by Shana Burg
Now I nudge Mama. “Wake up.”
“Mmmm…” It seems Mama’s stuck in a dream of her own.
“Come on!” I tell her. “Today’s the day.”
Mama can barely get herself dressed, she’s got the fidgets so bad. But me? I rush to pull on the orange dress with the yellow iris down the back, the one Delilah let me borrow for courage.
Before I leave for court, I go out to the yard. I see something sparkling in the ashes where my house used to stand. I don’t want to dirty my sneakers. But I can’t help it. I tiptoe across the charred yard to the glitter on the ground. I pick it up and brush off the black flakes. I know just what it is: the silver knob to change the channels. It’s all that’s left of my television set. I drop the knob onto the ground and step back across the ashes to the Montgomerys’ yard.
Mama, Mr. Montgomery, Mrs. Montgomery, and Delilah empty out of the house. The lot of us stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle while Flapjack twists round my ankles. The old oak is a burnt stump. The swing’s gone. The television’s gone. Everything’s gone but this circle.
We open our palms to the sky while Mama prays for Uncle Bump’s deliverance. Then she reaches into her pocket, removes the sack of graveyard dirt, and sprinkles it onto all our hands. When she drops the dirt onto my fingers, it tickles, and I reckon maybe Daddy really is here after all. Then I close my fist round Daddy’s dirt and pour it into the back of my sock, so I can make sure he comes with us to court.
CHAPTER 27
October 21, 1963, Early Morning
There’s only a handful of us who know the truth: my brother’s nothing but alive. Last night he drove back to Kuckachoo with Miss Gold. Now he’s hiding in the Montgomerys’ pantry—sleeping, eating, and praying the day away—so he can be here when the trial’s done. And I don’t think it will take too long. Mama says here in Kuckachoo justice is served up faster than a malted at the Corner Store. She doesn’t expect the trial will last till noon.
When we get to the courthouse, I bend down and kiss Flapjack goodbye. While my cat stretches out in a patch of sun beside the courthouse, Mama and me climb up those seven steps and head inside.
After we take our seats in the colored rows, twelve white men settle into their seats in the jury box up front. I wish folks like Mr. Montgomery and Mrs. Jacks could be the jurors instead. But seeing as they can’t pass that cockeyed test to register, I reckon Negroes will never decide our own fate in court.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing: I can’t wait for the truth to leap out of its hiding place and give everyone a good fright.
“All rise!” shouts the court clerk, who’s still got a cold.
Folks are quiet while the judge walks to his chair, bangs his hammer, and calls on the lawyer to make an opening speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Hickock says to the jurors, “I represent the great state of Mississippi. We are here this morning to do justice. As you know, a heinous crime has been committed.”
And I’ll tell you something else: if that lawyer thinks using a big word like “heinous” is going to make us think he’s smart, he’s wrong.
“Good people of Kuckachoo,” Mr. Hickock says, “you planted a community garden for the purpose of feeding your children, but before you could harvest the crop, someone deliberately, viciously, horribly, and intentionally—I repeat, intentionally—ruined that garden by planting it over with butter bean seeds. It’s clear that person intended harm, because that person didn’t even set poles beside each plant so the vines could grow up the way they’re supposed to. Instead, those vines grew across the garden like ivy and choked the life out of anything trying to make it on that land. Not even the butter beans came up right. That person took food out of the mouths of your little babies, your children. And that person is here in this courtroom.”
It’s a good thing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. isn’t here in this courtroom, because I hear Dr. King doesn’t like violence, and right about now I’m aching to slug Mr. Hickock’s face. And I reckon Mama knows what I have in mind, because she grabs my fist and holds it in her warm hand.
“Today, the witnesses for the prosecution will prove Bump Dawson stole the seeds from Mr. Adams’s garden cabin and destroyed property that rightfully belongs to our community,” Mr. Hickock says. “Later, the Honorable Judge Cogswell will decide whether to put Bump behind bars for five years. Or perhaps ten.”
Mr. Hickock turns my stomach worse than crawfish stew. Now he rocks back on his heels. Then at long last he sits down on his spindly behind.
Next, the judge calls on our lawyer, Miss Gold. Special for the trial she wears a fancy blue jacket and skirt. But Mama takes one look at Miss Gold’s too-short hemline and shakes her head. So what if her legs show? To me, Miss Gold looks fetching, kneecaps and all.
“Good morning,” Miss Gold says to the jurors. I like how she sounds all sharp and sure like she’s ready to fight. “I represent the defendant, Bump Dawson,” she says. “As Mr. Hickock has told you, we’re here today to see justice is done. To deliver justice means to do what’s right and fair. Yes, somebody ruined your community garden, but what’s right and fair is to find the true culprit, not just a convenient scapegoat for this crime.”
Mama’s grip on my hand loosens.
“Today, gentlemen of the jury, I will prove to you that Bump Dawson deserves nothing but your respect. This is a question of character. Not only was my client a faithful servant for more than a decade, but he’s also an upright, law-abiding citizen. You’ll soon see that Bump Dawson, the man sitting before you, deserves an apology from the entire community, because he’s not guilty of any crime.”
I have to stop myself from bolting to the front of the courtroom to give Miss Gold a hug. What she says, it’s right and fair. And I’m sure as the sun shines that the judge will end this whole trial right now. It’s clear as day. There’s nothing left to discuss.
So when the judge says, “The case for the prosecution may begin,” his words evaporate out his mouth, condense in a cloud over my head, and rain down all over me till I’m soaked to the bone.
Then Mr. Hickock calls his first witness to the stand.
Mama takes one look at the witness and shakes her head back and forth. And I just know that tea is spilling all over again in her mind.
That’s because the first witness in Uncle Bump’s trial is none other than Honey’s mother, the lady with the plastic strawberries on her hat, the one who flunks hardworking Negroes at voter registration, Mrs. Tate’s friend, Mrs. Worth. Today Mrs. Worth’s short blond hair is all fluffed out. And she’s got on a hat, a purple box of a hat, with a blue feather stuck to the side of it.
While Mrs. Worth rests her plump hand on the Bible, I scrunch my toes in Daddy’s dirt to let him know we need him bad, and we’d be more than grateful if anyone else in Heaven could fly down and help out too!
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” the court clerk asks Mrs. Worth.
“So help me God,” she says.
“Very well then,” says Mr. Hickock, “as a most influential member of the Garden Club, do you know that Charles ‘Bump’ Dawson has tended to the weeding and watering of the community garden, some of the most bothersome tasks in growing vegetables?”
“That’s exactly right,” Mrs. Worth says. “I originally thought my husband, Harold, and some of the neighborhood men were doing the job. But now I’ve learned Mr. Mudge hired Bump Dawson and some Negro hands to do it instead.”
A sweat breaks out under my dress. My armpits itch. Uncle Bump said he was working part-time mopping the floor and handing out the government cheese at the General Merchandise Store in Franklindale. He never said anything about tending the garden. But come to think on it, he never smells like cheese. Now I can’t help but wonder, what if Uncle Bump lied? For a minute, I get stuck in this crazy thinking till I remind myself what the night said.
Mrs. Worth goes on. “All the evenings I thought m
y husband, Harold, was working so hard on the garden, it turns out he was out with his friends, eating and listening to music down at Roxy’s. Now Harold’s in big trouble, but I can assure you, I will sentence him myself.”
The men in the front of the courtroom laugh.
“Oh, this is no laughing matter,” Mrs. Worth says. “The very same person who picked the weeds was actually the criminal who planted the seeds—the butter bean seeds, that is. The butter bean seeds that ruined our garden.” Then, sure as God made little green apples, Mrs. Worth points at Uncle Bump. “He did it!” she says. “He’s the one!”
“Why would the defendant want to ruin the garden?” Mr. Hickock asks.
“Because Bump Dawson hates you and me both,” Mrs. Worth says. “He blames all white folks for the death of his nephew.”
Now if that don’t beat all! Uncle Bump doesn’t blame every white Kuckachookian for what happened to Elias—just a few creeps like Mrs. Worth’s son Jimmy and his wicked friend, Buck.
“Objection! Speculation!” shouts Miss Gold. “The witness doesn’t know the true feelings of the defendant and therefore cannot state the defendant’s motivation.”
“Overruled!” the judge says. He bangs his hammer.
Mrs. Worth pulls a tissue out of her purse and wipes each eye. “Bump Dawson wanted to ruin our plans. Ruin our harvest. He planted over our garden with butter beans,” she says.
Mrs. Worth grips the iron rail round the witness-box and leans toward Uncle Bump. I want to tell her to sit back and shut her overgrown mouth, but now she’s screaming, “We have youngsters here who need more in their bellies and now they’re going without!” She grits her teeth. “You want our children to starve!”
I’m at the end of my rope when the judge orders Uncle Bump’s lawyer, Miss Gold, to begin the cross-examination.
Miss Gold walks up real close to Mrs. Worth. “You say Bump Dawson and some other field hands have kept up the garden all these weeks. How do you know?”
“What do you mean, how do I know?” Mrs. Worth says.
“Everyone knows! Mr. Mudge hired Bump to do the dirty work.”
“After the planting did you ever see Bump Dawson in Mr. Adams’s garden?” Miss Gold asks.
Mrs. Worth purses her lips and bugs out her eyes like Miss Gold’s question is nothing short of absurd. “If you think I’ve got time to go traipsing through the mud, you’re awfully uninformed. I have four children to look after, I register voters at the courthouse, and I call the bingo games at church,” she says.
“Well, you may be interested to know,” Miss Gold says, “Bump Dawson never worked at Mr. Adams’s place after the garden planting. Not even for one day!”
“Creation!” says Mrs. Worth. “If that ain’t a bald-faced lie! Everyone knows Mr. Mudge hired a few of the coloreds to tend the garden, Bump Dawson included.”
“And do you know the names of the other field hands?” Miss Gold asks.
“Their names? Colored names?” Mrs. Worth puts her hand to her chest and chuckles. “I don’t know their names.”
“Then are you telling me, Mrs. Worth, that the one and only field hand you can identify happens to belong to the very same family as the boy who broke your son’s leg and ruined your son’s chance of getting a football scholarship to college?” asks Miss Gold.
Mrs. Worth scrunches her upturned nose. “One matter’s got nothing to do with the other!” she says, and scowls. “Bump Dawson oversaw that land before Mr. Adams died, and he continued to do the job after Mr. Adams died. If you want the names of the other field hands who tended the garden, I’m sure Mr. Mudge would be happy to supply them. Course, he left town after the garden was laid by. Between opening his new shop in Muscadine County and tending his sick mama in Florida, he’s been gone from Kuckachoo for weeks.”
And I reckon I can’t wait to let the cat out of the bag.
“But it doesn’t much matter who the other field hands are,” Mrs. Worth says, “because we’ve got the head of all the field hands right here! The boss of the coloreds. The one in charge of what they did.”
Miss Gold holds her chin in her hand, taps her finger against it. “If Bump Dawson actually did commit this crime, how do you suppose he got access to so many butter bean seeds? Wouldn’t that be next to impossible for a man of his means?”
Mrs. Worth takes a deep breath in her nostrils. “I can see you’re missing some critical information, so allow me to supply it,” she says. Then Mrs. Worth talks real slow, like Miss Gold’s got a silo of wheat between her ears. “I was inside Mr. Adams’s garden cabin on the day of the planting,” she says. “I can tell you it was jam-packed with a wide variety of seed—more than we could ever use. I’m sure there was plenty of butter bean seeds there too, enough for Bump Dawson to destroy our garden!”
To Mrs. Worth, eveything’s clear as raindrops. “Once Mr. Mudge hired Bump to keep up the garden, Bump had plenty of time to break into the garden cabin, haul out the butter bean seeds, and commit this crime,” she says. “So if you follow me now, there isn’t anyone else it could be.”
Miss Gold stands still as a charred hog on a roasting spit. I wonder if she’s changing her mind. Does she think Uncle Bump did it? I’m afraid any minute now she’ll quit our case and march out the courthouse door.
“No further questions,” Miss Gold mumbles.
At long last, Uncle Bump turns to face the viewing gallery. Through his blue uniform, I can make out the bones of his elbows and knees. Sweat runs like sap down his forehead, and I know he’s searching the rows for Mama and me. For a second, I can’t help but wonder whether the broken-down look on his face, the dead look in his eyes, is guilt. His eyes find mine. I hope he can’t see me cry.
Next Mr. Hickock calls Mr. Tate to the stand. After Mr. Tate swears on the Bible, Mr. Hickock asks him how many butter beans it would take to cover Mr. Adams’s field.
“To cover it thickly, you would need fifty-eight pounds of seed per acre, so six acres would require…exactly three hundred forty-eight pounds of seed,” Mr. Tate says.
And I can’t believe someone so stupid can do butter bean math in his head.
“Now, how big is Mr. Adams’s garden?” Mr. Hickock asks.
“Well, ’bout the size of five football fields,” Mr. Tate says.
“Speaking of football, Mr. Tate, the record shows that back in high school you brought the Kuckachoo Kickers to the state championships four consecutive years. I’ve always wanted to ask, how’d you do it?”
“Irrelevant!” Miss Gold shouts, but the judge overrules her.
Then Mr. Tate spends forever boasting about how he used to be the best football player in the history of the pigskin. And I don’t need to look at Mama to know she thinks Mr. Tate would do better humbling himself before the Almighty than bragging before the court.
At long last it’s Miss Gold’s turn to cross-examine the witness. Standing beside the muscley Mr. Tate, Miss Gold looks scrawny, but she makes up for it by scaring him a bit. She points a finger at Mr. Tate and waves it in front of his face. Then she pauses beside the witness-box, one hand on her hip. “You and some of the other gentlemen in Kuckachoo told your wives you were weeding and watering when all along you were down at Roxy’s?” Miss Gold asks.
Mr. Tate looks down at the floor. “Correct,” he says.
“Please tell the court why you abandoned your responsibilities at the garden.”
“It’s simple, really. The first time we showed up at the garden to do our job, we ran into Sam Mudge at the gate. Sam tells us tending is Negro work. Says we shouldn’t let our wives talk us into doing it. Says he’d rather pay his own money to hire Bump Dawson and a few field hands to do the job, instead of watch us humiliate ourselves. Then, since our wives wasn’t expecting us home anyway, Sam suggests we go hear Thelma Peacock sing the blues at Roxy’s,” he says. “The first night Sam bought our meal. We had a mighty fine time, so the next evening when our wives thought we was working down the garden, we went to Rox
y’s again. That night, if I recall, Mad Johnny was blowing his saxophone like a crazy fool! Soon it just became…well, habit.”
“I see,” says Miss Gold. “So all those evenings you were supposed to be tending the garden, you were listening to the blues down at Roxy’s?”
“And munching fried catfish!”
Miss Gold doesn’t look amused. “Tell me this. Are you the biggest seed salesman in Thunder Creek County?” she asks.
Mr. Tate stands in the witness-box, holds both hands on his potbelly. “Am now!” he says. Then he laughs along with his audience in the white rows and sits back down.
Miss Gold plants her face up close to Mr. Tate’s till his smile gets erased.
“Seriously,” he says, “I’m the most successful seed salesman in Thunder Creek County.”
“Then please tell the court whether you sold any large quantities of butter beans this year,” Miss Gold says.
“Well, there are nine hundred twenty-three butter bean seeds per pound, so let me think. I sold…three hundred twenty-one thousand, two hundred four seeds.”
I hate the way Mr. Tate talks all polite like it comes natural, when at home he’s nothing but a tobacco-spitting lout.
“And how fast do your butter bean vines grow?” she asks.
“The particular variety I sell grows at an alarming rate. Ten inches a week!”
Miss Gold struts back to her seat, opens her suitcase, and removes a green jump rope. She orders Mr. Tate to hold one end of the jump rope while she stretches it across the front of the courtroom. Then she asks the bailiff to measure it with a measuring tape. The bailiff says the jump rope is exactly six feet long.
“For the record,” Miss Gold says, “this butter bean vine was clipped from Mr. Adams’s field just yesterday.”
