The Sun Does Shine

by Anthony Ray Hinton

  Her cooking lessons always began with, “If it makes you happy, you’d better be able to make it yourself. I don’t see no wife on your arm anytime soon.”

  My mama always had a way of getting her point across.

  She made me laugh, she kept me on the straight and narrow, and she never once rushed me to figure things out. She just loved me the same way she had loved me for as long as I could remember—absolutely and unconditionally.

  RESTAURANT MANAGER FOUND FATALLY SHOT

  A five-year employee of Captain D’s was found fatally shot yesterday morning in the walk-in cooler of the restaurant in Woodlawn. He was an apparent robbery victim.

  Birmingham police said Thomas Wayne Vason, 25, of 11 Oak St., New Castle, died of a gunshot wound to the head. There were no signs of a struggle. Some money had been taken from the safe but the amount was not known yesterday.

  Homicide Sgt. C. M. Quinn said there are some similarities between Vason’s slaying and the murder of an assistant manager of a Mrs. Winner’s Chicken & Biscuits restaurant in February. But Quinn said he did not know if the two slayings are related.2

  We celebrated the Fourth of July like we did every year—the best barbecue you could imagine, friends from church, and sweet tea by the gallon. There was no bigger holiday in Alabama than the Fourth. You couldn’t take a walk down the street without strangers inviting you in to eat something from their table. Fireworks, watermelon, and kids running around while grown-ups squirted them with water from a hose. We may have been separate throughout the year, but something about the holiday brought neighborhoods and people together like nothing else. We weren’t black or white, we were American, and we laughed and played and clapped for the parade floats, and it was the one time of year it seemed like all of Birmingham fell in love with each other, and 1985 was no different. Gunnysack races, and egg tosses, and more food than you could imagine. My mom wore her best white hat and her blue dress with red piping at the sleeves. I remember sitting in some folding chairs with Lester and watching her laugh with the ladies from church and feeling a joy so big I couldn’t even contain it. I knew that in a couple of months, I would be off parole, and all those mistakes from my past would be put to rest. There was a special new girl I was seeing, Sylvia, and I was hopeful that the Manpower work I was going to sign on for tomorrow would lead to something bigger. I turned to Lester and said, “This holiday feels just like the Pledge of Allegiance.”

  “Man, what do you mean?”

  So I tried to explain it. “You know, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Everything today feels like that. Hopeful. Like justice and freedom and anything is possible. You know?”

  “I guess so. It kind of just feels like another hot Fourth of July, but I see what you mean.”

  “What if next year one of us is getting married? Or I have a kid? Or who knows what?” I stopped, because in that moment, I felt such a love for Lester and for my mom in her gloves and hat and for Alabama and for hot days in July with sweet tea that cools you from the inside out that I was actually at a loss for words.

  “You fixing to have kids anytime soon?” Lester laughed.

  “You never know,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat that had come up out of nowhere. “Just feels like change is in the air.”

  “I don’t know.” Lester looked up at an overcast sky and laughed. “Feels like thunder to me.”

  Ensley, July 25–July 26, 1985

  I clocked into Bruno’s warehouse at 11:57 P.M. I didn’t mind working the night shift, and when the clock struck midnight, I stood in a group of about a dozen other temporary workers, ready to get my marching orders for the night. Bruno’s was a giant warehouse, and the temporary workers had to be checked in through a guard shack outside and then report to the supervisor. They kept a close eye on us, I guess because being temporary workers meant we might steal something or not work as hard. It never made sense to me—temporary workers wanted permanent jobs, so if anything, we worked harder than regular employees.

  My assignments usually involved driving the forklift—typically, I’d use the forklift to bring empty pallets to the back of a truck, where they would get loaded with merchandise by other workers, and then I’d take the loaded pallets up to the high side, which was what we called the part of the warehouse where the racks were the tallest, and store them up on the shelves. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was kind of fun to drive a forklift.

  My shift began at midnight on July 26. We would stand around for ten or fifteen minutes while the supervisor, Tom Dahl, checked us in and wrote down our names and handed out assignments. My first assignment was to use the forklift to get a pallet loaded with buckets and cleaning supplies and mops and drive that around to all the locations where guys were going to be cleaning. That took about ten minutes, and then my supervisor asked me to go up and clean the bathrooms and scrape all the gum off the bathroom floors. It was amazing how much gum got on those floors during the day. I had no idea why grown men and women were just throwing gum on the floor, but it wasn’t my job to ask. My job was to scrape all the gum off and mop and bleach those bathrooms from top to bottom. Not my favorite kind of work—but it was work, and I liked to do a good job no matter what it was. I finished that particular task around 2:00 A.M., got it approved by Dahl, and then took my break for fifteen minutes. After that, I worked outside separating out the broken pallets from the good ones—seeing which of the broken ones could be repaired and which ones were so badly damaged they wouldn’t be worth the time it would take to fix them. It was foggy that night—I couldn’t even see any stars—but I was glad I had worn a sleeveless shirt, because even at 3:00 A.M., it was in the midseventies and humid. It felt like rain was gathering. Nothing more exciting happened that night. I had my lunch at 4:00 A.M., cleaned out under the Dumpster, and called it a night.

  Birmingham, July 27, 1985

  ROBBERY-SHOOTING MAY BE TIED TO MURDERS

  Police are investigating whether Friday morning’s robbery-shooting of a Bessemer restaurant manager is related to the murders earlier this year of two Birmingham restaurant managers.

  All three managers were shot in the head during late-night robberies at their restaurants. But the assistant manager of the Quincy’s Family Steak House at 1090 Ninth Ave. SW in Bessemer survived his wound and police have questioned him.

  Sidney Smotherman of 3341 Berry Drive, Hueytown, was listed in good condition in Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham on Friday night, a hospital spokesman said. Police said Smotherman was shot in the head and one hand.

  Bessemer Capt. J. R. Pace said Friday that police originally believed one bullet “had done all the damage” to Smotherman, but that they now believe there could have been two shots fired.

  Pace said Smotherman also was injured in the chest, although the source of that injury was undetermined.

  All three robberies took place after the restaurants had closed and each manager was forced to the back of the establishments, where they were shot.

  Police have worked since February trying to solve the robbery-murder at Mrs. Winner’s Chicken and Biscuits at 737 29th St. South in which John Davidson, 49, of Center Point was shot twice in the head and left for dead inside the restaurant.

  Because of blood stains in the rear of the restaurant, detectives believe Davidson, an assistant manager, was forced into the walk-in cooler and shot there.

  On July 2, Thomas Wayne Vason, 25, night manager of the Captain D’s at 5901 First Ave. North, was found dead in the restaurant’s cooler when employees opened for business.

  Pace would not elaborate on facts of the Bessemer case, but read the statement Smotherman made to police.

  According to Smotherman’s statement and other Bessemer police accounts, the Friday morning robbery and shooting at Quincy’s unfolded this way:

  At about 12:30 A.M., Smotherman and four other people left Quincy’s in separate vehicles on their way home after the restaurant closed. Smotherman was alone in a 19
85 Pontiac Fiero and stopped at a grocery store along the way.

  After leaving the grocery store, Smotherman said he stopped at the intersection of Ninth Avenue and Memorial Drive and was bumped from the rear by a black Chevrolet or Buick.

  When Smotherman stepped out of his car to check the damage, the driver of the sedan pulled a gun on him, told him to get back into the Fiero and the gunman joined him in the car.

  The gunman told Smotherman to drive to Fourth Avenue and Memorial Drive, where they left the Fiero parked on the side of the street and went to the gunman’s sedan.

  The gunman drove Smotherman back to Quincy’s, where he forced him to open the door and go inside.

  Once inside, the robber ordered Smotherman to open the safe and then pulled a plastic garbage bag from a trash can and filled it with the money.

  At that point, the gunman ordered Smotherman into the cooler. But Smotherman talked him out of it, saying it was too cold. The gunman then told Smotherman to go into the storage room and as Smotherman turned to do so, the gunman shot him in the head.

  Smotherman fell to the floor, where he purposely lay motionless until his assailant left. Once the gunman was gone, Smotherman made his way to the Motel 6 next to the restaurant and sought help.

  Smotherman described his assailant to police as black, 5-foot-11, 190 pounds, with a mustache and wearing blue jeans and a red checkered shirt.

  Pace said Friday that his department has discussed the Quincy’s robbery with Birmingham detectives. “But we are investigating our own incident down here,” he said.

  Birmingham Homicide Sgt. Howard Miller, who is investigating Vason’s murder at Captain D’s, said he had talked with a Bessemer detective Friday morning and “we are working with Bessemer.”

  Smotherman had worked at Quincy’s about three years, said his daughter, Mrs. Martie Hamilton of Atlanta. She said he began as a manager trainee at the restaurant.

  Mrs. Hamilton said her father was in “very good condition and in very good spirits” Friday night.

  “We all know he was lucky. It just wasn’t his time to go,” she said. “We just hope they catch him (the gunman) and that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”3

  Burnwell, July 31, 1985

  July is always hot in Alabama, even when it’s cloudy out, so when my mother asked me to mow the lawn, I didn’t want to do it. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I was thinking about seeing my girl, Sylvia, later, and I was thinking about the revival we were going to at church. And the last thing I wanted to do was get all hot and sweaty cutting the grass. I had already washed my car, a sweet, red Nissan that we had put in Sylvia’s name because I was still cleaning up the mess I had made of my credit when I was younger. The heat was settling in, and all I wanted to do was drink something cool in the shade of my mama’s living room.

  “I’ll cut that grass tomorrow,” I said, settling down on her worn couch.

  She just looked at me in that quiet way she had that meant business. “Now I’m trying my best to see how you get to ‘I’ll cut it tomorrow’ from my telling you to cut it now.”

  You don’t raise ten children on your own by putting things off until tomorrow, and all of us kids had grown up knowing that once you were told to do something, you rarely got out of doing it. But if anyone had a chance of sweet-talking Mama, it was me.

  Not today.

  I cranked up the old lawn mower and started running through Bible verses in my head. I had to pick something to recite later at church, and I wanted to look good for both God and Sylvia. As I went back and forth across the front lawn, I finally settled on one that seemed perfect for the day—Philippians 2:14–15. I knew it would make my mama smile to hear me read the beginning of the verse: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.”

  I don’t know what made me look up right then to see the two white men standing on the back porch. They were staring at me, and neither was smiling. I cut off the lawn mower as the rest of the verse ran through my mind: “So that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God, above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.”

  “Anthony Ray Hinton?” One man took a step toward me, yelling my name, and I noticed that both men each held a hand over the gun at his side. “Police!”

  I had no idea why there were two policemen on my mama’s porch, but I wasn’t afraid. We had always been taught if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have no reason to fear and certainly no reason to run. I hadn’t done anything wrong since I’d gotten out, and I checked in regular since I had been paroled. There was nothing to be afraid of.

  I walked to the top of the driveway.

  “We need to talk to you.” They flanked me on both sides and sort of nudged me down the driveway to their car. It was then that I felt a little twinge at the back of my shoulder blades, and my stomach felt like it does when you ride over the top of a hill real fast in a car.

  “Am I going to jail?”

  They patted me down and cuffed my hands behind my back.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. My voice was a little loud, a little sharper than I wanted it to be. One guy started to open up the back door of their car. “What’s this about?”

  “They will tell you when we get you to Bessemer.”

  “Can I go in and tell my mom that I’m leaving?” Whatever this was about, I knew it would get cleared up fast. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  They walked me up to the side door, and I yelled for my mom. She opened the door, and the three of us took a step in.

  “They are arresting me. Taking me to jail. Don’t worry. I didn’t do anything. Don’t worry.” I said it fast because I could see the confusion on her face, and I didn’t want her to start yelling at the police or to start crying. Just like that, they turned me around and walked me back to the car. A sergeant named Cole introduced himself and read me my rights.

  “Is that your car?” The other man pointed to my red Nissan.

  “Yes. My girlfriend leased it for me. It’s in her name, but it’s my car.”

  “Do you mind if we search it? And your bedroom?”

  I didn’t mind. Maybe that would get these cuffs off me and I could avoid a trip to jail for no reason. “Sure. I want you to. Please search them both.” The sooner they searched, the sooner they could get out of here and I could finish cutting the grass and get to the revival and Sylvia. I knew my mom would probably help them search my room. She would want to help the police fix whatever mistake was made that had me sitting in the back of a police car in handcuffs.

  I sat with Cole in the car while the other guy, Sergeant Amberson, searched my car and my room. He walked back out to the car with nothing in his hands. They hadn’t found anything. I was hoping this meant I could go.

  My mom walked out the back door, following him.

  “Let’s go!”

  Suddenly, Sergeant Amberson was back in the car, and the doors slammed shut while the ignition turned on, and I could see my mom walking toward the front of the car, and she started yelling just like she used to do during one of my baseball games.

  “That’s my baby! That’s my baby!”

  Only she wasn’t cheering, she was crying, almost sobbing, and my hands were behind my back, so I yelled as loud as I could as they swung the car out at the bottom of the driveway.

  “It’s okay, Mama! It’s going to be okay.”

  They started down the road, and I swiveled my head back to see my mom standing at the bottom of the driveway with her arms stretched toward me. She was crying and yelling, and I saw our neighbor’s front door open, so I knew someone would go to her.

  It felt like my heart was going to crack in two pieces.

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  I watched the trees go by and felt the rumble under me as we crossed over the railroad tracks at the end of the street. This was all going to work itself out. I had
n’t done anything wrong. That was the truth, and the truth would set me free so that I could go back home and put my arms around my mama. She didn’t like to be alone at night, so I just hoped that whatever this was could be cleared up in a few hours.

  I closed my eyes as we continued the drive into Bessemer. These guys weren’t saying anything else and neither was I until somebody told me what this was about. Once they told me, I would clear it up, and I would be out of these cuffs and back home.

  Home.

  I just wanted to go home.

  Birmingham, August 2, 1985

  HOLDUP SUSPECT CHARGED WITH SLAYINGS

  Capital murder warrants were issued yesterday charging a suspect in a Bessemer robbery and shooting with the slayings of two Birmingham fast-food restaurant managers.

  Anthony Ray Hinton, 29, of Burnwell near Dora in Walker County was being held without bond yesterday. He is charged with the slayings of John Davidson on Feb. 23 and Thomas Wayne Vason on July 2.

  Both men were shot in the head and left to die in the walk-in coolers of their restaurants.…

  Hinton also is being held in Sunday’s robbery of Quincy’s Family Steakhouse.…

  Smotherman survived to give police their first description of the robber, and later to identify Hinton as the man who shot him.…

  Authorities also recovered from Hinton’s home the .38-caliber pistol used to fire the shots that killed Vason and Davidson and wounded Smotherman, Birmingham Homicide Sgt. C. M. Quinn said.

  “We had the bullets matched with each other already,” Quinn said. “All we were lacking was the weapon they were fired from, and we (got) that yesterday and took it directly to ballistics. They worked on it a good portion of the night and gave us the results.”

  He was transferred from the Bessemer City Jail to the Jefferson County Jail.4