“ ‘You ever tried to rob a bank before?’ Lawton asked.
“ ‘No. Take more than one person to rob a bank, and everybody ’round here too scared.’
“ ‘You not?’
“ ‘I need money.’
“ ‘And three people can do it?’
“ ‘I think so.’
“ ‘You know anything about this bank?’
“ ‘Just a little old bank.’
“ ‘Where is this bank?’
“ ‘In town. On the main street.’
“ ‘How many people work in the bank? Guards? Clerks? Everybody?’
“ ‘Three or four—that’s all.’
“ ‘Guards—with guns?’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘How do you know?’
“ ‘I been there a couple times. Never seen a guard.’
“ ‘Other people—clerks?’
“ ‘Two clerks—women. Two men in the back office.’
“ ‘How do you know that’s all of them?’
“ ‘I been in there, I looked around. I thought about this.’
“ ‘Just waiting for help?’
“ ‘Kind of.’
“ ‘What you think, Fee?’
“ ‘I move with the wind, man.’
“ ‘How far is town from here?’ Lawton asked.
“ ‘Couple—few miles.’
“ ‘Let’s go see that bank.’
“ ‘Tonight?’
“ ‘I want to see what it looks like.’
“Ten minutes later they came into Bayonne. They had been quiet all the way.
“ ‘Drive slow, but not too slow,’ Lawton told Fee.
“Jean-Pierre pointed out the bank. Y’all all know what it look like—a little low building settin’ between David Hardware and Morgan department store.
“They drove up to the courthouse to turn around, and coming back Lawton told Fee to go slow so he could study the surroundings again. Then they drove out of town, passed the pecan factory, up to Old Cajun Road. They drove about a mile down the road and parked by the ditch. Very few cars drove that old road at night.
“ ‘We’ll sleep here tonight,’ Lawton said. ‘Fee, you keep the first watch. Keep your eyes on the bank robber. He might change his mind.’
“ ‘He won’t change his mind. He likes robbing banks.’
“Lawton slept until around midnight, then he told Fee that he’ll keep watch. Jean-Pierre slept the whole night through.
“ ‘Where can you wash up around here?’ Lawton asked, the next morning.
“ ‘The river back ’cross the highway. They got a bathroom at the courthouse for colored to use.’
“ ‘Yeah, you would like for us to go to the courthouse, wouldn’t you?’ Lawton said.
“He told Fee to get his shaving kit and food out of the trunk. Fee brought the stuff, and a large Coke bottle of water. Lawton poured water in his hand from the bottle and washed his face and dried it on a handkerchief. Jean-Pierre and Fee did the same.
“Lawton passed out ham and cheese sandwiches. (All of this came out in court.) They ate and drank water from the big Coke bottle. After they finished eating it was piss time. They got out of the car and peed in the ditch. Back in the car, Lawton told Fee to light up again.
“ ‘What time this famous bank opens?’ Lawton said.
“ ‘ ’Round ten.’
“ ‘Yeah, everything down here moves slow and late,’ Lawton said. ‘We’ll leave at ten—don’t want to be the first ones in the bank.’
“Lawton told Fee to give him the package. Fee reached under the passenger seat and brought out a little leather sample case. Lawton snapped it open and studied the guns. Must to had four or five different guns in there. Couple automatic pistols, couple revolvers. He looked them over. Fee said he watched Jean-Pierre’s face. He said Jean-Pierre started sweating. He said Lawton checked a revolver and handed it to him. He checked it again to make sure it was loaded. Lawton stuck one of the automatic pistols under his belt. He snapped the case shut.
“ ‘We are ready if any of those honkies stop us. You’ll get yours when we get to town. I don’t want you to get anxious. It’s five ’til, let’s go.’
“It was five after ten when they came into Bayonne. Lawton told Fee to drop him and Jean-Pierre off a half block before reaching the bank. He gave Jean-Pierre the revolver and told him to put it in his pocket before he got out of the car. He told Fee to turn the car around, headed out of town. Him and Jean-Pierre got out and started walking, just casually. Only one customer was in the bank and he was leaving.
“ ‘What can I do for you boys?’ the little clerk asked them.
“Lawton said: ‘If you make a sound I’ll kill you.’ He leapt over the railing. ‘How much money you got in that draw’?’
“ ‘Not much.’
“ ‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ he told the little clerk.
“He stuck his gun in her back and told her to go to the office door and knock softly. If she tried to make any sign, he told her, he would kill her as sure as hell. She knocked softly, and they went in. Ted Morgan, president of the bank, was at his desk. The other clerk who worked up front was talking to Leigh Melacon at his desk.
“ ‘Any crazy movement—any—I’ll kill every one of you. One of you get up and open that safe—no monkey business—I want twenty thousand dollars.’
“Ted Morgan, with his hands over his head, stood up and went to the safe.
“ ‘Don’t bring anything out of the safe but money—I mean it. I’ll kill every last one of you.’
“That li’l clerk who had been talking to Leigh Melacon turned red as a beet and went down on the floor. Lawton took his eyes off Leigh for no more than a second, but that was enough time for Melacon to reach for his gun. He and Lawton must have fired at the same time. Melacon’s bullet caught Lawton; Lawton’s bullet caught that li’l clerk in the back. The clerk fell, Melacon kept on shooting. Lawton stumbled out of the office reaching out to Jean-Pierre to help him. Melacon came out of the office, still shooting. Jean-Pierre shot once, hit nothing, dropped the gun, and started running.
“Fee had heard the shooting, and headed out of town. Jean-Pierre hollered for him to stop, but Fee drove even faster. The people came out of the stores and offices, calling for the police and pointing. One of Mapes’s deputies caught up with Fee just after he had passed the pecan factory. Two white men in a pickup truck saw Jean-Pierre coming toward them. By the way he was running from uptown, they figured he had done something wrong. They stopped the truck, and both men jumped out and grabbed him, and held him against the truck until one of Mapes’s deputies showed up.
“Lawton was dead. Both Fee and Jean-Pierre was sentenced to sit in Gruesome Gertie’s lap. Brady cheated the chair out of one, when he killed his own boy.”
Part Two
MAPES
Chapter Nine
Bunch of vultures—look at them. Just look at them. If either one of them puts a mike or a camera in my face, I’ll throw him in jail just as sure hell is hot. Look at them—you think they care? Bunch of vultures. To them—“Just another old nigger gone crazy.” That’s how they see him—“Just another old nigger who has lost his mind.” I suppose there’ll be twice as many here when I get back. They can’t wait to see him in handcuffs.
The sky is blue, the river is calm. Look at how they wave to one another, skiing behind the boats. Free, free, with no cares in the world. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and bright—except in my heart. It’s dark. His skin is black, mine is white—and he’s my friend. I’ve never known a better man, white or black, than him. Why? Why? Why did you do it? Hell, I know why. I damned well know why.
These on this side of the road, across from the river, sitting in their stately rockers—their servants standing by to pour water, or coffee, or any alcohol they want to drink—they know why. Masters, mistresses, servants, al
l know him—they all know Brady Sims. Those skiing on the river are too young to know Brady Sims, but these on this side of the road know him—hated him, loved him, respected him, feared him—black and white alike. Hell of a man, that Brady Sims.
“I know you like hunting. Would you like to go with us sometime?”
“Who’s us?”
“A club I belong to—five of us.”
“You go’n make me a member of that club.”
I didn’t know how to answer him.
“You better go talk to your people first,” he said.
“You kidding, Mapes?” George asked. “Did you tell him sometimes we go out three or four days? And he eat and sleep with Emmett and Taylor?”
I went back. “They say you can hunt with us, if you don’t mind eating and sleeping with Emmett and Taylor.”
“Any other member of that club got to sleep with Emmett and Taylor?”
“No.”
“De’s your answer.”
I told them.
“And you didn’t knock the shit out of him?”
“No. Because he would have hit me back. Then I would have had to kill him. Well?”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” Harry said.
“Same here,” Shelly said.
“Oh, fuck,” George said.
“I’m going to hunt with him,” I said.
“We’re all part owner of that cabin, Mapes,” George said.
“I won’t use the cabin.”
“If it means that much to you, I’ll go along—until he says something smart to me. But you told Benny Lopes?”
I told Benny Lopes.
“You’ve gone fucking crazy, Mapes? Your grandpa and your pa must be turning over in their graves. Your family has been sheriff of this parish since the end of the Civil War—for a hundred years. You want to bring that to an end?”
“Isn’t that up to the people?”
“Sure—up to the people—until I tell them what a hundred-percent nigger lover you’ve become.”
“The others don’t seem to mind as much as you.”
“I see why Shelly would go along—he likes black pussy much as you do. For George and Harry, they’re so lamebrain they would hunt and sleep with a fucking ape. That black pussy done run you crazy, Mapes—done converted you into a nigger lover? Get the fuck out of my face, stay the fuck away from me. Go back to your black pussy. Me, I like white pussy; always have, always will; and I hunt only with white men, long as they’re not a nigger lover. Stay the fuck away from me from now on.”
I left the highway and turned down into the quarter. What a difference: leaving a paved road, the calm, beautiful water of the river, well-kept homes, well-kept yards, live oak trees everywhere, every kind of flower you can name. Now this—a long dirt road, weatherworn shacks on both sides have not been painted in over fifty years; most yards are bare of grass and flowers; you sweep the yard with the same broom you sweep the porch. Chinaberry trees in some of the front yards; pecan trees in the back. A little vegetable garden beside the house; on the porch a wire clothesline stretches from one post to another. A shirt here, a pair of long johns there, a sheet—maybe two sheets on another line at another house. I’ve been down here many, many times. They all know me. Knew my daddy, who was sheriff before me. Some can even tell you things about my grandpa. “You look like him a lot—but he was more on the lean side.”
They’re watching me as I drive down the road, driving slow to keep down the dust as much as I can. There is Mister Big Shot—his mon is black, his pa is white, and he calls himself an arsh. He can’t say “Irish”—arsh—to distinguish himself from the rest of the blacks in the quarter—arsh. Oh, how he’d like me to stop and pick him up to help me arrest Brady Sims—wouldn’t he? I nod to him, he waves back—a slight wave. I drive slow. They know why I’m here. They don’t need no telephone, Indian smoke signals, or African tom-tom drums to hear the news. All they have to do is stick their heads out the window or out the door and it’s right there….There is the child-breaker—according to rumor, once you make twelve she’ll take you on. She’s in her late sixties now, and she’s been at it since her teens. Grandpa, pa, son, grandson—they’ve all met her over the past fifty years….The little white church with its blue door and blue window frame, built by the blacks here on the place, according to my daddy. I’ve been in several times to listen to the singing and the praying….They watch as I go by driving slow to keep down the dust. All that is left are the old, the very young, and the lame. The old ones nod and raise their hands to acknowledge my passing; the children keep on playing….And this one, in her seventies, light brown skin, still beautiful, has at least a dozen children by at least a half dozen different men, black and white.
“Like a dog or a hog.”
Daddy grabbed me by the shirt collar and jerked me toward him, and I hadn’t ever seen him so angry before.
“Some people are not as fortunate as you are—always remember that.”
He pushed me away as violently as he had pulled me to him.
“You and grandpa said it.”
“Your grandpa and I didn’t know any better,” he said. “Why do you think I keep taking you around with me—so you can get to know people. Not all of us have been lucky in this life. Always remember that—always.”
They sit in old chairs—chairs as old as they are; some sit on homemade benches; others sit on the steps. They lean against the wall, they lean against a post at the end of the porch. They watch in silence—barely wave—and they know why I’m here.
I leave the quarter and I go into the field, and I think to myself, “Damn you, Brady Sims; damn you.” I drive slow, not to keep down the dust—but in no hurry to arrest him. “Why me, Brady Sims? Why me—to send you to Angola? But I must, Brady Sims; I must. You have killed a man—murdered a man—and murderers must go to the pen. Friend or no friend, I must do my duty. And you must sit behind me, not beside me this time, Brady Sims.”
He has seen the dust rising above the cane field quarter of a mile away. I drive up and park under a maple tree less than a hundred feet from his house. He stands on the porch leaning against a post.
“Sport,” I say to him.
He grunts.
I take a seat on one of the steps and lean back against another.
“How you feel?”
He mumbles.
The old sugarhouse made of bricks stands before us. There is cane across from the mill and on both sides of the house. But no grinding here anymore. The cane is taken to another house couple miles farther up the road. But he stares at the house as if he remembers when he and others crushed the cane and made the sugar here.
I notice a shovel against the porch with fresh dirt on the blade. What has he been doing for the two hours he needed—digging a grave? Proud as he is, he doesn’t want anybody to have to do anything. Is that dirt from a grave?
Far across the field, I can hear the tractor of the St. John brothers as they harvest the cane. Is he listening to it and remembering when there wasn’t a tractor, but man and mules hauling the cane to the mill? That was grinding; this is not grinding; when man used his muscle to do all the lifting and hauling—that was grinding. Is that what he is thinking?
I go on talking. He grunts. I talk about the days of hunting together, especially the last time. Emmett and Taylor had stewed some meat with onions and carrots and Irish potatoes. And there was cornbread and mustard greens—and Shelly brought out a half gallon of good red wine, and we all poured some in our tin cups. Even Emmett and Taylor took some back to their tent. But, him? No. “I don’t touch that stuff,” he said. “Water good ’nuff for me.”
We drank. Emmett came back. “Taylor said if you don’t mind, can you spare just a li’l touch mo’?”
Shelly filled both tin cups. Emmett said, “Thank you, suh,” three or four times as he backed out the cabin. Shelly told Emmett how good the food was. We all agreed. Brady grunted.
“Only thing would make this bet
ter, if we had three or four women back here,” Shelly said.
“Shit,” George said. “Why the hell you think I come back here?”
We all laughed. Brady grunted—a short laugh.
“What you think about that, Brady?” Shelly asked.
“I never mix ’em.”
“Same here,” George said. “One, I throw down on the bed; the other one, I throw in the back of my pickup.”
“You throw which one where?” Shelly asked.
“Fuck you, Shelly,” George said.
We laughed. He grunted.
I had brought a bottle of whisky, and we ended the night like that.
Now, I look at Brady leaning against the post. The shadows of the trees and the house are getting longer by the minute, as the sun slips down slowly beyond the old sugarhouse. What is he looking at? Seeing what? Thinking about what? It is time to go.
“Ready, sport?”
“Give me two minutes.”
I had given him three hours. Two more minutes wouldn’t matter. While looking down at the ground he takes a long, deep breath; then he raises his head and looking at the old mill and across the fields he does the same—a long, deep breath like he wanted to take in everything for the last time. Then he turns—
And I should have known. Even before I heard it, I should have known. Yes, I should have known. Why? Because I knew Brady Sims.
When I get to the door, I stop. He is lying across the bed. When I see what was left of his face, I turn to find a post I can hang on to and I try to puke my guts out.
Part Three
LOUIS GUERIN
Chapter Ten
The telephone rang. Lucas Felix answered.
“Your boss.”
He handed me the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling all over the place for you.”
“Been here at the barbershop, getting a human interest story.”
“Do you have a television there?”
“Yeah.”
“On?”
“No. Off.”
“Turn it on quick. Mapes’s about to speak. Your boy killed himself. Listen to Mapes, then get your butt up here pronto.”
The Tragedy of Brady Sims Page 7