The Lesser People

by Lee Thompson

  But I could still see them all: Sheriff Bordeaux grabbing the stock of Conover’s shotgun, the suit’s faces blank and hard, Daddy jumping from the top step, his arm cocked back, then his fist connecting with Conover’s left eye, but I couldn’t hear it connect, just saw Daddy ride him down, landing on his stomach, both shotguns in Bordeaux’s hands so he couldn’t use either one as Daddy slammed his fists like pistons, three, four, five times, into Conover’s face and neck, then shoved up off his still body and ran for me, the sheriff trying to grab him but his hands already full. And Daddy was on his knees at my side, running his fingers over my head, shoulders, and chest, looking for something as I lay dazed, what had almost happened sinking in as I shivered there on the cold ground, beneath his hot hands.

  My pants grew warm and wet and the scent of urine floated around us.

  Daddy scooped me up in his arms, held me so tight I could barely breathe, and I watched the suits stand over Conover, one of them bump his ribs with the tip of his leather shoe. They talked quietly. I couldn’t hear them. One of them shook their head. The sheriff turned, Fred, the big man, all of them pale, scared silly by what had just happened, and I thought it was because I almost died, but it wasn’t that.

  Sheriff Bordeaux knelt next to Conover and placed a couple fingers to his throat, lingered there, shaking his head before he stood and said, “He’s dead, Hank.”

  Daddy squeezed me tighter. His hands were bloody and his palm felt like it stuck to my face as the men approached us cautiously, the sheriff with one hand out, one of the suits resting the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder and moving off to the side as if he expected Daddy to make a break for it. I hoped he would. I didn’t want to see the fire they produced anymore, didn’t want to feel the wind rush by my head or Daddy’s because it wasn’t like in the movies, it wasn’t exciting at all.

  Fred and the big man stayed with Conover’s body as the others approached. Sheriff Bordeaux said, “Set your boy down. It was an accident, Conover firing like that, a stupid one, but we came out here on edge because you ain’t been yourself lately.”

  Daddy set me gently down. He rubbed a bloody hand in my hair, said softly, “Get in the house and go to your room. Tell your Momma to stay inside, too, you hear?”

  I nodded, grasping his arm, hearing but not hearing.

  I hugged my father tighter, saw Momma in the doorway of our house, her fingers pressed to the screen. Back then women stayed out of men’s affairs if they knew what was good for them, that’s what people said, and she usually did, but that night she didn’t.

  She came out with Daddy’s service pistol and she fired a shot at the heavens like she was screaming angry at God, and the men all hunched over, swiveled their heads and one of them peed himself and I didn’t feel so bad for doing it. I thought maybe everything would be all right, maybe the men would leave us alone.

  Daddy said real softly, “I’m real sorry about Conover but he was itching to shoot someone and he would have sooner or later and you know it.”

  Sheriff Bordeaux glanced from Momma to Daddy and said, “We gotta take you in.”

  “What about that boy we found on the river bank? Preacher’s kid? You could have been working on that case instead of coming here over something as stupid as Fred’s hand which I wouldn’t have broken if he’d kept it to himself.”

  The sheriff shook his head, kinda watching Momma out of the corner of his eye. He said, “There ain’t no case there, Hank. We closed it this evening. All the evidence shows it was some transient that swooped in made his kill and got back on the road.”

  “Horseshit,” Daddy said.

  The suit with the shotgun tried to ease the barrel in my mom’s direction. She pointed the pistol at his face and said, “I’ll plant you right there.”

  Her eyes were steely, her hand steady. The man holding the shotgun looked constipated. He eased the barrel back away from her and checked to see if the other men thought he was a coward. I didn’t since Momma wasn’t bluffing and she would have put a bullet in his head. She called to the sheriff, “Bill? Come here.”

  Daddy said, “Go back in the house, Beth. Take Elijah with you.”

  I shook my head, felt my knees go weak, and nearly dropped before he caught under my arms and hoisted me up. Daddy dropped his chin, said, “Go in the house where you’re safe.”

  I shook my head. He raised his chin and told Momma to come fetch me. She told him he was crazy, kept Daddy’s pistol pointed at the man with the shotgun.

  The sheriff, Bill, said, “We came out to take him in for breaking Fred’s hand, Beth. That’s all. And Hank killed a man.”

  “I know,” Momma said, “I saw. And Hank is right. Conover’s always been itching to shoot someone. All the Conover’s carry that curse. But you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you brought him.”

  Daddy’s arms tensed around me. He went suddenly still. Whatever Momma meant hadn’t dawned on him until she said it and I was still trying to figure it out when he let me go, took two quick steps forward, drove a knee between his boss’s legs and jerked the shotgun from his hands. The big sheriff laid there, cursing, holding his privates, his hat fallen off, his hair white and sweaty in the darkness.

  Daddy held the shotgun. He told the men, “Load him in the car and get or the Lord have mercy on your souls.”

  They all just waited for something, I don’t know what, until Momma cocked the hammer of the pistol and came down the steps, boxing them in between her and the cars and Daddy. Then they moved fast, the big man and one of the suits scooping the sheriff under his arms like Daddy had me, Fred standing back and off to the side, inching toward one of the vehicles and the other suit, the one holding the shotgun, boring into Momma with his eyes. He had a cruel face. His voice was high, strung tight, as he said, “What we supposed to do with this dead law enforcement officer?”

  Momma and Daddy said at the same time, “Bury him.”

  Chapter Four

  After the men left, Daddy asked if I could walk. He kept a hand on my shoulder and slung his other arm over Momma’s shoulder and we worked up the steps and into the house like a bunch of beaten mules. It didn’t feel right, feeling beaten like that, since we won, or I thought we won, thought those men had gone away and they wouldn’t come back.

  At the kitchen table Daddy peeled my shirt off and inspected me, slowly, methodically, until he was satisfied I wasn’t hurt. I still couldn’t hear out of my left ear but didn’t want to tell him because he’d make me go to the doctor and the doctor was like the men in the yard and he might hurt me when Daddy wasn’t looking.

  He slumped in his chair at the head of the table. Momma hadn’t said anything, just watched us, the pistol in her hand. She let out a long sigh, wiped several strands of hair back from her gleaming face and set the pistol in front of Daddy. She shivered once, deeply, then knelt next to my chair and held my hands, kissed them, and her tears were as hot as fresh coals in a fire.

  Daddy said, “He’s all right. Just shook up.”

  She nodded to him or herself then squeezed my hands tighter. I wanted to say something to make her stop shivering and crying but didn’t know what would do it so I blurted out that Ben wasn’t in our room and part of it was probably to protect my own sorry skin since I knew they’d eventually get around to asking me why I was outside to begin with when I should have been sleeping.

  She sprang to her feet, her nails raking the backs of my hands as she stood. Her voice had a hysterical quality that scared me and made Daddy’s face fall even further as she whispered, “Benjamin?” She strode to our bedroom and opened the door. The light blinked on and seemed to move like syrup down the floor and walls of the hallway, Daddy rubbing his face and Momma talking to herself. I said, “He’s done it before.”

  Daddy only nodded to himself. He cleared his throat but his voice came out broken. “He’s getting to that age.” He didn’t explain what he meant and I thought, What age? Just couldn’t find the strength to ask him becaus
e my arms and legs felt like Jell-O and my mind was buzzing with the boom of a shotgun, the stab of bright light. I looked out the window as Momma came back into the room. I wondered what the Sheriff and his men did with Isaiah after we left. I imagined them all standing there on the muddy bank over his body and nudging him forward until his corpse slid into the river and disappeared, only bubbles breaking the surface, the poor kid so alone and so cold.

  Momma touched my shoulder. I met her gaze as she looked down on me. She said something. I only saw her lips moving. I tilted my head to hear with my good ear and heard her say, “Go on to bed after you’ve had a bath. We’ll deal with your brother when he gets in.” I wished I would have heard the first part because it felt important, everything felt important all the sudden.

  I wondered who had been in our house earlier before the sheriff got there, and if Momma let them out the back door while Daddy faced Fred and the men, or if the person was still here, maybe hiding in the basement, part of me thinking that Uncle Tommy had come running home, asking his little brother for help like my folks said he always did.

  I thought about my brother and felt like a rat, thinking that if Daddy had been in my shoes and Uncle Tommy had snuck out in the middle of the night he’d probably have not tattled on him. I shook my head, stood, lumbered down the hall with my parents sitting still and quiet in the kitchen. I left the door open, heard Daddy yell, “Close your door, Eli.”

  I closed it to a crack so the light from the warmer part of the house cut a band across the floor, my bed, and up the ceiling. They talked for a while, hushed at first, then louder as I got fresh clothes from my dresser and they talked while I bathed and they were still talking when I sank into bed and rolled onto my side. Momma said that we couldn’t survive if Daddy wasn’t working. She said we’d starve, that the bank would take our house, and she called him a fool. I imagined tears pricking her eyes because I could hear them in her voice. I imagined him sitting still, listening, there but not, his mind somewhere up ahead, trying to figure out how to fix everything.

  It didn’t seem right that he’d lose his job but it didn’t seem right that he killed a person either. I figured they’d handcuff him tomorrow, they’d bring more men, lay siege outside in the lawn, men with rifles in their hands, their bodies half-hidden behind trees. They’d shoot our house up while Forksville gathered round in lawn chairs to watch, and they’d throw Daddy in jail for a day or two before they got it into their head that he was too dangerous for their cause and then they would show him the rope that would choke that awful, eternal last breath from his lungs, trap it inside him the way the men in our town liked to trap everybody in their roles. Momma wouldn’t be able to take care of us because she didn’t work. No one in town would help because other than Preacher, they thought Daddy was a traitor to his own kind. It made me hate the lesser people a bit because if they weren’t around then Daddy wouldn’t have ever stuck up for them in the first place.

  Tears burned my cheeks. The night was dark, and it grew darker as cloud cover moved in and the river whispered, full of ghosts.

  Chapter Five

  I dreamed that me and Ben and Isaiah were sitting on the river bank with our bare toes dipped in the water. Birds darted about and sunlight glinted off the river’s surface, and we all sat like we were dead, eyes staring at nothing. I heard my mom say that Daddy was blind, and we boys said nothing. Daddy said nothing, maybe deaf to her, to all the world, to disappointment. He joined us on the river bank, his hands bloody. He cupped them in his lap and stared at them a while before he talked, his lips moving but no sound coming from his mouth. Preacher joined us too, his bible tucked under his arm, his face one of serious and severe contemplation. He opened the Good Word and tore pages free, flung them to the wind with a ferocity only those who knew him would expect. He tore every last page free and the river clogged with crumpled paper. It tickled our toes and it cut them. It was kind of peaceful without any sound, without any movement, all of us bleeding together. Usually I couldn’t sit so still, like any other normal kid wanting to jump around, explore, test the limits of my freedom. But bad things had happened and watching the sky darkening over the trees we all knew that more bad things were coming.

  Chapter Six

  Monday, July 4th

  Daddy didn’t have to work because of the holiday. He sat listening to records of men named Robert Johnson singing about the hell hound on his trail, Lead Belly singing about where his girl slept last night, and Muddy Waters singing about being a man. I liked Muddy Waters best because his music pumped along like a strong engine running full tilt, and I’d get to dancing in the living room and wishing I could play guitar like that, until sweat stung my eyes and Daddy laughed and pulled me onto his lap. We sat in his chair even though I wanted to keep dancing or have him dance with me, but it was nice to be together, to listen to the music and forget everything else for a while. Our listening to the blues made Momma angry though and she went out in the backyard and stared at the woods and the river beyond.

  The music warmed us. I asked Daddy why that was and he told me that they’re honest, that they reminded us that storm clouds will come but that they’ll also part.

  We spent hours there, me on his lap and Daddy drinking cold beer after cold beer, his free bruised hand at times tapping the beat of the music against the arm of the chair or stroking my hair or resting on my shoulder.

  I was famished by noon and thirstier than I’d ever felt. Daddy told me to go make us some peanut butter sandwiches and pour some milk. He put his beer away and didn’t go to the fridge again which made me glad because his eyes were glassy and I could tell the blues were down in his bones and he was just waiting for those clouds to part and Momma to come back in and for my brother to return from whatever wanderlust had seized him.

  I checked Ben’s bed but it was still rumpled, unmade, his shoes absent near the closet. I didn’t like him some days, the way brothers will, yet I worried about him. When I went back out into the kitchen, the record player was off and Preacher was sitting at the table with Daddy, both of them smoking. Momma was in another room, humming to herself as if last night had never happened and I guess that’s how she dealt with things she no longer had the energy to think about or things that she felt was beyond her control.

  The two men seemed refreshed though the lines in their faces looked deeper than normal. Preacher told me good morning and I nodded. His eyes sparkled for a moment and he scared me. He said, “Your dad was telling me how brave you were last night.”

  I blushed, looked away from them to the sink. I hadn’t been brave at all. I’d cowered, laid in the grass unable to move as everything just unfolded around me like a nightmare. Daddy had been brave and it’d cost him his job, and Momma had been brave even though she felt different than my father on race and servitude. My hands toyed with each other about my waist, seemingly of their own accord. I glanced at Daddy. He smiled sadly, said, “Have a seat, Eli. We need to talk.”

  I sat and Preacher asked me how I felt. I told him I was fine, just tired.

  My father’s hands cupped a brown mug. He stared into it a while and his staring made me uncomfortable since it usually meant I’d done something wrong and he was searching for a way to frame his words so that they would teach me without stinging too much.

  I squirmed in my chair.

  Preacher sipped from a flask and it hurt to see him drinking. Daddy said that it brought out the devil in the man, much like it brought out the devil in Uncle Tommy. I tried not to cast judgment, but couldn’t help it. I wanted to bat the flask from his hand and ask him what purpose it served. He saw me staring as Daddy kept thinking about where to start whatever he had to start, and Preacher said, “You disapprove of me having a nip, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. Then I nodded. I said, “Preacher’s shouldn’t drink.”

  He smiled sadly. He said, “You’re right, and I’m weak sometimes. Sometimes all I want is to stop feeling and just exist in a bubble where pain and
agony cease to reside. More than that even, where they’ve never been heard of.”

  He took another drink and screwed the top back on the shining silver before sliding it into the pocket of his coat. “Thank you, Eli.”

  “For what?” I said.

  “For being stronger than me. For reminding me that sometimes I need to think about more than just how I feel, or how I don’t want to feel anymore.”

  I looked at Daddy. He frowned. I couldn’t tell if his frown was pointed inside or outside.

  Momma came in the front door carrying a handful of flowers. They were bright yellow and lively, unlike her face. She nodded to us and searched for a vase until she found one below the sink and she filled the vase halfway full from the tap before arranging the flowers and placing them inside. She set the flowers near the window in the kitchen and stood near the door, staring at them even as Daddy and Preacher stared at me.

  I didn’t know what any of them wanted from me or expected of me, which was strange because usually they’d just come out and say it. I scratched the back of my hand. I smiled at Preacher and said, “You wouldn’t want me drinking too much when I’m old enough. That’s all I meant.”

  “I know,” he said. “And you’re right. I wouldn’t. But you’ll find that something, Lord knows what, will be a crutch for you, too.”