The Year the Lights Came On (33 page)

“I sneaked down to the tree a little before y’all started standin’ up, and from where I was I could see y’all better than y’all could see me,” Freeman continued. “I was low enough to get them ashes rubbed on me—you know, I swear that works—and then I just waited. Soon as I saw Dover stand up and stretch, I jumped up and yanked them snakes down. I didn’t have to cut ’em; they just popped loose.”

“That means you was still around there when we run down,” suggested Paul.

“Still there?” Freeman laughed incredulously. “I thought Colin was gonna step on me. I was just under a bush.”

“Well, what happened then?” I asked.

“When y’all left, I buried them snakes and was goin’ over toward the Big Gully to rest and try to figure out what to do, when I split open that cut and I thought I was gonna bleed to death. That’s when I went and got in your daddy’s barn. I figured I might see one of y’all and get bandaged up. I don’t remember nothin’ else.”

It was, even in Freeman’s telling, a sensible story. But he had deliberately omitted one fact, and Dover recognized it. “I don’t understand one thing,” Dover said. “When you was found, you had a bandage wrapped around your leg. Where’d you get that?”

Freeman dropped his eyes. And then he lied. “Well, I don’t want nobody saying nothin’ about this, but I broke into a colored house and picked up some stuff. Some of these days, I’ll go back and leave some money.”

And Dover believed Freeman’s tale.

“Just one thing,” Freeman said as we were leaving. “Don’t nobody say nothin’ about that Snake Spell. People would think we’re crazy.”

We pledged our silence.

“Tell Alvin they whacked off my leg,” Freeman kidded. “That’ll make him sorry he didn’t come come see me.”

“He’ll be around,” Dover promised. “I’d guess Alvin’s busy right about now.”

“Yeah,” Freeman said, grinning.

17

BEN ALFORD’S PETITION READ:

To Whom It May Concern: We, the undersigned, in all good intention and being of sound judgment, do solicit, petition, and beg fair consideration of justice in the incident of Freeman Boyd, minor, vs. A. G. Hixon, in the matter of an alleged theft in the amount of $20.00 (twenty dollars) by said Freeman Boyd from the premises of Hixon’s General Store. We entreat the following: (1) that said incident and alleged theft be dismissed on grounds of hearsay and circumstantial evidence, and, further, that it is a misunderstanding of such far-reaching consequences, that it has created community strife; and (2), that all parties, accused and injured, resolve all past and present differences in the gentlemanly manner of a handshake. This petition has been prepared by the hand of Ben Alford, A.B.

And Ben was the first to sign. In bold lettering. With many curls and waves.

There were ten copies of the petition. Five were distributed among adult volunteers and five were given to Wesley to distribute among Freeman’s friends.

Dover had returned to work with the REA right-of-way crew, but he permitted Alvin to borrow his truck and we spent a full day contacting all the farm families who lived south and west of Banner’s Crossing.

The following morning, we invaded Emery.

“All right, we’ll divide up,” ordered Wesley. “We can walk these houses. Now, it may be that most people have already signed, and it may be that some people won’t sign at all, but that don’t matter. Don’t push it. A lot of people are obligated to Mr. Hixon, and they won’t want their names on anything.”

I was assigned the houses along Little Emery Road, and across Highway 17. Megan’s house was across Highway 17.

“You’re bound to love that,” kidded Alvin. “Maybe her mama’s not home and you can get in some time.”

“Leave him alone, Alvin,” warned Wesley.

“Naw, Wesley, I don’t care,” I said. “Alvin’s forgot that Delores lives over there, too.”

Alvin’s face narrowed. “You little cockroach, you knock on her trailer and you’ll be missin’ a fistful of fingers. I’ll talk Delores into signin’.”

“Just thought I’d save you the trouble,” I crowed. “Yeah, Alvin, I’d be happy to help out, ol’ buddy.”

“Colin, you wouldn’t know what to do with Delores if you got her,” Alvin hissed.

And he was right.

The Little Emery Road was a quarter-mile, single-lane dirt road, running from Hixon’s General Store along the Southern Railroad
track to Prather’s Crossing on Prather’s Road. Once Little Emery Road had gone beyond the crossing and had carried travelers on the Elberton-Royston route. Highway 17 changed that. Little Emery Road was amputated, and its only traffic was those people who lived on that quarter-mile stretch—Wade and Margret Simmons, the Holcombs, and Ben Alford.

Megan’s home was on a hill across Highway 17 and the railroad track. I could see it clearly and I wondered if Megan would see me on Little Emery Road, alone. Perhaps she would be watching from the screened front porch. Perhaps. It could happen. If she were watching, if she did see me, she would walk outside. I slowed my pace. It would be my luck to be one step too fast, one step out of view. I stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at the railroad track. The rock pinged on the steel rail. Megan did not appear. I thought of what Alvin had said. Megan would be surprised to discover me at her front door, delivering a petition. I wondered if her mother would be at home.

I missed Megan.

A dog barked in front of Ben Alford’s yard, near Prather’s Crossing, and I saw Sonny crossing Highway 17.1 knew he had not seen me and I decided to hide behind a hedge of diseased boxwood planted along the road between the Simmons’ and the Holcombs’ houses. I did not know why I wanted to hide, but I did. I wondered why Megan had not seen me.

In a few minutes, Sonny appeared, walking a rail. He did not know I was watching and he was playing Hero by balancing on the rail and jabbing the air with an imaginary broadsword, like Sinbad the Sailor. His mouth was flapping in soundless hisses and dares, and he feigned a minor wound—a needle prick in the arm that he bravely suffered while killing a half-dozen fools with one
sweep of his gleaming sword. Another half-dozen attackers rushed him from behind and Sonny raced along the rail in quick little Chinese steps, fighting for balance; if he fell into the moat below, he would be chewed to bits by a three-headed sea monster that had not been fed in a month. Sonny turned on the rail, swished once, twice, ducked a swipe, took a second wound in the left thigh, moaned, gasped for breath, swayed on the narrow bridge above the famished sea monster, almost fell, did fall (one foot quickly down, then up again; Sonny cheated at everything, even his games). He grabbed valiantly for an invisible bridge support, kicked one killer in the groin and, whipping his hunting knife out of his belt, flicked it straight through the heart of his last enemy. Bleeding from the arm and leg, breathing deeply, thanking God with slow, serious, soundless mouthing, Sonny Haynes stood victorious on the slender steel rail—two hundred feet in the air. He spat triumphantly and defiantly into the moat and the three-headed sea monster slithered away below the cinders and crossties.

I stepped into the road and yelled, “Hey, Sonny.”

Sonny fell from the rail and tripped backward, bouncing on his tail.

“Hey, Sonny, you all right?”

Sonny’s face was crimson. Sinbad the Sailor had never fallen flat on his tail in full view of another person. He tried to avoid my eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “You give me a scare, that’s all.”

“Well, you give me a scare, too. I was just walkin’ up through the field there and I didn’t see you.”

Sonny stood and tenderly brushed away cinders from the seat of his pants. “Whatcha doin’, anyhow?” he asked.

“Taking this petition around. You heard about this petition?”

Sonny noticed the paper in my hand and frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “I heard about it.”

“You signed one yet?”

“Naw. I’m not signing nothin’ that’ll let Freeman Boyd off from what he done,” Sonny snorted.

“Lots of folks already signed,” I said.

“Lots of folks are crazy, too.”

“You really see him take that money, Sonny?”

“See him? Yeah, I saw him. Me and Dupree was right there. We saw him, all right.”

I tried to measure Sonny as Wesley would have measured him. “Wesley said you’d have to go to court and swear on a Bible what you saw,” I replied. “He said…”

Sonny was startled. “Court? I’m not goin’ to no court.”

“What Wesley said.”

“Where’d he hear a thing like that?” Sonny asked, paling.

“I got no idea, Sonny. You know I don’t know what Wesley’s talkin’ about half the time. Just what he said, that’s all.”

Sonny had respect for Wesley. He knew Wesley was smarter than any of us, and if Wesley said something was true, it probably was.

“Dupree didn’t say nothin’ about that,” mumbled Sonny, dropping his face. He kicked a cinder off a crosstie.

I had Sonny measured and I knew it. Wesley would have been proud.

“Well,” I said innocently, “it won’t make no difference, anyhow. You just say what the truth is, and that’s all. Can’t nobody do anything to you for telling the truth…” I paused, as Wesley
would have paused, and then I said, “It’s lyin’ that gets to a judge, I hear.”

“Lyin’. What’d you mean, lyin’,” snapped Sonny.

“I don’t mean nothin’. I’m just talkin’.”

Sonny was nervous. He rubbed a red spot on his elbow.

“Yeah, well, I got to go.”

“Sure you don’t want to sign this petition?” I asked.

“My—my daddy’s already signed—one, I think. Mr. Alford come by. I reckon that’ll do for the whole family.”

“Your daddy signed?”

“Maybe he did, but that don’t mean he thinks I’m lyin’ about what I saw.”

“Yeah. Well, see you, Sonny,” I said.

“Yeah, see you.”

Sonny continued in a brisk pace toward Hixon’s General Store. I knew he would tell Dupree everything I had said.

*

Wade and Margret Simmons were not at home, and the Holcombs had already signed Ben Alford’s copy of the petition. I crossed Highway 17 and walked cautiously toward Megan’s home. It would not be easy to appear casual, and I knew it. I began to whistle quietly. I kicked at clods of dirt. I pretended I was lost in a dream, and could easily walk past Megan’s home without recognizing it. If it worked, Megan would run out of the front door and say, “Colin, what’re you doing over here?”

I approached the house, my head down, reading aloud the words of Ben Alford’s petition. Megan did not appear. I stopped and pulled a maypop from a vine growing in the gully. I smashed the maypop hard with my heel. It was rotten inside. I wiped the rot off my heel by scraping my foot across a clump of Johnson grass.

I was almost in front of the house and Megan had not appeared. Then I thought: Get it over with.

I walked quickly to the screen door of the screened-in front porch and knocked. I heard footsteps inside the house. Small footsteps.

“Yes? Who is it?” a voice called.

“Uh—Colin Wynn,” I answered weakly.

“Who?”

“Colin Wynn,” I repeated.

“Just a minute.”

I knew it was Megan’s mother.

The front door opened and Megan’s mother moved lightly across the porch and opened the screen door.

“Colin,” she said happily. “Come in.”

“Yes’m,” I replied.

“What can I do for you?” Megan’s mother asked as she motioned me to the swing hanging from a rafter. She sat opposite me in a rocker.

“Uh—I—I’m helpin’ pass around this piece of—this petition,” I stammered. “It’s something Mr. Alford wrote up for Freeman Boyd.”

“Oh, yes, Megan told me about that. May I see it?”

I handed her the petition.

“By the way, you just missed Megan. She went to play with Marie Arey. She’ll be disappointed.”

“Yes’m.”

I sat in the swing as Megan’s mother read the petition. I could not dismiss Megan’s face from my mind. This was her house. She lived here. Her presence was everywhere, an ethereal reminder of every secret thought I had ever had. I tried to swing and the chain
squealed in pain: Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh. Megan’s mother looked up from her reading and smiled. I stopped swinging and folded my hands across my lap.

Megan resembled her mother. Except for her hair. Megan had blond hair; Megan’s mother had dark hair. Hodges, my brother, had once said you had to look at a girl’s mother to know what the girl would look like when she got older. He had also said that parents of girls never liked the boys their daughters liked.

I wanted to leave.

“Uh—maybe you don’t want to sign it,” I said hastily.

“Oh, no. I think it’s a good idea,” Megan’s mother replied warmly. “Shows community spirit. Do you have a pencil?”

“Yes’m.” I gave her a pencil and she signed in the same sweeping cursive motion Megan used when she wrote.

“Thank you,” I said.

“That’s all right,” she replied. “I’m sure sorry Megan was away. She’s fond of you.”

I could feel my face tightening with redness. “Uh—yes’m.”

“You come again, and play.”