by Kia Corthron
And suddenly Eliot’s mind is perfectly clear. A month from now, and he is setting the table with Dwight, this first Thanksgiving since their mother died, he and Dwight promised to be with their father. Eliot gazes at Dwight, remembering how good Dwight was to their mother, always staying close to home. Remembering how much Dwight always wanted Eliot to love him, all he ever wanted from his little brother, and Eliot wants to talk to Dwight. Dwight his brother, Eliot will talk to him, Dwight is placing the fork and the knife on the table and even if it hurts to speak with just a few teeth Eliot will enunciate and Dwight will understand, his brother will understand Eliot will talk to his brother and now Dwight senses Eliot’s eyes on him and Dwight looks up.
**
“Oh my God.”
Randall slowly turns to the voice. A deadening silence. Francis Veter and the boys have come out of the woods The world has no sound Vacuum Nothing.
“Oh my God,” Francis Veter repeats, “you blew his fuckin brains out!”
Randall turns back to Eliot. “I didn’t hear it.”
“You didn’t hear it? KA-BOOM!” Francis Veter laughs. “We come back just in time, caught his lass word.” Francis Veter affects a tiny, mocking voice. “‘Why?’ and you answered: KA-BOOM! Shook the whole damn countryside!” The boys stare, awestruck. Randall looks at Francis Veter, considers what he has said, then turns back to Eliot.
“I think he said ‘Dwight.’”
“Dwight? Who’s Dwight?”
A moment. “Somebody he knows.”
Francis Veter scratches his head. “No, I think he said ‘Why.’ Unless. Maybe he was callin on the president. That’s it, askin ole Ike for a stay a execution!” Francis Veter cracks up, a hearty laugh Randall had not previously heard from him. Fireflies everywhere, dancing to the beat of the crickets. Why hadn’t Randall noticed them till now?
“Maybe he said ‘Die,’” Reggie proposes. “Like he was tryin to put some voodoo hex on ya. ‘Die, white man, die!’”
Randall hears more laughter, Randall’s eyes on the lightning bugs fluttering around what’s left of Eliot’s head. “I think he said ‘Dwight.’”
“Well whatever he said, time to go on a little trip now. Boys? Everything we come with, put it back in the truck. I don’t care if it’s a eensy bit a brick got loose, everything.” Francis Veter begins picking up items with the nephews.
“What if he’s not dead?” Randall puts his right hand on Eliot’s chest. Nothing.
“Not dead? You blew half his face off!” Francis Veter laughs. The boys giggle. “Louis, lee me that rope, we gonna need it. Reggie, take this pile to the truck an bring back a coupla them burlap potata sacks.” Randall sits cross-legged next to Eliot.
“Hey Uncle Francis, I found a tooth. Can I keep it? Souvenir?”
“Why ontchu start strippin him?” Francis Veter suggests to Randall. “Don’t think we need to burn the body now since ain’t much face left, but still gotta destroy the clothes an easier gettin em off now before he go stiff.”
“Can I keep the tooth, Uncle Francis?”
Francis Veter shakes his head. “Sorry, Louis, it ain’tcher granddaddy’s day no more. That tooth ain’t no souvenir, it’s evidence.”
“But Reggie gets to keep the fingers!”
“Yeah I gotta talk to him about that. You missed a brick over there.”
“What if he’s not dead?” Randall puts his right hand on Eliot’s chest. Nothing.
“Uncle Francis.” Louis swallows, grasping for the words. “Tonight. It’s like a dream. I feel like I’ll wake up tomarra it won’t seem real, I want somethin to keep it real.”
Francis Veter is moved by his older nephew’s earnestness. “Listen. You take that tooth, this what we do. We gonna bury it deep in a secret place later tonight, the fingers too, you, me an Reggie. An you boys jus gotta remember where we put em. For the future. Think you can handle that?” Louis smiles through his glistening eyes.
Eliot’s corpse is drenched in blood, mind-boggling to think a body could ever hold so much blood. Randall unbuttons his own flannel shirt. He puts his right hand on Eliot’s chest, his fingers spread. Then brings his palm onto his own bare chest, a red imprint of his hand in Eliot’s blood.
Francis Veter, sensitive that this may all seem strange to Randall, rips Eliot’s garments off himself. What’s left under the clothing seems negligibly human.
“Here’s the sacks, Uncle Francis.” Reggie is startled momentarily by the shape on the ground.
Francis Veter pulls one burlap bag over Eliot’s upper body, the other over his lower. “Wish I had a saw. Be easier to dispose of, piece by piece.”
“Hey Uncle Veter I found his ball. You wannit?”
“Jus drop it in here.” He opens the sack, and Louis drops Eliot’s testicle in with the rest of his body. Francis Veter takes the rope and ties it tight around the sacks, then flings Eliot’s shroud over his shoulder and trudges toward the truck. The boys follow. Randall is last. Francis Veter throws Eliot in the bed of the truck, covering the corpse completely with bricks, then gets behind the wheel, the nephews hopping in the back with Eliot. Before getting in, Randall shines the flashlight on the spot where he, Francis Veter, Louis, Reggie, and Eliot spent the last three hours. The owl from the woods has already swooped down to pick at the remains of the body and the blood and the brains. Then several owls appear out of nowhere. They’re usually territorial birds, but occasionally form colonies. A parliament of owls, Randall remembers that from sixth grade. A herd of cattle, a flock of geese, a tribe of monkeys, a murder of crows. A bevy of niggers, Francis Veter said.
Two minutes down the road the rain starts pounding. The boys get under the tarpaulin. Francis Veter turns on the windshield wipers, lights a cigarette, and glances at his watch.
“Only ten. Still plenty hours a dark.” He lets out an exhausted sigh. “Tie some bricks to it. Give it the right weight, we can send it floatin downriver without surfacin for miles. Or ever.” Randall remembers carp. Randall’s brother-in-law fished in that river, shared the catch of the day with him and Erma, carp. “Well, like I said, no workin tomarra. I figured we’d be a little hungover.” A few moments pass before this last comment strikes Randall as outrageously funny. He starts laughing and can’t stop. It becomes infectious, Francis Veter hooting as well. When the mirth finally subsides, Randall looks back at the truck bed, toward Eliot.
“We shoulda found out his name at least.”
“Ned the Nigger,” replies Francis Veter and they are roaring, splitting their sides, then Randall pukes out his window. He wipes his mouth. “Oooh, too much liquor.” Fifteen miles later the rain lets up, the sky clears. Randall looks back at Eliot. It occurs to him that they’re driving in the wrong direction, getting further and further from the colored hospital. What if he’s still alive? Randall turns around to face front, picking up a half-empty bottle of Jack near his feet. Twists off the top, lifts it, but as soon as the alcohol touches his lips he’s puking out the window again, this time for a good ten minutes, every time the retching appearing it will stop it becomes heavier. When it’s over he says, “I’ll clean your door.”
“You damn sure will,” says Francis Veter, and it’s his seriousness that sends them into gales again, Randall laughing and wiping tears and laughing and wiping tears and Randall is still wiping tears long after Francis Veter has gone quiet as they pull up along the banks of the river, the waters high and swiftly rushing after a long day and night of intermittent storms.
2
It’s nearly seven, just before daybreak, when Randall arrives home. All the lights in the house are on. He comes in through the kitchen. Erma and B.J. are there, both of them gaping at him. He is momentarily taken aback, then remembers he must look a sight, filthy and smelly, not to mention blood everywhere. Later she will tell him how frightened she was, waking up in a drenched bed (just a drenched pillow
, Randall will think but not say), and she couldn’t imagine where Randall could be so she called over to Benja’s, where B.J. has been staying, to ask if her brother-in-law could come and wait with her.
Now Randall smiles and holds up a big, dead rabbit. “Hi, beautiful,” he says to Erma and drops the fresh game on the table. She’s too shocked to utter a word (definitely a first), but Randall answers the question in her eyes, “Night huntin,” not bothering to sign it, which is to say he is ignoring B.J.’s presence. Without stopping, he walks through the house and up to the bathroom. When Erma regains her senses, he hears a blubbering tirade of “drunken fool” and “barroom brawl” but he is somewhere far away. He fills the tub and gets undressed. For a few minutes he gazes into the mirror at the blood handprint on his chest, then steps into the bath. As he washes himself, he looks at his clothing and shoes. He’ll have to send Erma out on an errand today while he throws them into the furnace. Too bad he didn’t buy an extra pair of Martin’s on the discount when he had the chance. He’d shot four rabbits but gave the others to Francis Veter since he has all those kids, Randall who’d never before gone hunting was never interested in hunting went trigger-happy, everything that moved. The water is quickly saturated, grime and the red, so after cleaning himself thoroughly he drains the tub, scrubs it, draws another bath and scours himself again. When he steps out, another mirror inspection. The slash from his ear to his throat is still there, but shallow enough he anticipates it will heal soon enough. He descends the stairs wearing clean clothes, his washed hair combed and slicked back, teeth brushed. An hour since his homecoming and there Erma and B.J. still stand in the kitchen, Erma sobbing on B.J.’s shoulders. Though B.J. holds her comfortingly his mind is elsewhere, and he is staring straight at Randall when the latter enters. Erma hears something behind her and swerves around, but before she can lay into him again Randall goes to her, takes her hands, gently kisses each of her fingers and asks forgiveness for all the time he’s been a bad husband, and she stares at him in disbelief as tears roll down her cheeks, and he tells her how much he loves her and has always loved her and he’s never been the best mate but from now on he’ll try, he’ll really try and he wants to make a good life for her and he wants to make a baby and he wants to start now and she throws her arms around him and cries in joy and they walk off to the bedroom, arms around each other. B.J. stares after them, then quietly leaves.
The next day a picture appears in the local paper. A handsome young Negro leaning against an interior doorway, a closed-mouth but content smile. Indianapolis lawyer, he had been reported missing and the car he had been driving, a Plymouth station wagon, had been found upturned seven miles north of Prayer Ridge. The day after, Friday, the same picture is run again, but the implications of the accompanying article are much more sinister: a few teeth had been found fifty yards from the car. The distance renders unlikely the possibility that the injuries were incurred during the vehicular accident, and the notion that the injured man had managed to walk away now seems chillingly doubtful. B.J., just home from work, reads the item. His mother taps him, tells him Erma called asking if she could borrow a few eggs, could he run them over?
On Erma’s coffee table, B.J. notices their copy of the paper, but is surprised to see that the article and photo regarding the missing Negro have been cut out. Erma says she has no idea why Randall had mutilated page five just as he had done yesterday. B.J. stares at the daily, something slowly dawning on him: that the night the man disappeared coincides with the morning Randall arrived home in his blood-soaked clothes, the morning Randall exhibited his bizarre behavior—and suddenly B.J. is nauseated. As if on cue Randall walks through the door, returning from his second day at Oldham’s Hardware. He stops short upon seeing B.J. with the paper, his eyes slowly dropping to the dismembered page then back up again at his brother’s bewildered face, and Randall turns green. He looks to the floor, having trouble catching his breath, turns around, and walks back out.
Eight days later, Erma sits at Benja’s kitchen table having coffee. “It’s like everything I prayed for, like God brought it all at once. He been so lovin, an I think it’s a really good job, he doin real good an. I think I’m expectin!”
“Aw.”
“I know that don’t mean nothin, I been down at road too many times. But this one. I donno, like all the sudden our marriage is blessed, so this little one be welcomed into a happy home. I think that’s what God was waitin for, I think this one gonna pull through!”
“Well I’m sure gonna pray for you all.” A commotion from the second floor. “YAW DON’T STOP FIGHTIN OVER IT I’LL GODDAMN COME UP AN TAKE IT FROM YA BOTH!” Silence.
“You want another cup?”
“I can get it.”
“Benja, you jus got out the hospital five days ago, you sit there an relax.”
Erma walks over to the stove, noticing the newspaper on the counter. “Ugh! How could they print that thing!”
“Tacky.”
“Terrifyin! Sickenin! you cain’t even tell what it is. Monster.”
“They figger it been in the water ten days. Parently they set the time a death the day his people filed the Missin Persons report.”
“I was terrified when I picked up the paper this mornin! Some dream woke me middle a the night I couldn’t go back, so sittin there in the kitchen when the paper hits the door. Got to grab it fore Randall gone scissors-crazy again, well now I know why he done it—tryin to protect me.” She shudders. “I thought some psycho was on the loose! You cain’t even tell it’s a nigger, firs glance I didn’t know it was a lynchin.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I thought it was some psycho!”
“That’s a mess though. You know where I stand regardin innegration but that is uncalled for.”
“So’s comin down here where they don’t belong,” says Erma, filling her cup with more milk than coffee.
B.J. has been living with his sister since she was released from the hospital, keeping a watch should her brutal husband show up. When he gets home from work at the sawmill, he walks up to the bathroom to wash before going into the kitchen to see if Benja needs any help with dinner. She waves him off. He picks up the newspaper. Two photographs, side by side. The previous picture of the smiling attorney, and to its right the ghastly disfigured remains just dredged from the river twenty miles south. The positive identification was made based on the remaining teeth of the corpse, which, like those found near the flipped station wagon, were determined to be those of Eliot Campbell. B.J. cannot tear his eyes away from the images, and Benja has to tap him three times before he notices.
“Erma was here. She left a note.” Benja hands it to him, then dumps an entire stick of butter into a small pot of peas.
Had he been subpoenaed, perhaps his mother, sister, and even Randall would have understood, or tried to. But with not the remotest legal suspicion cast upon his brother, B.J. walks into the police station that evening and hands the dispatcher a note.
The specimens are so tiny as to have been missed even with meticulous cleaning by the suspects, but a bit of Eliot’s blood is found in both Frances Veter’s and Randall’s trucks. Still, District Attorney Dylan O’Connor finds the case to be flimsy. In an already volatile atmosphere with the town enraged by the invasion of Northern lawyers stirring up local Negroes, he is now expected to prosecute local white men for the killing of one such intruder based on the minuscule samples of the victim’s blood (a common type) coupled with the hunch of a deaf man with what is presumed to be a vendetta against his own brother. Yet under the pressure of the local NAACP backed by its umbrella national establishment, not to mention the fervent threats of the victim’s Indianapolis law firm, O’Connor grudgingly indicts the accused, hoping to avoid another circus like the one that erupted around that Chicago boy killed in Mississippi five years ago. The court decides, given that Reginald Norris and Louis Norris are both under twenty-one, that they w
ould be tried separately in a more lenient juvenile facility, though obviously a guilty verdict there would be contemplated only if the two adult defendants were found as such.
Respecting the constitutional right to a speedy trial, the jury of eleven white men and a white woman are selected the following week and the proceedings commencing the week after, Monday, November 14th. The key witness for the prosecution is Benjamin Evans Jr. Despite his initial reticence, the district attorney has professional integrity and, having brought the charges, plans to the best of his abilities to see them through to a verdict of guilty. So it’s over his profound objections that the judge rules, for expediency, to bring in a sign-language interpreter to court rather than to have B.J. write notes. As he sits on the stand describing his brother’s strange state of mind the morning after the murder, his clothing drenched in blood, something seems to be getting lost in the translation, partly because of the Evans brothers’ raw version of the sign language and partly because the interpreter is a poor one. The only person in the room who fully understands what B.J. is trying to say is the one who taught him to sign, his brother, who sits next to Francis Veter behind the defense table, and at one point without thinking a desperately frustrated B.J. instinctively looks to Randall, as if his younger brother will translate as he always has done. Randall glares at his brother during the entirety of his testimony, not a blink. He wears his shirt buttoned to the top concealing the fresh wound B.J. had recently glimpsed and which, under oath, Randall will claim was a scratch from one of his night-hunting victim rabbits that was not quite dead. In trying to correct the interpreter’s distortions, B.J. wildly waves his arms, and as it gradually becomes clear to everyone in the room, most of all to himself, that he will be dismissed as a mental defective, he points to Randall and cries loud enough and with such exaggerated enunciation that even the Negroes in the balcony clearly hear, “I know he did it!” Still, his deaf pronunciation causes titters from some of the whites and further clarifies that he is an unfit witness. At any rate his testimony is all circumstantial, as are the blood samples, claims the defense, reiterating O’Connor’s concerns that the Negro’s blood was hardly atypical.
