and their clothes stick to their skin.

  The colored did not defeat the heat; they just did not fight it, and thereby they won a truce that let them move through it.

  Every day was the same. He was tired and bored and mad. His mama and daddy must have got really mad at him, because they hadn’t come to visit. He couldn’t bear to think that something might have happened to them. The sheriff would have told him.…

  By practicing, and pretending, every day, Linus had learned to make himself float on his back, like his bunk wasn’t really there under him. His head floated, too, with his eyes closed, and instead of the wool blanket under his head, there was the back of the tree at the catfish pond.

  Linus could remember fishing at the pond, could remember the great big fish he had caught (Linus hoped that fish was happy way down in the deep, dark water, and he wondered if he would ever be able to keep any fish he caught, as soon as they let him go home), but he was finding it harder to remember what was real and what wasn’t.

  He wished he had not looked, wished he had not tied the cow up to walk after the girls.…

  The keys clanged, and Linus was afraid when he saw the thin deputy with the mean face by the cell door.

  “Getch your ass up, boy. Lawyer’s here to see you.”

  The deputy went away, and a white man came in. He was wearing a white shirt and a tan tie, loosened around the neck, and pants that looked to be part of a suit. He carried a tan briefcase. Linus had seen only two or three white men dressed so fancy in his whole life: Mr. Tyler, who was so rich he owned the mill and the land around it, and some of Mr. Tyler’s relatives.

  The white man pushed open the door and came in slowly. His face was wrinkled, like he was smelling something bad.

&nbs
p; Linus thought he smelled perfume on the white man. The white man put perfume on to smell better in the heat! He had to be rich, maybe as rich as Mr. Tyler, to do that!

  “How you today, boy,” the white man said. “I’m Mr. Brickstone, here to defend you.”

  The white man moved closer to Linus, seemed to be ready to sit on the bunk next to him, then wrinkled his face some more and stayed standing.

  Linus waited. He did not know if he was supposed to say anything.

  “This here’s a serious thing, boy. This here’s a capital case. You know that?”

  Linus knew that the capital of South Carolina was Columbia.

  “About as serious as it can get, boy. You understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Linus guessed it was all right to give answers to the white man. He must be a friend of the sheriff to be able to visit him.

  “Now, boy, I want you to tell me the truth.…”

  Judah felt uncomfortable; he was tired of standing, but he did not want to sit down too close to the boy in the oven-like cell.

  “Yes, sir.” Linus would talk with his best manners, no matter what.

  “Boy,” Judah said, wrinklng his face some more, “you signed this here document, and it says … You know what it says? That you came upon the two girls …”

  “Yes, sir.” Linus did not know what a “document” was.

  “And then you …”

  “Yes, sir.” Linus thought the white man didn’t like him.

  “Anybody make you sign this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “The sheriff asked you to sign, and you signed. Willing, like?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you told them about the spike.…”

  “Yes, sir.” Linus was afraid of the man’s voice. He didn’t sound very nice for someone who was a friend of the sheriff.

  Judah Brickstone loathed the colored boy, loathed the way he looked, the way he smelled, the way he so matter-of-factly admitted killing two little girls. Judah paused; he must try to step back emotionally. The boy was his client, and that was how the law worked, the price he had to pay.

  “Boy?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Ain’t nothing to do but throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Your age and all. You understand that?”