Chapter 9 ALBD

AT ONE-THIRTY I left school to take Miss Emma into Bayonne. She came out on the porch with

Tante Lou, and she had a basket hung over one arm and a handbag in the other hand. Tante

Lou closed the door to keep the heat in the room, and she and Miss Emma came down the walk

and out to the car. Miss Emma wore her brown overcoat with the rabbit fur around the collar and

cuffs. Tante Lou wore only a sweater, so I figured she was not going to Bayonne with us. She

opened the door for Miss Emma to get into the back seat, and after shutting it, she leaned

against the door to continue their conversation. I am sure they had been talking all day, but still

they had things to talk about. “This way is best,” she said. Miss Emma may have nodded, but I

am not sure. I refused to look into the mirror at them. “Anything else he need, let me know,” my

aunt went on. “They got plenty old socks and shirts round the place.” “I think we’re supposed to

be there around two,” I said, without looking back at them. I could feel both sets of eyes on the

back of my neck. “Tell him I’m praying,” my aunt said. “Y’all better go. I’ll see you when you get

back.” She was talking to Miss Emma, not to me. She knew how I felt about the whole thing. I

drove farther down the quarter and turned around. My aunt was standing where we had left her;

she was waving now. You might have thought we were going to China instead of the thirteen

miles to Bayonne. Driving along the St. Charles River, I could feel Miss Emma not looking at

me, not looking at anything—just thinking. Maybe once or twice she glanced in my direction, but

most of the time she was lost in thought. Like my aunt, she knew how much I hated all this. So

the thirteen miles to Bayonne were driven in silence. I didn’t say anything to her, she didn’t say

anything to me. I never looked at her in the rearview mirror. I never turned my head to the river

on my right or to the houses on the side of the road to my left. As far up the highway as you

could see were stalks of sugarcane that had fallen off the trailers on their way to the mill. The

people were gathering pecans on either side of the road, but I looked at them only from a

distance. If they waved, I did not wave back. I didn’t want Miss Emma to think for a moment that
my mood had changed. The courthouse, like most of the public buildings in town, was made of

red brick. Built around the turn of the century, it looked like a small castle you might see in the

countryside somewhere in Europe. The parking lot that surrounded the courthouse was covered

with crushed seashells. A statue of a Confederate soldier stood to the right of the walk that led

up to the courthouse door. Above the head of the statue, national, state, and Confederate flags

flew on long metal poles. The big clock on the tower struck two as I parked opposite the statue

and the flags. It took Miss Emma a while to get out of the car, so by the time we came into the

sheriff’s office, the clock on the wall there said five after two. Two deputies, dressed in gray

chinos, and a colored prisoner, in green coveralls with the letter “p” on the back, were in the

office. The deputy behind the desk was giving the prisoner instructions. The younger deputy,

who stood beside the desk, looked at us. “I come to see Jefferson,” Miss Emma said. The

young deputy nodded to the deputy who was giving orders to the prisoner. It had something to

do with the floor of the outside toilet. This toilet was for colored people who came to the

courthouse, and it was down in the basement. You entered it from the courthouse parking lot. I

had gone in there once or twice myself, but it was always filthy, and like everyone I knew, I tried

to avoid going down there. But that was the only place to go. The toilets inside were for whites

only. “I want that done ’fore I leave from here,” the deputy told the prisoner. “I mean that, you

hear?” The prisoner, fifteen or sixteen years old, bowed his head and left. “I come to see my

boy, Jefferson,” Miss Emma told the deputy behind the desk. “What you got there?” he asked

her. “Just some food, some clean clothes for him,” Miss Emma said. “Paul,” the older man said.

The deputy who stood beside the desk came toward us. “How’s he been?” Miss Emma asked

the deputy in charge. “Quiet,” the deputy said. “Yes, sir,” Miss Emma said. The deputy grinned.

“Jefferson’s been quiet,” Paul, the young deputy, told Miss Emma. “Thank you, sir,” Miss Emma

said to him. The deputy went through the basket of food. Fried chicken, bread, baked sweet

potatoes, tea cakes. Then he went through the handbag of clothes. There was a pair of old blue

jeans, an old overwashed brown shirt, a pair of long johns, and two pairs of my socks, which my
aunt had given Miss Emma for Jefferson. “Empty your pockets,” he said to me. I had nothing but

a wallet, a handkerchief, and some loose change. I had left my keys in the car. I laid the things

on the desk. “Is that it?” the deputy asked me. He had brown hair and gray-blue eyes, and he

appeared to be a couple of years younger than I was. He looked pretty decent. The one behind

the desk didn’t look decent at all. His eyes were the color of cement. He had a big neck and a

fleshy face. He was much older and much heavier than Paul. Paul patted me down to see if I

had taken everything out of my pockets. Then he told me that I could put my things back.

“Sheriff explained everything to y’all?” the chief deputy asked us. “Sir?” Miss Emma said. The

chief deputy could see that I didn’t like him, and I could tell he didn’t like me. But he knew who

was in charge and that I would have to take anything he dished out. “No knives, no forks, no

plates. Pans,” he said to Miss Emma. That was after he had looked at me a long time to let me

know what he thought of me. “No hatpins, no pocket knives, no razor blades, no ice picks,” he

said, looking at me again. “Jefferson won’t never do nothing like that,” Miss Emma said. “You

can’t ever tell,” the deputy said. “Take them on up, Paul.” “Follow me,” the young deputy said.

We followed him down a long, dark corridor, passing offices with open doors, and bathrooms for

white ladies and white men. At the end of the corridor we had to go up a set of stairs. The stairs

were made of steel. There were six steps, then a landing, a sharp turn, and another six steps.

Then we went through a heavy steel door to the area where the prisoners were quartered. The

white prisoners were also on this floor, but in a separate section. I counted eight cells for black

prisoners, with two bunks to each cell. Half of the cells were empty, the others had one or two

prisoners. They reached their hands out between the bars and asked for cigarettes or money.

Miss Emma stopped to talk to them. She told them she didn’t have any money, but she had

brought some food for Jefferson, and if there was anything left she would give it to them. They

asked me for money, and I gave them the change I had. There was an empty cell between

Jefferson and the rest of the prisoners. He was at the end of the cellblock and was lying on his

bunk when we came up. The deputy unlocked the door for us, and Miss Emma and I went in.
The deputy told us that he would have to lock us in, and that he would return within an hour.

Miss Emma thanked him, and he locked the door and left. Jefferson still lay on his bunk, staring

up at the ceiling. He didn’t look at us once. “How you feel, Jefferson?” Miss Emma asked him.

He didn’t answer, and kept his eyes on the ceiling. The cell was roughly six by ten, with a metal

bunk covered by a thin mattress and a woolen army blanket; a toilet without seat or toilet paper;

a washbowl, brownish from residue and grime; a small metal shelf upon which was a pan, a tin

cup, and a tablespoon. A single light bulb hung over the center of the cell, and at the end

opposite the door was a barred window, which looked out onto a sycamore tree behind the

courthouse. I could see the sunlight on the upper leaves. But the window was too high to catch

sight of any other buildings or the ground. “I come to see you and brung you something,” Miss

Emma said. We were standing, because there was no place to sit. “You been all right?” she

asked him. He lay there looking up at the ceiling. His hair had grown out since the trial, but I am

sure he had not combed it once. I told myself that I would bring him a comb next time I came. “I

brought Professor Wiggins,” Miss Emma said. “I brought you some fried chicken, some good old

yams, and I brought you some tea cakes too.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Ain’t you go’n ask

me to sit down, Jefferson?” He looked up at the ceiling, but he wasn’t seeing the ceiling. Miss

Emma put the handbag of clothes and the basket of food on the floor and sat down on the bunk

beside him. I should say that she sat as much of herself on the bunk as she could. About half, I

would say. She passed her hand over his forehead and over his hair. “Ain’t you go’n speak to

me, Jefferson?” she asked. He remained quiet. She stroked his hair again. “You want to just talk

to me? You want Professor Wiggins to leave?” He didn’t answer her. “You want me to go, and

you just talk to Professor Wiggins?” He still didn’t answer. She looked up at me. She was ready

to cry. And I wished I were somewhere else. “Hand me that basket, Grant,” she said. I passed

her the basket, and she took out a piece of chicken wrapped in brown paper. She unwrapped

the drumstick and held it before Jefferson. “Look what I brought you,” she said. “I knowed how

much you like my fried chicken. Brought you some yams and some tea cakes, too. Ain’t you
go’n try some of it?” “It don’t matter,” I heard him say. He was looking up at the ceiling. “What

don’t matter?” He didn’t answer. “What don’t matter, Jefferson?” “Nothing don’t matter,” he said,

looking up at the ceiling but not seeing the ceiling. “It matter to me, Jefferson,” she said. “You

matter to me.” He looked up at the ceiling, not seeing it. “Jefferson?” “Chicken, dirt, it don’t

matter,” he said. “Yeah, it do, Jefferson. Yeah, it do. Dirt?” “All the same,” he said. “It don’t

matter.” “My chicken?” she said. “I’m tasting it right now.” She took a small bite. “You always

liked my chicken. Every Sunday.” He was quiet. “You like a yam?” she asked him. He didn’t

answer her. “You want a tea cake? You don’t have to eat no chicken if you don’t want. You don’t

have to eat no old yam neither. But I know how much you like my tea cakes. I didn’t bring no

clabber, but— Jefferson?” “When they go’n do it? Tomorrow?” “Do what, Jefferson?” He was

quiet, looking up at the ceiling but not seeing it. “What, Jefferson?” He turned toward her. His

body didn’t turn, just his head turned a little. His eyes did most of the turning. He looked at her

as though he did not know who she was, or what she was doing there. Then he looked at me.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? his eyes said. They were big brown eyes, the

whites too reddish. You know, don’t you? his eyes said again. I looked back at him. My eyes

would not dare answer him. But his eyes knew that my eyes knew. “You with ’em?” he asked

me. “With who?” I said. His eyes mocked me. They were big brown eyes, and the whites were

too reddish, and he had been thinking too much the past few weeks, and the eyes mocked me.

“You the one?” he asked me. “The one for what?” I said. His big brown eyes with reddish whites

mocked me. “Go’n jeck that switch?” he said, looking at me. “What switch?” Miss Emma said.

He was looking at me, not at her. His eyes told me that I knew what switch he was talking about.

“That’s Professor Wiggins, your teacher—what switch?” she asked. He turned his head and

began staring up at the ceiling again. The deputy came back and stood just outside the cell.

Miss Emma still sat on the bunk. But now Jefferson had turned his back to her and was facing

the gray concrete wall. Miss Emma passed her hand over his hair again, then she pushed

herself up from the bunk. “I’m leaving, Jefferson,” she said. “I’ll come back soon.” The deputy
opened the cell door to let us out. “Can I leave the food?” Miss Emma asked him. “Sure,” the

deputy said. “If he don’t eat it all, can you give it to the rest of them children?” “Sure,” the deputy

said. He locked the cell door. “I’m leaving, Jefferson,” Miss Emma said, looking back into the

cell. He faced the gray concrete wall and didn’t answer her. “Oh, Lord Jesus,” she cried. “Oh,

Lord Jesus, stand by, stand by.” The deputy and I exchanged glances. With his eyes and a nod,

he told me to put my arms around her. Which I did.