by Kia Corthron
“Knew ya couldn’t do it!” The Negro is slumped in an odd position, trying to move himself. Reggie harshly throws him onto his back, again eliciting an agonizing groan. The brothers stoop on either side of the supine man, grinning into his face. Francis Veter lowers his voice. “If you prefer, go on back to the truck, Randall. We’ll be done here in a little while.”
“This little piggie went to market.” The Negro screams. “This little piggie stayed home.”
Reggie has a knife, and with each piggie he slices off another of the Negro’s fingers. The process takes a while with each digit as it’s not a clean slice, Reggie needing to saw through. Louis places his knees on the Negro’s shoulders, the boy’s weight keeping him in place. With Reggie holding his hand, Randall registers the odd image of a manicure, and something snaps, the lunacy of it all, and Randall the consummate failure trying to be all heroic and here a damn slip in the mud foils that, his grand rescue effort turning into some Three Stooges shtick and Randall starts laughing uncontrollably, holding his stomach and his companions join in, everyone sidesplitting which makes Reggie’s little amputations sloppier. When he’s finally finished with the right hand, he puts the fingers into his front dungaree pocket and hands the knife to his brother to start the left.
“Naw,” says Francis Veter, walking over. “That’s too goddamn redundant.” The uncle takes the knife, holds it up to the Negro’s eyes, then begins to slowly unzip the Negro’s pants. The Negro’s scream is bloodcurdling, his entire body shuddering so violently that it seems he will fly out of there. Francis Veter takes his time slicing off the left testicle, his eyes on the Negro’s petrified face the entire time. Randall is frozen, chalk white. The boys display a pulling-the-light-out-of-the-firefly glee on their faces, though sporadically wincing, unconsciously taking their hands to protect their own genitals. Then, suddenly, the shrieking Negro is silent, falling slowly into a stillness. Francis Veter frowns. “Oh no ya don’t,” he says softly. He takes his fingers, trying to force the Negro’s eye open. Then gently slaps the Negro’s cheek. When there is no response he waves Reggie over, takes the boy’s bottle and begins to pour it, a steady stream, onto the Negro’s face. Finally his eyelid, heavy, slowly rises. Francis Veter smiles. “There ya go. You gonna stay conscious for us. Hear?”
**
Eliot remembers the lynching photos men laughing men grin, kill The men grin at Eliot. The white men, white faces one two three four want my mama. Eliot has one eye, Mr. Daughtery had one eye, Cyclops, Eliot sees blood, the woods red, grass red sky Where’s my mama? the man. Eliot remembers the man from jail he gave him shoes, Mr. Daughtery in his wheelchair Eliot gets his wheelchair, Eliot will live Eliot will roll on his cart like Roy How was school today, jumpin bean? A-plus! A-plus! A-plus I don’t wanna die
**
“Aw look at him,” says Francis Veter. He tenderly touches the tears rolling down the Negro’s face. The Negro is trying to catch his breath, short breaths. “What. You fraid a dyin all alone without your family an friends? Well that’s why you gotta think of us as your friends, buddy. Cuz we gonna stick by ya, right till the end.”
In seventh grade, Mrs. Robbins brought in a wooden skeleton complete with organs. Randall looks at the Negro and imagines the skeleton model but with the leg and arm bones in pieces, several ribs crushed to powder, the kidneys and intestines mangled, skull busted, brain mashed. Randall got A’s in anatomy Randall should have been a doctor.
A Buick driving by on the road. Francis Veter clicks off the flashlight. The car slows, having noticed the overturned vehicle. It pulls over. A white man gets out of the driver’s seat. White family. The father stands staring, hands on his hips. Francis Veter sets down his flashlight and starts to walk over, followed by his nephews. In the distance Randall can see the man backing up at the sight of them appearing out of the darkness. Francis Veter waves, friendly. An owl hoots.
“Listen you.” Randall grabs the back of the Negro’s head, brings his face close. “You know me?” Randall picks up the flashlight, illuminating their features. “I seen you before. Where?”
The Negro’s lips move. Nothing comes out.
“They gonna kill ya.” Randall sighs. “They gonna kill ya, I see that now, they gonna kill ya nothin you can do nothin. Jus say your name. Say your name so’s we know how to mark your grave.”
The Negro’s lips move, no sound. Then Randall catches a glimmer near by. Puddle. A cry escapes Randall: the mercy of it. He gently lets the Negro’s head down, rolling his face into the shallow pool. The Negro tries to move but can’t. Bubbles. Then gradually less bubbles. In the distance the car drives away. The bubbles are gone. Randall exhales. It’s over. He remembers a spring day when he was little, walking through the woods with B.J. and finding a dead bird, anonymous as the body before him now. The Evans brothers had buried the creature, Randall had said a prayer, and now he and Francis Veter and his nephews would bury the Negro and Randall would say a prayer, Wasn’t there a shovel in the back of Francis Veter’s truck? Relief, even joy, Randall feels it, for himself, for the soul before him at last released from his misery.
And with an enormous heave the Negro flips himself out of the puddle, coughing.
Randall gawks. He didn’t drown. Randall can’t believe it. He didn’t drown! By the grace of God he’d been offered a compassionate death and instead he saves himself. For what. More torture? Blamed fool! Goddamn fool nigger!
“Well,” says Francis Veter laughing, returning with his nephews. “Those were some Pennsylvania plates. I told em we didn’t know about that upturned station wagon but we been out night huntin. Hence the blood all over us.”
“An he believed that.” Randall’s enraged eyes still on the Negro.
“I’m inclined to say he didn’t, but the way Yankee Doodle Daddy was shakin, I don’t think we need to be worryin bout the family makin a return visit to Dixie anytime soon.”
**
When Eliot goes to the dentist about the gaps the dentist is going to say Well where’s the teeth? The teeth flying! Eliot needs those teeth. Tooth fairy came, Mama! I got a penny! Look at that shiny new penny, big boy This morning my mother was alive and now she died This morning I was alive I got a penny, Mama! I can buy nigger babies! Heads is good luck, says Andi and she gives it to him.
**
“Bring those bricks over here,” Francis Veter tells his nephews. Randall is sitting next to the Negro. A dramatic streak of lightning. The boys, mesmerized, stare where it flashed. Francis Veter sits on a large rock. “Whew! Guess we’re in for more storms.” He lights a cigarette.
“Fool fuckin nigger.” Randall’s furious eyes on the Negro.
“So whatcha think? One a them lawyers come to town? There was some nigger lawyers at the voter registration. I saw em but, well.” He shrugs, smiling. “They all look alike to me.”
Randall turns to Francis Veter. “So when you figure we done here.”
“Fire!” says Louis as he hurls a brick at the Negro’s head. “Bull’s-eye!”
“Goddamn you, boy!” snaps his uncle, going to the Negro. “If he’s dead, you’re dead!”
Louis, chagrined after his first show of initiative, stammers. “I wasn’t tryin ta. But ain’t we—”
“I ain’t finished with him yet.” Francis Veter’s palm hovers over the Negro’s mouth. “Okay there’s a little somethin goin on here.” He lifts the eyelid, checks the pupil. “In answer to your question, Randall. Look like the sand near run outa this hourglass.” He sits back on the rock to finish his cigarette. “I jus wanna make sure he’s with us till the end. Wouldn’t be right kill a man, not let him experience every feel of it.”
They are silent, watching the Negro’s chest rise and fall. It doesn’t rise very high. Reggie starts laying out the fingers, admiring them, like another boy would lay out baseball cards. Maybe he was one of those lawyers at the voter registration. That must
’ve been where he’d seen him. Randall thinks about Roger, Roger the successful Chicago nigger attorney, Roger’s dismissive look to Randall. After Randall’d loaned him his goddamn schoolbooks.
“Uncle Francis, can I go ahead an cut off his left fingers? I’d like to have some fingers.”
Francis Veter puffs, doesn’t take his eyes off the Negro. “Naw. I like the right fingers left ball gone. I was never a fan a symmetry.”
“But then I don’t get any fingers.”
“I’ll give ya one a mine,” Reggie offers.
“I don’t want one a yours! I can’t say I earned it if you cut if off, I want my own!”
“Boy?” Francis Veter warns.
“We gonna burn him, Uncle Francis?” asks Reggie.
“We’ll see.” Francis Veter, waiting for the Negro to regain consciousness, seems relaxed, patient. The owl in the woods hoots.
“Look what I done, Uncle Francis. I used the rope from the bricks.”
“That ain’t how you make a noose. Here.” Reggie takes Louis’s rope and demonstrates. Randall knows how to make a noose. Randall made a noose long ago, a kid, hard to remember the circumstances now. Then out the blue B.J.s favorite story: In an old house in Paris / that was covered with vines / lived twelve little girls in two straight lines
“We got it, Uncle Francis!” says Louis, holding up the coiled rope.
Francis Veter inspects it from where he sits. “Then go fine me a good tree.” The boys, cheering and romping, scamper into the forest. Francis Veter allows the quiet to settle before he speaks.
“He’s ours, Randall.”
Randall turns to Francis Veter, who still gazes upon the Negro, content.
“Our kill. Guess I been waitin my whole life for this. The opportunity. Justification.”
“Justification.”
“Stranger in a suit from outa town. An he had a nice way a talkin fore we shut him up. Educated. Gotta be one a them damn voter registration lawyers. An then for him to jus happen to have this accident, us happen to be drivin by. Meant to be.”
Randall has a splitting headache. He turns back to the Negro.
“So this what you had in mind? From the start?”
“From the start a findin him?” Francis Veter ponders. “Probly not. When I first spied him, jus thought we have a little fun. An then. I don’t know, some line we crost. An I knew no turnin back.” The wind picking up, blowing the trees. “Wish I could take a picture nex to him. You ever see them ole photos?” He sighs. “Well. Them days are gone. Least we know it happened. An now that it did, I don’t never have to do it again. All the elements in the universe made it come together for tonight.”
“Bad luck for him.”
Francis Veter laughs. “Bad luck for him.”
Every few minutes the Negro’s shallow breathing seems to stop, giving Randall hope. But moments later the chest resumes rising ever so slightly, life stubbornly holding on. A few hours ago this was a whole man, a healthy man. Randall should have stayed home, to make sure Erma was alright. He should have told Francis Veter he couldn’t have a drink tonight, how about tomorrow? And Francis Veter would have delayed the night hunting twenty-four hours, the Negro would’ve been found by his people, right now having his leg cast set at the colored hospital. Or after the chicken dinner Randall could have told Francis Veter I’m tired, can I take a rain check? Or after things got out of hand here Randall could have walked away, We make our choices, Francis Veter said. B.J. said that too not long ago, then hit Randall with a pillow.
“You shoulda been a lawyer.”
Randall glowers at Francis Veter.
“You been more n fair here, some uppity Yank coon. You were kinda the attorney for the defense.”
“I tried to drown him while you all went to the car.”
Francis Veter smiles, surprised. “That a fact?”
“Make no mistake. I ain’t no better n you.” The Negro murmurs.
“Reggie’s gonna be disappointed when I take those fingers from him. We gonna have to burn em to ashes with the rest.”
“We hangin him or burnin him?”
“Burn him. I jus sent em off, get em outa my hair a minute. Nope, all hangin do is leave the body more identifiable.” He takes a swig from the bottle he’d all but forgotten. “The river. Burn it, dump it. With the rains oughta be carried miles downstream, he might be swimmin on out to the Gulf a Mexico.” Frances Veter looks at the Negro’s vehicle. “He gonna come up a missin person. But can’t charge nobody for murder if there ain’t a corpse. Even if they assume dead the crashed car proves it was an accident. By the time they find the body, if they find the body be so disfigured, so far away from the scene a the so-called crime ain’t no one gonna make the connection, whatever they pull from the river headed straight to Potter’s Field, anonymous.” The Negro utters something incomprehensible. “Well. Guess the party’s almost over.” Francis Veter stands. He takes what’s left of the whiskey, which isn’t much, and pours it liberally over the body, then crashes the bottle by the head. The Negro barely flinches, the reaction delayed. Then Francis Veter drops his cigarette onto the torso and for a second it sparks a huge flame encompassing some of the Negro’s face as well, the burning man mumbling inscrutable sounds while trying to roll over and douse the fire. “Look at him wiggle!” Francis Veter seems tickled pink. Randall’s pyromaniac fantasies flash, he hopes the Negro and Francis Veter and the nephews and himself and the whole goddamn forest catch, end it all. But the fuel is minimal, and the fire dies out rapidly.
“This spade refuses to die!” Francis Veter laughs. “Gotta hand it to him, another spook been in nigger heaven hours ago.” He walks over and stoops, picks up the Negro’s head to face himself. The eye that is open, blood-caked, stares blankly in the general direction of Francis Veter’s chin. “Listen, since you ain’t usin your car, you mind we siphon some a your gas? There’s an object we need to burn. I’d use my own, but we bout to take ya on a little excursion in my truck.” The Negro doesn’t respond. “I will take that as a yes. Thanks a lot, buddy.” Francis Veter lays the Negro’s head down, and stands. “I gotta go find those knuckleheads, tell em they can stop searchin for a tree now.” He walks into the woods.
**
Crash! glass Eliot’s ear, brownhair walk into woods. Eliot sees glass rise. Eliot’s mind glass rise floating, glass rise from the earth floating, brownhair come out of the woods glass slash brownhair throat blood, blood.
**
Randall sits near the Negro, gingerly placing the misshapen head on his lap, maternal. The world lighting up every few seconds, low rumble of thunder, and in the periodic light Randall takes his fingertips to wipe some of the blood from the Negro’s burnt face. Eventually a flicker of life in the Negro’s eye, appearing to see Randall.
“Sorry bout all this, fella. But it’s almost over now, you gonna get to rest soon. An I’m bettin you been a righteous man, heaven awaits ya.” The Negro breathing softly, gazing at Randall. “Funny how life works out huh. We didn’t even know each other till today an look how our destinies got all hooked.” And he leans over to give the Negro a gentle kiss on the cheek goodbye.
**
Eliot has seen the man before. Eliot sees two men, Why your eye doin at? asks Miss Onnie, I’m cross-eyeded Eliot has done this man a kindness, Eliot gave him the shoes. If he can get his mouth to tell him this white man can save him, then Eliot can go find the dentist and bring him back here and they can look for his teeth. He tries to speak but blood in his mouth like drowning. He puts his lips around the word, what teeth he has left, he pushes. He puts his lips around the word, he pushes: “Shoes.”
**
The tenderness in Randall’s face starts to fade. It’s coming back to him. The lawyer from the jail. The goddamn nigger lawyer from the jail who treated him like trash! Randall drops the nigger and stands, takes a step back.
This is who he’s been trying to help all night, spare the torment? And why’s he bring the fucking shoes up now? One final Fuck you? Randall’s breath is heavy and slow and then he is bellowing, “Bastard! Fuckin arrogant nigger, you think I needed your shoes? Goddamn used shoes from a filthy, smelly nigger, fuck you!” Randall kicks the Negro in the face, his body sailing a few feet into the air, more teeth flying. After he lands Randall snatches him by the shoulders, face to face, Randall shaking in fury, shaking the Negro. “Listen you. I shouldn’t be kickin a man when he’s down, but other people’s got a right to exist too. Lawyer!”
And with a shard of glass from the bottle crashed near his head, the Negro slashes Randall, a diagonal starting at the base of his ear, down his cheek, and across his throat. Randall drops the body, grabs his own neck. Blood.
“Oh my God.” Randall speaks quietly. The man’s near dead, the cut shallow, and yet. “Oh my God, now you tryin to kill me.” Randall stares at him incredulous. “Oh my God, I been strivin to help you all night one way or the other and I’m the one you—” He stares at the Negro’s left hand that assaulted him, hates the Negro’s left hand Why didn’t Francis Veter let Louis amputate those fingers too? And, just beyond the left hand, Randall sees Louis’s shotgun. Randall walks over, snatches it, and brings the barrel against the Negro’s temple. “Nothin I done tonight been anything but merciful to you, I was your only friend.” Tears flowing down Randall’s cheeks.
**
Daddy’s a Porter Daddy carries the peoples’ suitcases, Eliot steps into the train, see little Jordan walking up to his attorney: “How do you do!” Mr. A. Philip Randolph walking out of the barn the Dream Man walking in, Mr. Randolph points his finger at Dwight and Eliot in the hay: “Uncle Sam wants you.” Andi tells a joke in Didi’s ear, Didi cracking up doubling over, “No more! You’re killin me!” There’s a rabbit in the coffin! says Jeanine, the little coffin flies open and Roy jumps up, arms spread all showman: “Pencil-VANIA!” Miss Onnie feeding the birds Miss Onnie saved Parker’s life, “Sweatin like a nigger in court,” says Beau in the passenger seat Eliot and Mama in the coal mountain they grin black teeth Hahahaha Steven basketball-shoots his paper lands on Eliot’s hand Aunt Amy’s orange hand Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition “Useful Tips When Confronted by Southern Hospitality” by Winston Douglas, Esq. Dwight and Eliot and Parker make the snow angels Diana sleds down the hill, “Optimism, Eliot! Optimism!”