Bottomland: Based on the Murder of Rosa Mary Dean in Franklin, Tennessee

by Trey Holt

  “We got some big fuckers tonight,”he told us after everybody had quieted their laughing.“Boys from Hohenwald. Close descendants of a bunch of damn Germans. It’s gonna be World War II all over again.”

  It was plain that most people thought my short and skinny were more entertaining than what it had taken most of us and our families eight years to begin to forget.

  “They’re farm boys, too. Big ole meaty boys. Tackle hard, I’ve heard!”

  It was the first time I’d looked at him in months without wanting to kill him. The feeling would arise again every once in awhile, but soon leave as unpredictably as it had come. He was the cheerleader on the team. Even though a tight end, he saw it as his job to get us worked up before a game. He had taken this role in the absence of charisma of our present quarterback. Jerry Nance, a farmboy himself, who looked more anemic than anything else. Jerry shook his fist in the corner, which was usually all he was able to muster.

  “We can beat those big boys’asses!” Van hollered. He slammed his helmet into the cement ledge below the lockers, as he had seen Mr. Nedler do, in the absence of his presence. Nedler and his wife were with Lucky, I knew. Discussing what to do…what had happened.

  Van hit me and knocked me off balance. Slapped my shoulder pads hard enough that the soundhurt my ears.“Now go get that kick off,”he’d said.“If we get the coin toss—and I can guarantee you that I’ll call it right—you take that kickoff all the way back!” Which I did.

  As I had moved, it was like there was no one who could touch me. Homecoming. Sharon up there somewhere, taking off from work so she could come. The crowd roared their approval at every cut I made, at every tackle I pulled myself through with a quick move or a stiff arm. The end zone grew bigger and closer with every five-yard section of field I covered. It hadn’t occurred to me yet how big these boys were; I hadn’t been hit by one of them hard. Had just seen them as they melted into the picture I was leaving behind, as my teammates, including Van, threw blocks that sent them flying two, three, four yards away. As I had grown to love, I could hear the cracks of helmets and shoulder pads around me and behind me, almost like gun shots. Could hear the grunts and groans that leave players’mouths when they’re exerting everything they have, leaving it all on the field where they run and fall. The end zone was as good as anything I could imagine, if for no more than a moment, I basked in the feeling that convinces you that you’ve transcended the world.

  I handed the ball to the referee in the end zone like it was nothing. Just another day at the office. Nothing to get excited about. My heart must have been beating three hundred times a minute as I handed the referee the ball. I bent and put my hands on my knees, my lungs grabbing for all the air they could. Reminded myself of Lucky for a minute. Thought of the scuttle-butt that had swirled around me at least a couple of times this year—that I might actually get to play college ball. The article in the Review Appeal comparing me to Ronnie Langford. The one that said I didn’t have as much“raw talent,”but seemed to have as much heart as a boy could have. Went into all that shit about how I had carried papers since I was eight. How I had played baseball and football, but that football had been my passion.

  As everybody threw their arms around me, I was as sure as the fact that I drew in breath that these were the kind of moments we live for. The kind that make you forget the other ones, like what we had been going through the last few days. The referee even slapped me on the back, told me that he had seen my daddy arrive just before I took it back. Walking off the field, I had looked for Lucky in the stands…seen his face beaming from his normal spot. Mama must have been at home, I thought, waiting. Probably what Lucky had asked her to do. Somebody had to wait. As for Lucky though, he had gotten there just in time. He stood there cheering and coughing, clasping his hands together and pumping them over his head.

  + + +

  “Dillard‘Lucky’Hall, former Assistant Police Chief in Franklin, stated last evening that he remains unsure of who the woman found in front of the high school last Monday morning might be. In a somewhat strange twist of events, she was laid out at the Franklin Memorial Chapel, while hundreds of people filed by to look at her in an attempt at identification. The four deep gashes that were ruled to be the cause of death by Franklin Coroner Dr. Frank Guppy were covered as well as could have been possible, by thick makeup and a high-necked garment.‘We tried to do the best we could with what we had to work with,’said George Preston, Franklin Memorial Chapel Owner and Director.‘I do so wish, though, that we could have come up with a more respectful alternative, due to the fact that this one seems a bit demeaning. My God, it’s not a sideshow!’he chastised later in the evening.”

  “Later in the goddam evening after the son of a bitch had broke out his second bottle!”

  “Mr. Preston states that he contributed his services to the City of Franklin far below the normal price of such a procedure.‘There really wasn’t much else we could do,’he told this reporter,‘besides just do the best we could. It’s kind of like life, you know? You just do the best you can with what you have to work with at the time.’Mr. Preston, a man in his early forties who has made the funeral business his own for the last fifteen years, stated that so many people filed through his establishment to view the body that he thinks irreparable damage was done to his carpet.”

  “Do you see this shit?! Irrep—Queer motherf–”Lucky stopped himself as Jean with her pristine ears walked into the room. Began to read it again.

  “Mr. Preston stated,‘I did this as a personal favor to Dillard. He’s been so kind to me over the years. Franklin is indeed safer in his hands. I think that’s especially good to remember now.’“

  “You see, Daddy, that’s nice. He said something nice about you.”

  I knew Lucky wanted to spew obscenities all over the kitchen. But the Queen of Sheba was there, towel piled on her wet head, accenting her fat cheeks.

  Lucky grunted and shook his head.“The story wasn’t George Preston’s goddam carpet—“

  “Daddy!”

  “The story’s the dead woman still laying in the morgue because we can’t decide when to bury her because we don’t know who she is or what evidence we’ll need.“

  As usual, Lucky had been out on his morning patrol—minus meeting with Sammy and the other‘boys’ —and then back for breakfast. Staring at his plate, he said,“The real story is that somebody in this town slit a woman’s throat four times and it wasn’t the two colored men in jail.

  “How can you be sure, Daddy?” Jean whined.

  “There ain’t no way to be sure about such things. All you can do is take what you got and work backwards. Come up with logical conclusions along the way. And the logical conclusions is that I don’t think that they had a reason to do it…or really even a way. You know as well as me that it would’a took both of them to carry her body up there and dump it.”

  “But they could’ve, right?” Jean asked.

  “Yeah, I guess it’s possible. But what sense would that make? Why in the hell would they carry a woman they had killed to the high school where Jackson Mosby worked?”

  “Maybe they were goin’to put her in the incinerator,”Jean said, a theory that by now common knowledge. Somebody told me yesterday that there were a couple of kids there…early. Maybe he saw one of them.”

  “Well, if there were a coupl’a kids there, I’d sure like to know who they were,”Lucky said.

  As I swallowed down the lump in my throat, I tried to look as innocent as I could. Reminded myself Jackson Mosby didn’t know my name or even who I was. I told myself for the thousandth time there was nothing I could do for Jackson or Arliss Mosby. There was no proof that they hadn’t dropped the body before I saw Jackson that morning.

  Lucky folded the paper and laid it beside his half-eaten plate of eggs and bacon. Looked at it like he could pull some of the information out through osmosis. Placed it under his arm.

  “What else does it say, Daddy?” Jean chirped.

&nb
sp; “The same old stuff,”said Lucky.

  “I want a copy of it,”she said.“It’s not every day that you’re in the Nashville paper.”

  I stood, took my plate and dumped what was left in the trash. Jean did the same with hers. My mother emerged from the back porch, where she’d been folding clothes. Looked the table over.

  “Dillard, not hungry?” she asked.

  “I’m all right,”he told her, which translated into their speak for her not to ask more questions. The truth was too hard to bear.

  As Jean disappeared into her room—I stood on the back porch, staring through the screen that Lucky had had the time and the stamina to put up a few years earlier, when he was“the goddam assistant.” My eyes dropped to the washer and dryer: another deal Lucky had gotten somewhere, if I remembered correctly, McFadden Electric, a few years before the television. First the washer, then the dryer. I remembered a time when Percy had tried to help my mother wash clothes, had run his arm up in the ringer on the machine. Stood there hollering until my mother came running to the back porch to help him, actually rolled his arm out. How Frank Guppy had told him nothing was broken when Lucky took him later in the day.

  “I don’t know how the hell I ended up my brother’s keeper,”Lucky had said.“You’d think the trouble wouldn’t have followed me here…that somebody out there could take care of him.”

  Lucky visited his family usually a half-dozen times a year, besides the times he’d go get Percy or take him home, even though they were ten miles away. Lera and Horace always seemed innocuous enough to me. Just old people who smiled and nodded when you spoke to them, always opened the door quick at your knock.

  “Ma’am?” I said to my mother after she had spoken to me.

  “I asked if you were okay.”

  As I turned and looked at her, I could tell that she had been a pretty woman in her day…was still pretty for that matter. It was obvious, though, that some of her luster had been worn off. I suspected the residue was still on Lucky’s hands. She smiled then turned to the washer andstarted to run clothes through the ringer. I could still hear Percy screaming her name over and over and over.“Mary–Mary–Mary–Mary–Mary!”

  “How do you feel about going back to school today?”

  “Oh, it’s all right,”I told her.“I’m surprised they didn’t make us go back yesterday.” I scuffed at the planks on the floor with my boot.“And I guess if I thought somebody was gonna get me, it’d be my idea that they’d do it when I’m out throwing papers.”

  “Don’t say that,”she said. She shook out a couple of Lucky’s tee shirts, rang them, then threw them in the dryer.“I don’t think anything’s going to happen to anybody else.”

  “You always do look on the bright side of things,”I told her.

  “It’s not the bright side,”she said.“Just an idea of things you can live with.”

  Lucky passed through the back porch, paper still neatly tucked under his arm. Dotted my mother’s cheek with a kiss and slapped me on the back.”It ought to be a hell of a day,”he said.

  “I hope it’s not as bad as you expect,”my mother offered.

  “You and me both,”he said.“You know, besides the couple of scuffles in beer joints that turned into somebody gettin’killed, I don’t guess I’ve seen Franklin like this since the goddam cemetery incident. Well…maybe‘49.” He turned his eyes to what I was scuffing at on the floor, then pulled his own pant leg out of his boot top and swatted at the crease a couple of times.“At least everything’s been all right down at the jail. I went by there earlier this morning.”

  Probably the shot fired into the grill—something like that’ll do it every time, I thought as Jean stepped onto the back porch.

  “You ready, hunny?” Lucky asked.

  “Yessir,”she told him.

  She looked just like him. Broad head. Low set, thick jaw. Perpetual scowl. School was only two blocks from our house.

  “Why you goin’so early?” I asked her.

  “I’m going to catch up on some of my homework,”she said.

  Yeah,‘cause you’ve spent all your time over the last few days flappin’your gums about what happened like you might really know somethin’about it, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Since sometime in September—just around the time my life went to hell in a handbasket—I’d held my tongue. She had just asked me, come straight-out with it.

  “Are you meetin’somebody in the mornin’s?”

  “Yeah,”I’d told her, usually unable to lie to her.

  “Who?”

  “Nonya—that’s who?”

  “It’s that girl, isn’t it? That Bishop girl!”

  “I told you, nonyabus’ness.”

  “She’s pretty, Henry. Didn’t Van go out with her, too?”

  I hadn’t answered her. Just stared at the floor, made like I hadn’t heard her.

  “How’s you shoulder?” she’d asked, trying to change the subject.

  “It’s all right,”I said.“Guppy said the ligaments would probably heal on their own. Said there really wasn’t anything he could do till we knew if the ligaments were just stretched or torn. Rotator Cuff was hurt some, too. You already know this. Why’re you askin’about it now?”

  “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay,”she said.

  I nodded and didn’t say anything else. Keep to yourself what doesn’t need to be known. My mother would say nothing, I knew. Jean would lecture me on moral grounds. Lucky would attack from several fronts, asking if I knew what could happen doing what we’re doing. Then he’d attack on social grounds. The have’s and the have-not’s, he’d explain, baiting me to disagree with him so he could get madder than hell. People need to mix with others of their own kind.

  “You all start at ten today, don’t ya?”

  Jean nodded.

  “Yeah, we do too.”

  “That’s what you told them, wasn’t it, Dillard?”

  “Dillard,”I was certain was worlds away. The times he had seemed in his own body, in the moment, during the last three or four months were greatly few and far between. His hazel eyes were set hard out the window, on the backyard that Percy left through. It ran flat and straight for seventy-five or so feet and then down a slope and lost itself in a grove of Oak. Lucky had saidthat was why he’d picked this lot: the view was as close to heaven as anything he could imagine.

  “Isn’t that what you told them to do?” she asked him again.

  He nodded and drew in a deep breath. Coughed it out.“Yeah, I figured that way it’d be good and daylight before people had to leave’.”

  “Did Mayor Everett have any other ideas?” asked Jean.

  “You know he does whatever I say,”Lucky laughed and coughed again.“I gotta get at it,”he said, which was what he said when he’d had enough of whoever he was standing around.

  “I’m ready, Daddy,”chirped his princess.

  My mother put her lips to our cheeks one at a time, told us she loved us and to be careful.

  Lucky pressed the paper under his arm tighter. He would throw it away. We’d never see it, he knew. Or, I take that back. They’d never see it and I’d never show it to them. Another unspoken agreement. Lucky would let me slide…and I’d offer the same to him. Just like I had in September.

  + + +

  For the most part, the graves had been restored to the way they’d been before that night. In only broad daylight and if you knew what you were looking for, you could see the cement that had been used to adhere together again what had been torn apart. I often wondered if Fred Burkitt came here, if he ever sat in his car and thought back to what happened here, knowing that no one else had ever discovered the truth. Probably not, I usually concluded. He likely thought he had sacrificed enough. Going after Muscle-eddy in Oklahoma.

  Besides Percy, neither Van nor I had ever told another living soul about that night. When Ronnie’s body had come home—or really, only the top half of his body—Lucky had packed us all in the car and told us we needed to see
what a hero looked like.

  “When will that other boy come home?” I remember asking him, after we left the funeral home, George Preston still flashing through my mind. How odd he was.

  “That other boy that left when Ronnie did?” Lucky asked from the front seat.

  “Yessir.”

  “As soon as he gets well enough to,”Lucky had said.“We’ll have to visit him then, too.”

  Yeah, anything to avoid visiting Percy, I remember thinking, who was still being held in Central State Mental Hospital. The shock treatments now down to every other day, no one ever much said anything about him except when we visited him occasionally.

  “When do you think he’ll come home, Daddy?” Jean said in a voice that made me cringe.

  “Well, they said he’d be in the hospital in the Philippines for a little while. Said he’d be awhile learning how to use that contraption they’re teachin’him to use.”

  No one, including Brown-nose, wanted to hear about the contraption.

  “But he is…surely still alive?” Jean posed.

  “That’s what it said in the paper. Goddam Review Appeal, if you can trust that.”

  The only paper Lucky trusted less than the Review Appeal was the Nashville Banner, the evening Nashville paper. Lucky, himself, was a Tennessean man.

  “Get news faster on the television anyway. Just think about it, that’s where we heard about Hitler and ole Eva Braun’s suicide, about our soldiers finally taking Okinawa, about Germany.”

  I knew what he was talking about. I’d heard it everywhere. The liberation, the concentration camps. The ultimate surrender.