A Short History of a Small Place

by T. R. Pearson

  Now as far as Daddy knew, Miss Myra Angelique must have honestly imagined that Wallace Amory jr. was actually formulating and devising a defense during those seven evenings from April the fifteenth to April the twenty-second when he would close himself up after supper in what had been his daddy’s personal office and not come out for anything until near about eleven o‘clock. But Daddy said the truth of it was that the mayor sat himself down at the paymaster’s desk on the night of the fifteenth only and did not get any further than intending to on the other six nights since instead he would throw himself into his daddy’s recliner and set in to studying all his legal alternatives with a section of the Greensboro Daily News draped over his face, and Daddy said around eleven o’clock the mayor would just naturally wake up and haul himself on to bed. So from the hours her brother kept in the office after supper, Miss Myra Angelique assumed he was formulating and devising somewhat successfully, and since the mayor always washed the newsprint off the end of his nose before she could see it, she did not learn then and did not ever know, as far as Daddy could tell, that when her and the mayor and Mr. Britches, who was still Junious at the time, arrived at the Eden courthouse the mayor’s argument in their defense was dominated mostly by a pencil sketch of Franklin Roosevelt. And Daddy supposed Miss Myra Angelique could not have even been made to believe that when the mayor and her and the monkey came up on Judge Mortenson in the hallway and the mayor said to him, “Good morning, your honor,” he had used up the extent of his prepared notes.

  So for her part, Daddy said, Miss Pettigrew approached the defense table all confident and calm and with Mr. Britches in her arms. Britches was the culprit in the case and made quite a splash in the halls of justice, Daddy called it, with his porkpie hat and plaid blazer and green bathtowel underwear that Miss Pettigrew had outfitted him with purely for the sake of modesty. As for the mayor, Daddy could not recall that he looked much of anything but maybe numb and a little terrified, and he carried in his arms an oversized paper shopping bag that he could not make quiet no matter what he did and which he caught on a newel post just short of the defense table and very nearly ripped all to pieces. And as for the courtroom itself, Daddy said the whole place was absolutely slam full up with people, most of them from Neely, a few of them even designated witnesses for the plaintiff, and everybody else just folks from Eden and Spray and Draper who had heard a monkey was going on trial, had never seen a monkey up close before, and so had dropped in for the morning to remedy that.

  Now Daddy said of course Pinky had not yet occupied his chair at the plaintiff’s table when Miss Myra Angelique and Mr. Britches and the mayor got situated in theirs, and he did not even enter the courtroom itself until just before the judge did, which Daddy said Pinky must have supposed to be the mark of a seasoned litigator, so he blew on in the back doors and up the aisle and fairly much wrestled with his chair until he got it under just what part of the table pleased him best. Then he slapped his customary list of accusations down on the tabletop before him and let loose most all his breath in one windy blast. Daddy said the mayor certainly heard all the commotion of Pinky’s arrival but probably did not see hardly any of the plaintiff’s entrance since at the time he was otherwise engaged with the clerk of court who wanted to know if the monkey had a name so that he could make a proper announcement of the case since it was not just Throckmorton vs. Pettigrew but was instead Braxton Porter Throckmorton III vs. the Pettigrew Chimpanzee, and as the clerk figured it any monkey who went around in a plaid sportcoat and a porkpie hat was bound to have some sort of personalized designation aside from just plain chimpanzee so the clerk asked the mayor what his chimpanzee went by, and Daddy said that’s when Wallace Amory decided not to call his monkey Junious anymore simply because he did not wish to bind up his cousin’s name with what the mayor supposed would very likely be a court conviction, so he looked at the monkey for inspiration and landed on Mr. Britches instead since they were what he was most noticeably without.

  Consequently, it was Braxton Porter Throckmorton III vs. Mr. Britches Pettigrew that the clerk announced to the court just before bringing out Judge Mortenson, and Daddy said it wasn’t until everybody had sat back down that the mayor finally got a look at Pinky who was busy adding a few last touches to his list of accusations and who had behind him for support a whole benchful of Jeeters including of course the bald Jeeter and the fat Jeeter and along with them their momma and daddy, who were neither passably bald nor fat between them, and along with their momma and daddy Grandmother Jeeter herself, who was by now so old and wispy that she probably should have been dead ten years previously but had found something or another to clutch at and cling to and so wasn’t. As for Throckmortons, aside from little Ivy and her daddy there was only one in attendance, that being the former Miss Fuller who had never watched Pinky litigate before and probably would not have this time if he had not insisted she take the opportunity to see a Throckmorton succeed at something if for no other reason than the pure novelty of it. So the mayor looked at Pinky scratching up a few new accusations with his pencil and looked at all of the Jeeters and Jeeter-Throckmortons and Throckmortons behind him, and then fished out from the shopping bag all thirty pages of his defense, which he figured could stand a bit of elaboration since twenty-nine of them were still blank and since he did not have for his own inspiration and support an entire benchful of in-laws and relations but only one sister to his far left and one monkey to his near left, though of course, Daddy said, the gallery was just as warm for the mayor as they were sour on Pinky which might have helped Mr. Wallace Amory some if he had only known it.

  According to Daddy, most everybody was anticipating a partial midmorning and entire afternoon full of accusations and arguments and objections and sworn testimony and all variety of evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, along with enough gavel beating to drive ten pounds of twenty-penny nails. But as it turned out, Judge Mortenson was not disposed to any of it except maybe for the gavel beating, which he opened up with before asking the mayor and Pinky to get to their feet, and with the defendant and the plaintiff standing before them the gallery expected to hear a few stanzas of the national anthem from the one followed by a smattering of wild bombast from the other as a sort of prologue to the regular proceedings, but the judge was simply not disposed to hearing from either one of them and so set in to talking himself. “Mr. Pettigrew,” he said, “Mr. Throckmorton, I’ve been studying over the facts of this case and have talked to several people who were there to see what happened and have heard from several more who weren’t anywhere around but figure they know what’s what anyway, and now I’d like to check with the two of you just to make sure I’ve got everything straight. Is that agreeable to you both?”

  And Daddy said the mayor let go with a plain “Yes sir” but Pinky tried to attach an additional dozen or so words to the end of his which got him hammered into silence and directed to stay that way.

  “Now Mr. Pettigrew,” Judge Mortenson said, “this chimpanzee belongs to you, does it not?”

  “Yes sir, I paid for it,” the mayor said.

  “And you’re in the habit of letting him run loose in the frontyard, is that right?”

  “Well not loose exactly, your honor,” the mayor said. “We generally hook him onto a rope so he won’t run off.”

  “I see,” the judge told him. “And you’ve put up a flagpole for the monkey to climb while he’s hooked onto this rope, is that right?”

  “Yes sir,” the mayor said.

  “And this monkey has somehow or another gotten into the habit of relieving himself off the top of this flagpole. Am I correct?”

  “Yes sir,” the mayor said, “you are.”

  “And am I right in saying he most usually relieves himself into the same camellia bush?”

  “Yes sir,” the mayor said, “he does.”

  “And is this camellia bush on your property?” Judge Mortenson wanted to know.

  And Daddy said the mayor told him, “It does grow ou
t through the fence a little, your honor, but the most of it is on our property.”

  “I see,” the judge said. “And when the monkey doesn’t hit this camellia bush that grows mostly on your property what does he usually hit?”

  “Sometimes just short of it or to the right or the left,” the mayor said, “but sometimes I’m afraid he hits the sidewalk and every now and again when the wind is just right his business carries on out into the gutter.”

  And after the judge had clasped his hands together and set his chin on top of them he opened his mouth and said, “Tell me, Mr. Pettigrew, do most all monkeys relieve themselves the way your monkey does?”

  “No sir,” the mayor replied, “most monkeys don’t. Our monkey was trained to use a toilet himself and still does when he’s made to, but the veterinarian Doctor Stockton in Greensboro says the height of the flagpole agitates his bladder sufficiently to make urination almost entirely unavoidable.”

  “Well, Mr. Pettigrew, did you ever consider taking the flagpole down?”

  “We did, your honor,” the mayor said, “but according to Dr. Stockton it’s better for the monkey to climb and urinate than not to climb at all.”

  “I see,” the judge said and thanked the mayor and told him he could sit down.

  Now Daddy said all throughout Mayor Pettigrew and Judge Mortenson’s discussion of Mr. Britches’s affliction Pinky had managed to refrain from lodging any outright objections but had squirmed and grunted and spewed so that he had succeeded in making an annoyance of himself anyway which put him on sharp terms with the judge right from the start, and before Pinky could even inflate himself properly for his side of the discussion Judge Mortenson glared down from the bench at him and said, “So he hit you then, did he?”

  “He most certainly did, your honor,” Pinky replied and Daddy said he wanted to vent a little outrage on top of it but the judge beat the gavel once and dared him to.

  “And why is it you were where you were, Mr. Throckmorton?” the judge wanted to know.

  “I’d just come to watch him, your honor, same as everybody else,” Pinky said.

  “But then I don’t suppose you had a wager on the goings-on like everybody else.”

  “Well I might have had a little one,” Pinky admitted. “I don’t exactly recall.”

  And Judge Mortenson said, “Then I don’t guess you’d remember whether or not it was five dollars on the lower right-hand side of the camellia bush now would you?”

  And Daddy said Pinky ruffled up a few pages of his accusations before telling Judge Mortenson that yes, maybe that did ring a bell with him.

  “And does the fact that gambling is illegal in this state ring a bell with you, Mr. Throckmorron?”

  “But your honor,” Pinky said, “it was only a friendly wager.”

  “It was still a violation, Mr. Throckmorton,” the judge told him.

  “Yes sir,” Pinky said, “and I’m sorry for it.”

  And the judge said back to him, “I see,” and Daddy said the judge shuffled his papers some and Pinky messed around in his accusations a little before the judge started in on him again and asked him, “Was it a direct hit, Mr. Throckmorton?”

  “Do you mean the monkey water, your honor?” Pinky wanted to know.

  “I do,” Judge Mortenson said.

  “Well yes sir, it was a direct hit,” Pinky told him, “but I myself was not the recipient of the fullest directness of the monkey’s relief and can only lay claim to having been tributized by a portion of it on my right shirtsleeve.”

  And Daddy said it appeared for a second or two that Pinky was about half set to step out from behind the plaintiff’s table and roam awhile, so the judge took up the gavel as a precaution and asked him, “Do you mean to say it did not hit you directly?”

  “Yes sir,” Pinky replied, “it did not hit me directly.”

  And Daddy said the judge looked at Pinky like he wanted to chew him up and spit him back out again. “Well then, what did it hit directly?” the judge asked him.

  “Your honor,” Pinky said, “the full brunt of the monkey water descended almost precisely upon the very center of the crown of Mr. Curtis Amos’s straw fedora, which is itself made from some variety of lacquered wheatstraw and which Mr. Amos recollects to have been purchased at Eaton’s Hardware in the township of Neely in the spring of 1943 somewhere along about April perhaps prior to Easter but perhaps not.”

  Daddy said Judge Mortenson banged the gavel sharply twice, but before he could work himself up to a reprimand with barb enough for the occasion a straw fedora made itself obvious above the heads in the gallery and commenced to swing back and forth like a train signal. “I suppose that’s Mr. Curtis Amos’s straw fedora,” the judge said, and directed Pinky to it with the gavelhandle.

  “Yes sir,” Pinky replied once he’d turned back around, “that is the hat in question your honor.”

  “And I suppose those are Mr. Curtis Amos’s fingers attached to the brim of it,” the judge said, “which leads me to suppose that the remainder of Mr. Curtis Amos is somehow connected to it also, do you not agree, Mr. Throckmorton?”

  “I concur with you completely, your honor, on this matter.”

  So the judge raised his voice slightly and addressed himself to the gallery. “Mr. Amos,” he said, “are you in fact attached to your hat?”

  And without showing himself yet Mr. Amos replied, “I am, your honor.”

  “Would you mind standing up, Mr. Amos?” the judge asked him.

  “No sir,” Mr. Amos said, “I wouldn’t mind it.” And Daddy said the hat disappeared into the gallery and the judge and Pinky and everybody else waited for Mr. Amos to show himself for the longest while but there was no hat and no Mr. Amos either, so finally the judge said to him, “Mr. Amos, would you stand up please?”

  “Why yes sir,” Mr. Amos replied, “I will,” and stood up.

  “Tell me, Mr. Amos,” the judge said, “did Mr. Pettigrew’s monkey relieve himself directly onto your hat?”

  “Your honor, as far as I know he poured most all his business right here,” and Mr. Amos held up the fedora in one hand while he indicated the crown of it with one finger of the other.

  And Daddy said it looked like Mr. Amos was just before embarking on an elaboration when Pinky pointed to the fedora for himself and broke in with, “Exhibit A, your honor,” which to the utter astonishment of most everybody did not even get him gaveled once but only mustered a quick “Shut up” out from the side of Judge Mortenson’s mouth, and once he’d gotten the go-ahead from the bench Mr. Amos went on to say how he was probably not the one to tell just what part of the crown the monkey emptied himself onto since he was underneath it at the time and so couldn’t see.

  And Daddy said the judge told Mr. Amos he appreciated his candor and then came straight out and asked him, “Mr. Amos, why aren’t you here suing this gorilla since by all accounts he gave you the nearest thing to a bath anybody got?”

  “Well it’s like this, your honor,” Mr. Amos told him back, “all the evidence up and evaporated on me,” and Mr. Amos laughed and the judge laughed and everybody else but Pinky laughed and the proceedings got sort of loose there for a few minutes until Judge Mortenson beat them back into the proper mood and addressed himself to Pinky again. “Tell me, Mr. Throckmorton, did your evidence evaporate on you?”

  “Yes sir,” Pinky said, “it did eventually, but it left spots all up and down the sleeve.”

  “Well, Mr. Throckmorton, did you try laundering the shirt to get the spots out?” the judge asked.

  “Yes sir,” Pinky said.

  “Well, did they come out?” the judge asked.

  “Yes sir, they did,” Pinky told him.

  “I see,” the judge said. “Tell me, Mr. Throckmorton, who was it that laundered your shirt for you.”

  “My wife did, your honor.”

  “Did Mr. Pettigrew ever offer to clean it?”

  “Yes sir,” Pinky said, “I believe he did.”


  “But you didn’t want him to.”

  “No sir,” Pinky replied, “I didn’t.”

  “I see,” the judge said, and took hold of his chin momentarily. “Tell me, Mr. Throckmorton, did Mr. Pettigrew ever attempt to give you anything else by way of settlement?”

  “Yes sir,” Pinky told him, “he did.”

  “And what was that?” the judge asked.

  “A shirt,” Pinky told him.

  “A shirt,” the judge said.

  “Well, actually, two shirts,” Pinky told him.

  “Two shirts,” the judge said.

  “Well really it was two shirts and a necktie,” Pinky told him.

  “Two shirts and a necktie,” the judge said. “I see.” And Daddy said the judge grabbed onto his chin again and studied Pinky or anyway studied the air overtop of Pinky’s head. Then he let loose of himself and said, “So you didn’t want the shirts?”

  “No sir,” Pinky told him.

  “And you didn’t want the necktie?”

  “No sir,” Pinky told him.

  “Well, tell me this,” the judge said, “if you didn’t want a new shirt, not even two new shirts, not even two new shirts and a necktie, what is it you wanted, Mr. Throckmorton?”

  And Pinky told him, “I wanted satisfaction, your honor.”

  “Satisfaction?” the judge said. “And just what part of you is it that needs satisfying, Mr. Throckmorton?”

  “My dignity, your honor,” Pinky said.

  “Your dignity,” the judge said right behind him.

  And that was near about the end of Pinky’s honeymoon with jurisprudence though nobody knew it yet, certainly not Pinky or the mayor or Miss Myra Angelique or the bald Jeeter or any other part of the gallery, maybe not even Judge Mortenson himself, who would be the one to lay Pinky low and who, Daddy said, had most likely never considered or even imagined that anybody at all could get attached by his heartstrings to such a thing as a courthouse. So even after Pinky had said “dignity” and even after Judge Mortenson had said “dignity” right behind him, nobody knew it was over and everybody watched the judge lay the entire side of his face into his open hand and set about what looked to be thinking but what turned out to be steaming and churning and boiling, and consequently, Daddy said, most everybody expected the judge to say something wise and judicial when he again said anything, so nobody was any less surprised than Pinky when the judge started in like a wildman and fairly much blew up all over the bench. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Braxton Porter Throckmorton the third, you’re not gonna find your dignity in a court of law; if you don’t have it when you come in here you’re not gonna have it once you leave. I can give you justice and I can give you compensation but that won’t make you dignified if you aren’t already, and I’ll tell you this Mr. Braxton Porter Throckmorton the third, you aren’t already. First it’s a toilet seat and then it’s spoilt milk and now it’s monkey urine, and here the man’s tried his best to make things right with you but you won’t take his necktie and you won’t take his shirts and you won’t let him clean yours. Well I have had it with you, sir, I have had it. Your dignity. Your dignity!” And Daddy said Judge Mortenson took up the gavel and near about brutalized the entire length of the benchtop with it. “This case is dismissed,” he said.