But the minute I was away from them, it was out of sight, out of mind.
Like I said, women were my weakness, my kryptonite, and my Achilles’ heel all rolled into one. And on more than one occasion, I left a woman’s house right when her boyfriend or husband was coming home. There was no doubt that I was a sinner during the week, but on Sundays, I always went to church with my mom and prayed for forgiveness. Come Monday, though, those women would fill my head again, and while I knew it was wrong, I also knew that in my own way, I genuinely cared about every single one of them.
The one big obstacle to both my work life and my dating life was a vehicle. We had been forced to move out of Praco—Alabama By-Products first closed the store and then officially gave notice that company housing was over. They served final eviction notices right before Christmas 1981, which didn’t make the people who were still there too happy. The actual mines that were in Praco had closed up a long time ago, and while we never did get indoor plumbing, I loved Praco and didn’t want to move away.
We loaded our house on the back of a truck and moved it to a piece of land in Burnwell, a short ways away from Praco. I was the youngest child and the one who was expected to stay with my mom and help her out. All but two of my siblings had left Alabama altogether. It wasn’t an easy place to live. Some had gone north to Ohio. My brother Lewis had gone all the way to California. Staying with my mom wasn’t an obligation, though; it was a joy. I loved her more than anything, and I couldn’t have lived anywhere else knowing she didn’t have anyone to help her out. Her happiness was my happiness and the other way around, and that’s the way it had always been and would always be. I also didn’t mind her cooking for me. She would cook for me anytime day or night, and that food tasted just like love felt.
Moving out of Praco meant I needed a car more than ever, because there were no neighbors to give me rides anymore, and every time you hitchhiked, you never knew what you were getting into. I had gone from hiding from strange cars on the road to getting into strange cars because I was desperate for a ride. It was a risk, because it wasn’t like the world had gotten any safer for a black man. I knew I could defend myself if I had to, and I had places to go, money to make, and women to see. But I couldn’t get a job without a car, and I couldn’t buy a car without a job, so I was stuck, and I was so tired of being without, of wanting, of struggling to make a dollar outside of the mine. I had always been a hard worker, but you couldn’t walk ten or fifteen miles to a job and then back home again. Something had to give.
That something gave on a Saturday. I woke up, put on my best church clothes, had breakfast with my mom, kissed her goodbye, and then caught a ride into Vestavia Hills from a friend of mine. I had him drop me off a few blocks away from a car lot I had seen before. I don’t want to say what happened next was premeditated, exactly, but it was one of those times when you are looking at yourself doing something and it’s like you are watching a movie. Some days you want to be somebody else so much, it’s like you really believe you are that imaginary person. And on that Saturday, I wasn’t a poor kid from Praco who was struggling to keep a job—I was a guy just out of college who had landed a great corporate position and was shopping for a brand-new car. I walked up and down the rows of cars, and while I had spent many nights imagining myself driving a new Monte Carlo, or Buick Regal, or Pontiac Grand Prix, it was the Cutlass Supreme that caught my eye that day. It was a shiny, sky-blue, two-door beauty, with blue velvet seats so soft they felt like clouds, and four headlights that made it look like the car had a face, and that face was smiling just for me. I stopped in front of it on the lot just long enough for the salesman to take notice and move in for the kill.
“She’s a beauty.”
I smiled at the salesman. He was a white guy, with long sideburns and brown hair that looked like it was getting a bit thin on top.
“She sure is. A beauty, for sure,” I said.
“You can’t do any better than the Cutlass.”
I shook the hand he held out to me.
“You want to take her for a test drive?”
I nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like to see how she drives.”
The salesman smiled, thinking he had his commission in the bag. I watched as he walked into the single-story building and then came back out with a set of keys.
“These belong to you.”
He held out his hand, and it felt like I was moving in slow motion, but I watched as my own hand reached out and grabbed those keys.
“Be sure to open her up on the highway. You’ll be surprised at what she can do.” He opened up the driver’s-side door and kept smiling as I climbed in. He slammed the door shut and slapped his hand two times on the roof. I put the key in the ignition and turned it. The velvet seats smelled like a new toy, a new bat, a new pair of shoes, and every other wonderful new thing you could think of all mixed together. It smelled like Christmas morning, and Easter Sunday, and Thanksgiving dinner, and my birthday all rolled into one. I had never breathed in sweeter air than the air inside of that car when I turned the key in the ignition.
I drove out of the lot and took a right. I drove around some of the smaller streets downtown for about twenty minutes. I felt strong and powerful and like there was nothing in this world I couldn’t do. And when I finally took the on-ramp and merged onto the highway, I pressed my foot down on the gas pedal and listened to the engine roar. I drove that car south toward Montgomery for more than an hour. And when I turned her around and headed back toward Birmingham, it seemed like nothing at all to pass the exit that led to the car lot and instead head back toward my mama’s house, where I knew dinner would be waiting. I couldn’t wait to show her my new car. I couldn’t wait to tell her that life was really going to be changing for us. In that moment, I felt a hope so big I thought my heart might jump right out of my chest. I knew everything was going to be different, and that’s when I decided to really open her up and see what this car could do. She was a beauty. And she was all mine.
* * *
I drove that car for two years. I installed a brand-new Pioneer stereo system that I was able to buy because I had a car to drive to my new job at a furniture store. I kept the car in pristine condition, washing and waxing her every single weekend. My mom was happy I could drive her to the store and to run errands. She always sat straight up in that car, with a big smile on her face. I’m not proud that I was riding dirty with my mom, but I never ran a yellow, failed to come to a complete stop, or drove one mile over the speed limit.
Two years after I drove that car off the lot, I would swear that she was in better shape than when I got her. But it had started to gnaw at me. My mom trusted me, and every time I drove with her at my side, I started imagining what might happen if we got in an accident, or broke down on the side of the road, and the police came. What would she think of what I’d done? I wanted to return the car, but I didn’t know how to explain that the car was suddenly gone. I felt trapped in a lie that had grown so big I couldn’t find my way out of it.
When I heard from a friend that the police were looking for me, I knew I couldn’t pretend any longer. I also knew it was time to tell my mom.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared to tell anyone anything, but there was no avoiding it. I felt sick to my stomach. I could daydream all I wanted, but there was a guilt living in me that had been growing for years, and now it felt like it was festering and rotting out everything good inside me. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt my mom. She was standing at the sink when I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She wasn’t a small woman, but she always felt tiny compared to me.
She lifted a wet hand and patted my arm at the hug.
“What’s this now?” she asked.
“I need to tell you something. Something serious.”
She turned off the sink and dried her hands on a dish towel. “Well, let’s have a sit now. You don’t talk about something serious standing up.”
I sat at t
he table and waited while she got out two glasses and a pitcher of sweet tea out of the fridge.
“And you never talk about something serious without having a drink,” she added. She poured the tea and sat to my left at the table. “Now what’s all this fuss about?”
“I did something. I did something wrong.”
She looked in my eyes and took a sip of tea. She didn’t say anything. My mom could say more in silence than most people could say in a ten-minute speech. She waited. Sipped more tea. Then she nodded at me, and the whole story came out. I told her about the test drive and the wanting to be someone different from who I was and how I had never paid for that car. And how now everything was crashing down and I didn’t know what to do next.
She took another sip of tea and looked at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. “Are you sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to make it right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, then, you go make it right. You go to the police station, and you tell them everything, and you face the music. I didn’t raise you to take something that don’t belong to you, but I did raise you to admit your wrongs. You aren’t a boy anymore, and I can’t protect you from this. You admit what you did to them police, and then you admit what you did to God. He will forgive you, and so will I. But you need to choose who you are, Ray. You need to choose what sort of man you are going to be. You need to choose now. I know you will choose right. I know you will.”
I heard a little hitch in her voice when she said that, and the shame poured over me. This was not who I wanted to be. I was going to choose the right way. The way that would make my mama proud. She put her hand on my face and shook her head, and I vowed right then and there at that kitchen table I would never do anything to put that look of hurt in my mama’s face again. I didn’t care if I had to walk everywhere for the rest of my life or if I had to go back to the mines—I was going to only travel the straight and narrow. I was going to be the son my mom deserved and the son she raised me to be.
Lester was at work, so I called another friend to drive me to the police station. It was a relief. I confessed my sins, and I accepted it when they locked me in the jail. I went to court in September 1983. I admitted my guilt, and I was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, but since I was given two days for every one day while I had been waiting for the court to make a deal, I ended up having to spend only a few months in a work release program. I went to Kilby Prison just to be processed, but I was only there long enough for them to get my name into the system.
My mom and one of our neighbors picked me up in Birmingham on the day I got off work release, and I went to see Lester as soon as I could.
“You done with all that nonsense now?” he asked.
I thought long and hard about that kitchen table conversation with my mom, and I knew that being in jail was the best thing that could have happened to me. Prison wasn’t for me. There was nothing glamorous about it. The food was horrible. The smell was horrible. The lack of freedom made every cell in my body ache. No car, no money, no job, and no girl was ever worth risking my freedom for. I would be on parole for a year and a half or so, until August 1985. I didn’t mind—I could have been on parole for fifty years for all I cared—and I knew I would never, ever do anything that was outside the law. I would never do anything that would take me away from my life or put that look of hurt in my mama’s eyes. At night, away from home, I spent a lot of time thinking about who and what mattered in this life.
God mattered.
Lester mattered.
My freedom mattered.
And most of all, my mom mattered.
Everything else in life was just weather that was passing through.
“As God is my witness,” I said to Lester and lifted my right hand in the air.
He gave a little snort.
“I’m serious,” I said. “As God is my witness, I will never take something that doesn’t belong to me again.”
Lester stared at me to see if I was going to crack any jokes, and when I just stared back, he finally gave me a grunt of approval.
I waited a beat and then got on my best preacher’s voice. “Even if it’s the sweetest Corvette you ever did see. Even if God himself comes down from heaven and says, ‘This here’s your car,’ I promise that if I need a car, I will get a car loan. If I write a check, I will make sure I have the money to cover it. If someone hands me car keys, I will hand them right back if they don’t belong to me. Unless it’s you handing me your car keys. Or unless it’s some fine lady who wants me to take the wheel because she’s had a little too much to drink. But other than that, I do solemnly swear that I, Anthony Ray Hinton, will never steal again. Even if—”
Lester interrupted, laughing. “I got it the first time; I don’t need to hear you talking all day when there’s barbecue we could be eating.”
4
THE COOLER KILLER
Every sheriff and police officer in this county knew after Captain D’s that there was as cold, as brutal a killer walking the streets of this county as has ever walked these streets.
—LIEUTENANT DOUG ACKER
Birmingham, February 25, 1985
WORKER SHOT IN RESTAURANT HOLDUP DIES
The assistant manager of a Southside restaurant died last night after being shot twice in the head early yesterday morning by a robber.
John Davidson, 49, of 2249 Third Place Northeast was declared brain dead at 10:55 P.M. yesterday in Medical Center East after undergoing surgery earlier in the day.
In addition to the bullet wounds, Davidson also had been severely beaten.1
I don’t know where I was the night John Davidson was murdered. I didn’t spend my days developing alibis for my nights. I had never even eaten at Mrs. Winner’s Chicken & Biscuits in Southside. But on February 23, somebody robbed the restaurant and forced John Davidson into the cooler and shot him twice in the head. Someone took a son away from his parents and a husband away from his wife. There were no fingerprints. No eyewitnesses. No DNA. Anyone could have done it. The murderer walked away with $2,200. What is the price of a life? What is the dollar amount a man will trade his soul for? I don’t know the answers to those questions. I’ve thought about that man—wondered just what it was that led him to such a desperate act. What must he have been thinking as he sat in the dark waiting to rob and to murder? Every desperate act has its price, but I didn’t know then that the person who would pay the price was me. Where was I on the night John Davison was murdered? I have no idea. Was I asleep in my bed? Laughing with Lester? Eating with my mom? Visiting a lady friend? My days and nights were pretty unremarkable. I worked at a store assembling and delivering beds six days a week. I had kept my promise to stay out of trouble. And while I can’t say where I was or what I was doing on that particular night, I do know I was not out beating and robbing and murdering.
I also know somebody got away with murder.
Birmingham, July 3, 1985
My job at The Brass Works wasn’t one I could keep long term, because I just couldn’t wrap my head around always having to work on a Saturday. Saturdays were for potlucks at church, barbecues with friends, running errands with my mom or taking her fishing, and college football. Our church didn’t have many men in it, and it seemed like every Saturday they had car washes or building repairs that needed to be made, and they always asked for some men to help out. As much as I tried for over six months, I just wasn’t happy working on Saturday, and eventually it showed. Monday through Friday, I worked as hard as I could—always showed up on time and gave it my best—but come Saturday, it was like a switch flipped in me, and I knew I wasn’t doing my employer justice. I made up as many excuses as I could to get my Saturdays off, and I may have even stretched the truth now and then, but eventually, it became clear that this wasn’t the job for me. Every Saturday, it was harder to be the kind of employee they needed me to be. I quit a couple of weeks after my birthday. I left with no hard feelings
and made plans to sign on with a company called Manpower, which provided temporary labor to businesses around Birmingham.
I had just turned twenty-nine, and honestly, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sometimes it felt like life was more a process of elimination than a series of choices. I knew I didn’t want to be a coal miner. I knew I didn’t want to be in prison. I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a deckhand on a tug hauling coal up and down the river. I knew I didn’t want to work on Saturdays. I knew I didn’t want to leave my mom on her own. But apart from those things, I just wanted to make a living, pay my bills, have a nice car to drive, and find a nice woman I could fall in love with and marry and have children with. I was hoping that woman would be willing to live at my mama’s house, but I figured I would cross that bridge when the time came.
Manpower wasn’t going to be a whole lot of money, but it was something, and I was optimistic that moving from business to business and doing different jobs would help me learn what it was I wanted to do with my life. You just never knew who you might meet or what might be sparked. I had been out of high school ten years, but I still loved to learn new things. I liked talking to different people and going to places I had never been before and seeing how they operated. I had a good head for business, and I thought about opening up a restaurant where I could serve people the food my mama had been making for me for so long. She taught me to cook everything she made me.
The Sun Does Shine Page 5