The Choiring Of The Trees

by Donald Harington

  “Shit. That thar Fat Gabe would of kilt ye.”

  “Noo, son, he weren’t quite ready to do that, jist yet. You shouldn’t of done what ye done, Tim. I shore ’preciate it, but they weren’t no call fer ye to butt in lak thet.”

  Timbo Red was silent, thinking about that, and then he said, “Do ye know what? Tim aint my name. But it aint Timbo Red neither. That’s jist what they call me.”

  “Shore,” Nail said. “My name aint Nails neither. It’s jist plain ole Nail. No Nails. It’s a ole fambly name.”

  “What I figgered. They was some folks name of Nail up whar I come from.”

  “What is yore name, son? I don’t recollect.”

  “Hit’s Ernest. Ernest Bodenhammer. But with a name lak thet, you mize well jist call me Tim.”

  “Naw, I’ll call ye Ernest, if ye want.”

  “And I’ll call ye Nail.”

  In the death hole Nail Chism and Ernest Bodenhammer became more closely acquainted than they had during the months together upstairs in the barracks. Down here they had privacy. There was no one to hear them. A trusty came three times a day to bring the cornbread and cowpeas, and about once a day Short Leg or Fat Gill would come down and look in to see if they were both still alive and hadn’t chewed through their bars.

  They talked all the time except during the morning sunlight, which Ernest took advantage of to draw, and Nail to read; during all of the darker hours they talked, and before the 20th rolled around they knew almost everything about each other that was worth knowing. It wasn’t until late the first night of their discovery of each other that their stream of conversation temporarily ran dry, and Nail volunteered to play a few tunes on his harmonica. He asked if Ernest had any favorites, and at Ernest’s request he played “Fire on the Mountain,” “Hell Tore Loose in Georgia,” and “Big-Eared Mule.”

  It was while he was playing the last tune that Ernest interrupted him: “Hey, Nail! What’s that there mouth organ made out of?”

  Nail stopped playing. “Made out of?”

  “Yeah. Aint it got some metal in her?”

  Nail studied the Hohner. “Why, yes, matter of fact, she’s nearly all metal, except for the board.”

  “Any plates of metal in her?”

  “Yeah, she’s got a couple plates.”

  “I got a idee,” Ernest said. “Couldn’t ye tear her apart and make ye a knife out of one of them plates?”

  Nail reflected. “Hell, I could make two knifes with her, but I aint about to. Wouldn’t be no use as a mouth organ anymore.”

  “Which’d ye ruther, yore life or yore music?”

  “Ernest, you’ve mistook the idee. If I had me a knife, I couldn’t save myself, I’d jist kill a good few of the others before they threw the switch on me.”

  “That’s better’n nothin, aint it?”

  “I used to think so. I aint so sure anymore.”

  But before he could fall asleep that night, Nail spent a good bit of time holding the Hohner in one hand, fingering it and thinking. He’d sure hate to tear it up, but it wasn’t going to be any use to him anyway in three more days. Was that enough time to take one of the metal plates and sharpen it along the cement floor? Even if it was, the resulting weapon wouldn’t be as firm or as dangerous as the knife he’d had before.

  The next morning after breakfast, while Ernest was doing his drawing, Nail asked, “What are ye makin a pitcher of this mornin?”

  “Ole Sparky,” Ernest said.

  “I didn’t know you’d ever seen it,” Nail said.

  “I aint. I’m jist imaginin what it looks lak. But I may need yore help. Remember how you told me afore, when I tried to draw it with chalk on the floor? What are ye readin this mornin?”

  “I aint readin,” Nail declared. “I’m a-takin my harmonica apart.”

  All day and all night while they talked, Nail sharpened one of the metal plates against the cement floor. He was impatient and did not do it quietly, but their voices covered the sound of the scraping. “Tell me what’s it lak raisin sheep,” Ernest requested, and Nail instructed the boy on the art and science of sheep-raising. He began with the land itself: it was necessary to have well-drained pastures, because sheep cannot bear damp. Old, permanent meadows were better than artificial meadows because if Nature is left alone, She’ll give you a greater variety of grasses. The best pastures face south but have a border of trees to shade the sheep during the hottest part of the day. The shade should be green, or purple-green, dark and dry and cool.

  The next day, which by his reckoning was April 18th (he didn’t have a calendar now, just a good sense of time), he had the dagger-like shape pretty well defined, and began honing the edge of it on the sole of his shoe as he told the boy about breeding sheep: the proper selection of the ram, picking him out not because he’s biggest or heaviest but because he has good fleece and a good shape; the bringing together of the ram and the ewe; the proper time and place for the mating.

  Ernest asked questions. “How big a peter does a ram have on him?”

  Nail laughed. “Didn’t you never see any sheep up around Timbo?”

  “They don’t raise ’em up thataway, that I ever heared tell. Is a ram’s peter much bigger than a man’s?”

  “Not bigger’n yours,” Nail assured him.

  “Do tell?” Ernest became thoughtful and silent, but at length he lowered his voice and asked, “Did ye ever hanker to mount a yo?”

  It was Nail’s turn to be silent before he said, “Wal, shore. I reckon any feller would.”

  “But didje ever do it?” Ernest asked, and waited. He waited a good while before changing the subject. “Nail, you aint never been married, have ye?”

  Nail cleared his throat. “No, I guess not.”

  “Didje ever have a womarn?”

  Nail pondered. He said, “Yeah. I did.”

  “Tell me what it’s lak.”

  “You never did?”

  “I got real close one time, but she changed her mind. Was the one ye had willin?”

  “She was willin.” Nail remembered, and smiled. “Matter of fact, it was her idee.”

  “Tell me all about it so’s I can draw a pitcher.”

  “You want a pitcher of ’em doin it?”

  “Yeah, tell me how she set or laid down or whar she put her knees and her hands, and all lak thet. Tell me how you got down or knelt, and all. Did ye have yore clothes on?”

  So Nail talked and described and narrated, and he heard Ernest’s charcoal pencil going skritch-skritch. Ernest occasionally interrupted with questions. Was it dark? How far off was that coal oil lamp? What kind of covers was under them? Did they pull any covers over them? What color was her hair? Could you tell if the hair down there was the same color, or lighter? Ernest had a hundred questions before they were both finished.

  “I wish I could see yore pitcher,” Nail remarked.

  “It aint my best one,” Ernest reflected. “But it’ll do. Looks jist lak ye. Or jist lak I remember ye. Have you changed any since I seen you last?”

  “A mite older, is all.”

  And sometime in the night, Nail, insomnia filling his head with thoughts of the day after tomorrow, listened to Ernest making love to his imagination and to himself. It went on awhile. Nail reflected that there was at least a ghost of a chance that the boy might get his execution stayed. He was only sixteen, and maybe that governor would take pity and commute Ernest in a way he couldn’t for a grown-up convicted rapist like Nail. Ernest was real smart, and if he got commuted to life and got sent to Tucker, he might be smart enough to escape someday and maybe become a sheep farmer in some faraway place where he and Rindy could live happy ever after. Nail told himself to go ahead and finish telling Ernest all the things he wanted him to tell Viridis, just in case he ever got the chance.

  On the 19th, the day before his scheduled execution, he did. Ernest listened carefully, remembering it all, for a long time before he interrupted: “What makes ye think I’ll ever git the chance to
tell her any of this? Ole Sparky’s gonna cup my butt on the first day of May.”

  Nail was putting the last honing on his blade. He tested it with his thumb. “You jist never know,” he said. He began cutting the cuff of his trousers to unravel thread for a string to hang the blade around his neck. He heard a noise and quickly hid the blade under his bedcover. Fat Gill and Short Leg came to his cell, along with a white trusty whom Nail recognized as the convict barber, carrying a pair of shears, a shaving mug, and a strop. Fat Gill handed the razor to the barber after first handcuffing Nail and warning him to sit absolutely still. With the shears the barber clipped off as much of Nail’s regrown hair as he could; Nail reflected that this was the time of year he ought to be shearing his own sheep, if he still had any; he watched the hair fall into his lap and onto the floor, short shocks of white mixed with blond. Then the barber soaped Nail’s head and shaved his skull. He worked rapidly and not very carefully; Nail felt himself get nicked twice and felt the blood trickling behind his ears.

  “Want a mirror?” Fat Gill asked when the barber was finished.

  Nail raised the middle finger of his manacled hand and held it stiffly upright for Fat Gill to sneer at.

  When they were gone, Ernest’s voice came: “What did they do to ye?”

  “Shaved my head,” Nail said.

  “What’d they do thet fer?”

  Nail realized the boy didn’t have much of a conception of how the electrocution process worked, and he debated with himself whether to explain it. Would it help Ernest get ready? Or would it just make him more scared than he was already, although he tried so hard to seem not to be? A thought suddenly occurred to Nail: tomorrow when they took Nail upstairs, they would take Ernest too, as a witness, and Nail’s would be the first execution that the boy would see. He also realized that if Fat Gill and Short Leg were able to restrain Nail so that he couldn’t reach his knife, Ernest would reach it and do to Fat Gill and the other men exactly what he had done to Fat Gabe. Nail didn’t want that. Since they were going to kill the kid in Old Sparky anyway, Ernest would probably figure it made no difference if he died trying to help Nail take as many with them as they could. Nail could not allow that.

  “Son,” Nail said to Ernest, “I’m gonna tell ye exactly what they’re gonna make you watch at sundown tomorrow. I want ye to know jist what you’ll see, includin how I’m gonna kill a few of ’em first, specially Warden Burdell and that executioner, a son of a bitch named Bobo. But before I tell ye, I want ye to promise me one thing: you’ll jist sit there and not lift a finger to help or git in the way or git yoreself in any more trouble than you already got. Will ye promise?”

  On

  But Ernest Bodenhammer was not allowed to witness the execution of Nail Chism. Tom Fletcher told her later that the warden had wanted to include Ernest because it was customary to have a condemned man watch all of the electrocutions in order to give him a clear foretaste of his own, but that the warden had made an exception this time because in view of the way Ernest had killed Gabriel McChristian over Nail, the young man might very well create a disturbance during the execution. And besides, the warden pointed out to Tom, there wasn’t really any room: the witness area was filled. All twelve of the chairs were taken up by reporters. Warden Harris Burdell had even had to turn away a few latecomers, including Viridis herself, who was late not because it had taken her that long to persuade Tom Fletcher to give her a press card, nor because she had needed more time to steel herself, but because she’d attempted unsuccessfully to convince Warden Burdell that she wanted to attend as a bonafide journalist, not as the condemned man’s “sweetheart,” as the warden insisted on referring to her. He had refused to admit her, but he had used as his excuse the crowded presence of reporters from, in addition to the Arkansas Gazette and its rival the Arkansas Democrat, the Houston Chronicle, the Post-Dispatch and the Globe-Democrat (both of St. Louis), the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Kansas City Star, Associated Press, and, the farthest that any reporter had journeyed, the Atlanta Constitution. She had hoped to get at least one representative from the East, but the Washington Star’s man had missed his train connection, and the Philadelphia Inquirer had decided at the last moment that there were bigger stories in Pennsylvania.

  Tom Fletcher himself had represented the Arkansas Gazette, and afterward came to his car, where Viridis had been required to wait, and told her about it. The deathroom “crew,” he said, had been caught completely by surprise. Warden Burdell had no inkling until the first reporter, from the Times-Picayune, arrived at his office just an hour before the execution was to take place, and requested an interview with the condemned man. Warden Burdell had to explain to him, and to the next eight reporters who knocked at his door, that condemned men were not allowed to speak to anyone other than the minister and the warden himself on the day of execution. It was tradition, if not ironclad rule. So some of the reporters had to content themselves with interviewing Warden Burdell, asking him such challenging questions that he replied to each with “I’m only the warden, doing my duty. I didn’t sentence Chism to death, and it aint my business to pardon him.”

  Other reporters cornered the executioner, Mr. Irvin Bobo, age forty-two, who closely resembled the movie actor Charles Chaplin and whose breath reeked of liquor, and attempted to ask him questions. He was not able to invent a stock reply as the warden had, but he was quoted as saying, “I aint gonna kill no more white men after this one. I’m only good at killing niggers. If they want to kill any more white men, they’ll have to get somebody else.”

  Reporters managed to locate two of the guards, James Fancher and Gillespie Gorham, and asked them several questions. Their boss had been able to give them only a few moments’ warning, telling them to put on their neckties and comb their hair and not say anything stupid. Gillespie Gorham, thirty-one, a rather corpulent man, formerly a patrolman with the Little Rock police, solved the problem by repeatedly answering questions with “I don’t know nothin.” James Fancher, thirty-seven, who appeared crippled, one leg shorter than the other, was willing to talk and even to describe the condemned man’s last hours, which had been spent in conversation with another condemned man (or youth) in an adjoining cell.

  The reporters had then converged upon the minister, the Reverend James S. McPhee, fifty-two, who explained that he was not affiliated with any particular church and considered himself nondenominational although he was partial to the Baptists. He was a full-time employee of the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railway, working as a conductor on the Texarkana run, but some years earlier he had received “the call” to make sure that all condemned men, black and white alike, had the final peace of knowing that God loved them and was willing to forgive them their crimes if they confessed and acknowledged Jesus Christ as their Saviour. No, this Nail Chism fellow had not confessed anything. He was an atheist. Well, not exactly an atheist, because he did finally profess some sort of belief in God, but he held the heretical notion that God was a woman. Reverend McPhee had accompanied Nail Chism on his previous “last mile” to the electric chair, and he had accompanied a total of thirteen men, all but two of them of the colored race, on their last mile to the electric chair since its invention, and he had never seen any condemned man approach the chair as coldly as Nail Chism did, which, Reverend McPhee believed, was probably a sign of guilt: Chism knew he deserved what he was getting. And yes, this time the minister hoped the execution would be carried out.

  When Tom Fletcher arrived to take his seat in the witnesses’ area, he noticed that all the other men had their press cards stuck in the hatbands of their felt fedoras, and he had to search for a while through his wallet to find his press card, which he hadn’t flashed, let alone worn, for some years. He put it in his hat and took his seat in the back row of the folding chairs.

  Eventually an iron door creaked open, and guards Gorham and Fancher entered with the prisoner, followed by Reverend McPhee. There was an audible collective gasp among the harde
ned journalists at the sight of the condemned man, although Tom Fletcher’s first thought, he confessed to Viridis, was this: what could possibly have attracted Very to this fellow? Chism’s wrists were held together very low, over his groin, as if protecting his private parts. A very tall man, his shoulders were somewhat stooped, probably the result, Tom decided, of long confinement in a bent position, although it appeared that the weight of the handcuffs on his wrists was pulling down his arms and his shoulders.

  Chism looked at the witnesses and moved his eyes from one face to the next, as if he were looking for somebody. “You, probably,” Tom said. His blue eyes, Tom noted, were his only handsome feature, contradicting the gangling frame, the bald, bony skull, the battered face, and the missing teeth…although this last did not become apparent until, after searching the reporters’ faces, he smiled. “Why he smiled, I don’t know. Was he glad you weren’t there?”

  The warden spoke to the prisoner. “Well, Chism, you’ve sure got twelve of ’em this time. Count ’em. They’re all big-time, big-city newspapermen. Look at ’em. You’re a celebrity, Chism!”

  It was clear to Tom Fletcher that the warden was enjoying the scene and would probably milk it for all it was worth. The warden even faced the reporters and “presented” Chism to them, holding his hand out, palm up, beneath Chism’s waist and making a little bow toward the reporters, like a circus ringmaster presenting his star performer. Tom said he wouldn’t have been surprised if Chism had begun doing some tricks at that moment…but the trick came later.

  The strange thing then, Tom said, was that the Atlanta Constitution’s man began clapping his hands. Tom knew him, and had tossed down a drink with him earlier that afternoon, but the man wasn’t intoxicated. Maybe his applause was prompted by the warden’s ridiculous bow. In any case, one by one the other reporters dropped their notebooks into their laps and began clapping too. Tom joined in, telling himself that he was clapping for probably the same reason the rest of them were: that they admired him as a man, knowing he was innocent and was coming to this end bravely, without fear or cowardice or hysterics. The warden seemed stunned at this continuing outburst of applause until finally he himself began clapping. So did one of the guards. The only people in the room who did not were the minister and the executioner, who looked embarrassed, as if they knew they ought to clap but didn’t know how.