Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  The guards steered him around the corner, and there it was. Linus had wondered what it would look like, and now he knew. Black and shiny. His father worked at the sawmill. Maybe his father had cut the wood for the chair! Linus tried to tell that to the guards but he couldn’t make real words come out. It was like in a dream, what came out of his mouth, and the guards did not seem to hear him.

  There was the sheriff. The sheriff’s son was next to him, with a white face, as white as in a dream. Linus wanted to say something to the sheriff, but he could not make real words.

  So many people. Some of the faces were the same ones he had seen with the twelve men. Or was he dreaming it? Could the faces be the same? Yes, they were, and they looked at him, right at him, but their eyes were not the same.…

  Or maybe he, Linus, had made it up, made it up that they didn’t look the same. It was hard to tell what was real.

  They were at the chair. The back was tall. Linus felt himself being spun around, dizzy, then lifted off the floor and pushed back so he was sitting down. The guards pushed hard, so that the backs of his legs hit the edge of the chair. That hurt, and he tried to tell them, but the words that came out were not real, not words. Linus could tell from the guards’ faces that they could not hear him. The guards were sweating, but Linus did not think the room was hot.

  Linus felt his arms being grabbed and placed along the chair’s arms. He heard the sound of straps and buckles, felt the leather on his arms. Linus could not understand why the sounds of straps and buckles seemed to go on and on, and why the guards muttered and puffed.

  “Goddamn,” one guard said. “Straps too big for a kid.”

  That made Linus want to laugh. He tried to laugh, but his laugh came out like a crazy sound, a dream sound. Then his arms stung as the guards gave up on the buckles and tied the leather in place. Linus felt his right pant leg sliding up, felt something wet being wrapped around his leg, then something wrapped tight over the towel.

  Again, Linus heard the sound of straps and buckles, this time from down near the floor. He felt the guards tying the straps around his legs, about halfway between his knees and ankles. Linus wished there was a window.

  The mask scared him, hurt his nose as it was pulled down over his face from behind. Blackness. He would never see anything again. But no one could see him either. He could cry, if he wanted to, and no one would see. He was being put to death.

  Linus heard the guards walking away. He was alone. Someone far away coughed. Linus wondered how long. He was going to jump over a big ditch and go to heaven, way up north.…

  Good-bye Ma, good-bye Pa, good-bye Will, good-bye Jewel. I pray for Ma, I pray Pa, I pray Will, I pray Jewel.… His stomach felt like he was getting ready to jump. There! A light. Sunlight over the catfish pond. There was a big fish he had let go, jumping high, high in the sun. Shining.

  Junior was startled by the “whump” of the generator kicking on. He had expected to hear a sizzling noise, like bacon frying, but all he heard was the mounting whine of the generator.

  Junior could not take his eyes off the colored boy’s body twisting against the straps. Almost instantly, the head poked through the mask. Drool fell from the open mouth, tears streamed from the bulging but sightless eyes. Junior wondered if the tears had started before the current, or whether it was part of the dying.

  Junior smelled burning hair, burning flesh, and (he was not sure) maybe urine and feces. A fan in the ceiling directly over the chair had turned on as the current started, and much of the smoke from the body—but only part of the smell—went straight up. For which Junior was grateful, as he watched the writhing, even though he wondered how he would sleep after seeing what he was seeing. How he would sleep that night, and the next night, and all the rest of the nights of his life if he lived to be a hundred.

  Finally, the generator died down. The writhing stopped, and the colored boy’s body slumped in the chair. The room was silent. Then—Junior could not believe it—the generator started up again, not as loud as before. The body twisted again, though not as much, and there was not as much smoke. Dead, Junior thought.

  At last, the generator whined down and all was quiet. The guards who had led the colored boy to the chair came in, carrying a simple stretcher. They placed the stretcher next to the chair and untied the straps. Almost effortlessly, they pulled the small corpse from the chair and dropped it onto the stretcher. Junior watched, horrified but fascinated, as the head rolled to one side, as though the neck bone had been turned to sawdust. Expressionless, the guards marched out with the body.

  Suddenly, the people who had watched began to cough and clear their throats and mumble as though they’d been waiting for the body to be removed. Feet shuffled as the men rose, slowly, from the witnesses’ benches.

  Junior stood up and wondered for a second whether his legs would hold him. He was glad for his father’s arm across his shoulders.

  “It ain’t the prettiest thing in the world,” the sheriff said quietly to his son. Then, to the others, the sheriff nodded solemnly. “Over now. All of it,” he said.

  He waited until everyone was out of the room. Junior wanted to get outside, out in the fresh air, more than he had ever wanted anything.

  “Let’s go, son,” the sheriff said at last. “I’m thinking I’ll need a jug of peach wine tonight. Maybe two. Don’t care if I’m sick tomorrow, truth to tell. You can join me if you like.”

  BOOK

  TWO

  18

  Columbia, South Carolina

  Late March, 1988

  The soil of South Carolina lay below, in the mist. It was a rich soil, James Willop knew—incredibly rich with the blood and bones of slaves and slave owners, interred under different circumstances, surely, but equal now in death.

  As the jet circled, James Willop studied the mist, growing fainter by the minute in the morning sun, and wondered if the mist were any different chemically from that which rose, say, from New Jersey or Ohio or California. The South Carolina mist must be, in a way, the essence of sugar and rice and indigo, Willop thought, remembering what he had read about the colonial agriculture of the state below.

  And if the blood and bones of slaves and slave owners (much of it assimilated by the earth, long since part of it) gave rise to the mist, how would that affect the content? Willop wondered if anyone had ever thought seriously about such things. Surely, the mist must be more from the blood and bones of black people, Willop reflected, since not many decades ago—and for centuries before that—the blacks who tilled the soil far outnumbered the whites who owned it.

  With such thoughts, Willop tried to keep his nerves in check as the plane circled in a wide arc over Columbia. A rainbow shone in the window. One moment the rainbow would be right there in front of his eyes; the next moment it would be gone; then it would come back again.

  The day was clear now. Blue sky and bright sun on a quilt of brown and green. He did not rest his eyes, not for a second, as the plane wheeled. He looked to the horizon and back and out again. In that way, he thought, his eyes might sweep over the grave of Linus Bragg.

  A stewardess with a voice like syrup said the temperature was sixty degrees—ten degrees warmer than New York had been on this early-spring morning. The ground came up fast, concrete now, runway markers, black skid marks from the tires.

  The plane bumped, the engines whined, and the butterfly feeling in Willop’s stomach began to go away.

  “Welcome to Columbia, South Carolina,” the stewardess said.

  “Did you have a pleasant flight, sir?”

  “Fine, thank you,” Willop said to the woman behind the counter. “I believe you have a car reserved for Willop, James B.”

  “Sure do. A compact all set to go. Are you here for business or pleasure?”

  “A little of each.” He liked her light brown hair, blue eyes, the smile. Braces, for God’s sake! She didn’t let her braces keep her from smiling. Well, good for her. He wanted to say more.

  “Yo
u from these parts?” he asked.

  “Born and raised,” she said. Her eyes, bright and inquisitive, locked onto his. She was expecting him to ask directions, or something.

  Willop wanted to say something more, to repay her friendliness. Then he imagined how the woman’s father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather might have felt.

  He said nothing.

  He put his suitcase in a locker and found the cocktail lounge overlooking the runways. It was early, but what the hell. He would not break his promise to Moira to be careful on the drinking, but just now he could use something. He ordered a double Scotch and a water chaser, and looked absently at the television set in the corner. Every time a plane went by, the colors on the screen jumbled and bled. No one seemed to notice. He wondered again whether he should have told Moira to use a fake name for the flight reservations and car, then told himself it didn’t matter.

  The Scotch began to sink in.

  “Care for another?”

  “No, thanks,” Willop said crisply. He was sure he had seen something in the white bartender’s eyes, had seen the question: Is he white or black? I sure am, Willop felt like telling him.

  The Scotch was not always good for him, but this day it was. Smoke in the nostrils, fire in the stomach. Friendship, courage. Peace. At least until it wore off. He had a bottle in his suitcase.

  It was the perfect combination of things to make him nervous: driving an unfamiliar car into an unfamiliar city with no particular destination. Actually, Willop did have a destination. He wanted to find a hotel that was respectable (or at least not too unsanitary) but a cut or two or three below the well-known chain motels. His plane ticket and car rental had already stretched his budget, pushing his credit-card load uncomfortably close to the limit.

  He had one other reason for wanting an obscure hotel. Perhaps it was paranoia, perhaps prudence, or maybe both. But he did not want to be too easy to find.

  Finally, he found himself on a busy street that was neither slum nor thriving business section, but something in between. It was a bit seedy and … old. Yes, that was it. A part of town that was like a thousand, or ten thousand, tracts in cities across the country. Prosperity and gaiety (fickle bastards) gone to the suburbs, leaving a suffocating drabness.

  Willop spotted a hotel sign and pulled into an empty parking space at the curb. He watched for a few minutes, noting who went in and out of the hotel. A few black men, a few white men, black women, white women. They had one thing in common: They were old. No, two things. They looked poor, too. Maybe lonely; that’s three things, Willop thought. Ah, shit. If there ain’t any queers or drunks or loonies, I can stand it.

  A few minutes of grace remained on the parking meter, so Willop locked the car and went into the hotel.

  Way off in a corner, several old people sat, motionless, perhaps even uncomprehending, before a badly focused television screen on which contestants were hinting and guessing and pressing buzzers to win prizes. The television noise, some cigar odors, and (encouragingly) a smell of distant disinfectant—these were of the present. Everything else in the lobby, from the deep ruts in the floor, made by once-happy travelers long in their graves, to an old painting of a train platform where men and women dressed for the 1930s were climbing aboard a train, told of a past so dead as to be almost beyond memory.

  The clerk was an old black, dark as a horse chestnut, short and knobby. He eyed Willop suspiciously.

  “I need a room,” Willop said. “For tonight only.”

  “Rate’s better if you stay five days or more,” the clerk said.

  “No thanks. Just for tonight.”

  “Twelve dollars. Cash in advance. Sink and a towel in the room. Soap, too. Bathroom the end of each hall.”

  “Phone?” Willop asked.

  “Pay booth in the lobby. Give you change when you need it.”

  “Here’s your twelve. And here’s an extra single for telephone change.”

  “Room 2C, upstairs and to your left. Checkout’s at noon.”

  “One more thing. Where can I park my car?”

  “Car?” The old clerk was astonished, then wary. “Ain’t nobody stays here if they can afford a car.…”

  “It’s okay,” Willop said. “It’s not stolen and I’m not wanted for anything. It’s just a low-budget trip, okay? Now, where can I park my car?”

  “Alley behind the hotel. Drive to the first corner, turn right, then turn right again first alley you see. Nobody’ll bother you back there.”

  “Terrific,” Willop said. “Got a bellhop to help me with my luggage?”

  The clerk did not smile.

  “Just kidding,” Willop said.

  “Two dollars extra to park your car. Cash in advance.”

  Willop had seen worse hotel rooms. This one had a bed whose saggy mattress was covered by sheets that at least seemed to be free of semen and blood. The sink was moderately clean, and a fresh bar of soap lay on a fluffy towel on an ancient dresser. A quick inspection of the floor beneath the bed and behind the dresser revealed no huge balls of dust, no mouse turds, no roaches. The window overlooked the alley, affording a view of the car, and the fire escape seemed to be sturdy.

  Man, I am living, Willop thought. Maybe I can get room service to send me up some sandwiches and beer.

  He washed his face and went down to the phone booth in the lobby, note pad and pencil ready.

  Willop had never been that great at working a phone, whether doing an investigation or trying to get a plumber to come to his apartment for an emergency. The detectives and reporters on television, or in the cheap paperbacks, operated at an effectiveness level he could not comprehend.

  “J. Alfred Prufrock musta had more balls than me,” he said in the quiet gloom of the booth.

  The tattered phone book was especially worn in the “South Carolina, State of” pages (people calling to complain about welfare checks or something?), but Willop found a general-information number.

  He hesitated before dialing. Should of called from up north. No, not so. He had to make the trip anyhow. Cut the shit and let us begin.

  “Good afternoon, State of South Carolina.”

  “Yes, can you connect me with your corrections department? I’m calling from a pay phone.”

  “Certainly. Hold, please.”

  Silence for several seconds, and several more seconds.

  “Department of Corrections.”

  “Yes, I’m calling for information about a criminal case.…”

  “Certainly. Are you a relative of an inmate under Department of Corrections control?”

  “No, no. I just need some information.”

  “In that case, perhaps I’d better switch you to our public relations office.”

  Without waiting for argument, the operator switched him.

  “Public relations, Jim Baker speaking.”

  “Hi. I’m trying to get some information about a case.…”

  “You a reporter or what?”

  “Reporter, uh, and writer. Freelance right now.”

  “And your name?”

  Willop had an instant to decide whether to use an alias. It was no decision, really. He had little faith in his cleverness, so he opted for the truth.

  “Willop, James B.”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Willop? If this is a current case, it would help me a lot if you knew what county it came out of.”

  “It’s not current. In fact, it’s from over forty years ago. It was a pretty big murder case at the time. This was in 1944.”

  “Damn, that is a long time ago, all right. Might have to refer you over to archives, though no telling what they’ll have. Or you might try the county clerk’s office in the county where it was tried.”

  “Right. I’m going to do that. But you can understand how, with something so long ago, it pays to touch base with anybody who might help. This case ended in an execution.”

  “Ain’t surprised a bit to hear that. South Carolina has always been pretty good ab
out frying people. Even more so back then.”

  “You don’t approve?” Willop felt he was getting somewhere.

  “Can’t say I do. Saw all the death I wanted to see in ’Nam. But never mind that. If you give me the name of the guy who got zapped, I’ll give you everything we got on him. Which probably won’t be much.”

  An operator cut in. “I’m sorry, your time is up. Deposit another twenty-five cents, please.”

  Willop fumbled for another coin. “Give me a minute,” he said.

  “That’s okay, Mr. Willop. Just give the number where you’re at and I’ll call you right back.”

  Willop read the number gratefully, hung up, and sat in the silent, hot phone booth. Within a half minute, the phone rang.

  “Hi,” Willop said, immensely relieved.

  “Now then,” Baker said. “Suppose you give me the name of the executee.”

  “Bragg, B–R–A–G–G. First name Linus.”

  “All right. Now, I might be away from the phone for a minute or so. We gotta long drawer here with files on everybody who sat in Old Sparky. You just hold on.”

  Heartened, Willop did not mind the wait this time.

  “You from up north?” Baker said when he came back on the line.

  “From Newark, New Jersey, most recently.”

  “Thought so, ’cause of your accent.”

  “And you’re a native Carolinian, I take it.”

  “Born, raised, and live in Columbia. Now then, all I got here is a little bitty three-by-five card. Says that Linus Bragg was delivered to the state prison May second, 1944. Then, hmmm, there’s another notation that he was delivered here again, on June fourth, 1944. Oh, I see. Second time he was delivered directly to death row. First time was just for general custody, probably.…”

  “That was for his protection,” Willop said. “So the people back home wouldn’t lynch him.”

  “That right? Protection, huh. Imagine that. Anyhow, here it says he was electrocuted on June sixteenth, 1944, with the required number of witnesses present. Body delivered to the Mason Funeral Home in Columbia—”