Alabama Moon (26 page)

I watched his jaw tighten until I was sure his teeth would shatter. Even through the swollen face, I could see veins popping out on his forehead. He swallowed and said calmly, “Come here, kid. I wanna tell you somethin'.”

I shook my head. “You'll pop me across the face like you did that other fellow.”

“Come here.”

“No.”

“You want me to get the keys and come in there?”

“Go get what you want.”

Sanders looked around and saw the other prisoners watching him. He spit a brown gob of tobacco juice between the bars of my cage. “Damnit, kid,” he hissed. “I said get over here.”

“I said no. You come in here if you want.”

Sanders clutched the bars tightly.
“Com'ere!”
he yelled.

I shook my head.

“Hey!” one of the prisoners yelled. “Why don't you keep it down. You crazy or what?”

Sanders pointed at him and spoke through clenched teeth. “You best keep your mouth shut, if you know what's good for you.”

The prisoner chuckled. “Mister, you ain't got no authority here. You're just a constable.”

Sanders took a step in the prisoner's direction. “Don't you—”

Officer Pete came through the door and looked around. “What's goin' on in here?”

Sanders stopped, and I saw his sides bulging in and out with heavy breathing.

“Mr. Sanders, I think it's time for you to leave,” Officer Pete said.

“Yeah, get out of here, you idiot!” someone said.

Sanders turned and looked at me. “Let me in there with him. I need to discuss some things with that boy.”

Officer Pete shook his head and grabbed for Sanders's arm. “I don't think—”

Sanders jerked his arm away. “Don't handle me,” he snarled.

Officer Pete straightened and stared at Sanders. “Let's go. Now!”

After Sanders was led away, the prisoners began asking me questions. “Who the hell was that, kid?”

“Sanders,” I said.

“I seen him on television,” another prisoner said. “He's the one the kid shot at. Ain't that right, kid?”

“I didn't shoot at anybody,” I said, tired of saying it.

“He don't act like it.”

“He's always been mad at me. He's just extra mad because he caught poison ivy out there.”

“I think that man's gone crazy,” the prisoner next to me said.

I shrugged.

“You're lucky you're in this jail cell.”

“There's nothin' lucky about me,” I said.

A policeman I didn't know brought me breakfast. I managed to eat some of it and then lay back down to see if I could sleep. By lunchtime I was still staring at the ceiling. I was so tired that I felt sick, but sleep wouldn't come. When the new policeman brought lunch, I didn't get up for it. I let it lie on the floor until he came and picked it up again.

Officer Pete brought supper around five o'clock. I asked him again if he'd heard anything about what they were going to do to me. He got irritated with me as he moved to the next cage. “Look, kid, I told you I don't know anything. I'm not a news service for prisoners.”

“But I've been here since yesterday.”

“Yeah, and you've been a pain in the butt, too. We about had to handcuff that crazy fellow from Sumter County.”

“But Mr. Wellington said he was gonna help me.”

He turned and looked at me. “Consider yourself lucky. Some of these people have been in here a month.”

I lay back down on my cot. Officer Pete came back. “You gonna eat anything?”

“He ain't had nothin' all day except a bite or two of breakfast,” somebody said.

“I'm not hungry,” I said.

Officer Pete picked up the supper tray. “Suit yourself.”

 

That night I dreamed of being holed up by myself in the old shelter where I lived with Pap. Bigfoots came out of the forest and tore at the walls. I sat on the hide pile and clutched my rifle, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good against something as large as a Bigfoot. Eventually I crawled into the stage-two box through the muddy hole at the back of the shelter. I heard the Bigfoots digging at the ground. Before long, they were banging on the top of the box with their fists and scratching the door with their fingernails. I felt them rolling it out of the ground like a piece of culvert pipe and working themselves into a howling frenzy. Then, suddenly, I couldn't hear them anymore. I saw the doorknob to the little steel door at the end of the pipe begin
to jiggle. I waited while my heart thumped loudly in my chest.

When I woke, Officer Pete was opening the door to my jail cell.

“Let's go, kid.”

I sat up and looked about, getting my bearings. I rubbed my eyes while he waited with hands on his hips.

“Let's go,” he said again. “I don't have all day.”

I put on my hat and grabbed Kit's. “You wanna put some handcuffs on me?” I asked.

“We don't put handcuffs on kids,” he said. “You're no threat to me.”

I followed him into the office. As we approached the outside door, he turned to me. “Stay close and don't stop to answer any questions. Just get in the car.”

I didn't know why he told me that, but I got up next to him. When he opened the door, I understood what he was talking about. Cameras were flashing and people were everywhere.

“Hey, Moon!” they shouted at me. “Say somethin' for us, Moon!”

“Who's your lawyer, Alabama Moon? We hear you've got a lawyer.”

“Why'd you turn yourself in?”

I grabbed Officer Pete's belt loop and he pulled me along to the squad car. He opened the back door and I jumped in. I sat up on the seat and watched the people gathering around and flashbulbs going off near the window.

“Wave for me, Moon!”

“Bare your teeth for us!”

I looked at Officer Pete in the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the crowd. He glanced back at me and shook his head. “You're a real pain in the ass, you know?”

“I didn't do anything to those people out there.”

“For somebody that hasn't ever done anything, you sure do have a bunch of folks stirred up.”

“We goin' to see the judge?”

“That's right. That's what you wanted, isn't it?”

“I was just wonderin'.”

“I'd be more than just wonderin' if I were you. He's pretty pissed off over all of this. He wants to know just what he's gonna do with a ten-year-old who's shot at a law enforcement officer.”

“I told you—”

“I know what you said, but you've got a half-crazed constable from Sumter County that says he'll swear on the Bible otherwise.”

“He'll be lyin'.”

“Why would he lie about somethin' like that?”

“I don't know.”

Officer Pete shook his head. “I don't know, either,” he said.

Officer Pete took me into the courthouse through a back entrance where there weren't any reporters. He put me into another cage and left me alone. I sat there for an hour before he came back again. “All right,” he said. “Judge Mackin's ready for you. He said if you get to actin' crazy on him, he's gonna put you in a straitjacket.”

“What's that?”

“Somethin' you won't like. Now, come on.”

When I walked into the courtroom, the first person I saw was Sanders. He sat in the front row and stared at me with his swollen face. He wore no expression and seemed to look right through me. My heart started beating faster when I saw Mr. Wellington in front on the other side of the courtroom. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, and his hair was slicked back behind a face that was scrubbed shiny.

Except for a guard at the entrance, the only other person in the room was Judge Mackin. He sat behind his desk on a raised platform in the front of the room with one elbow on the desk and his cheek pressed into his palm. He had white curly hair, a pink face, and droopy eyes that reminded me of a wild hog. Glasses sat perched at the end of his nose, and I heard him breathing heavily. When he spoke, he sounded tired.

“What's that on his head, Officer Pete?”

“It's his squirrel hat, Your Honor.”

“Well, get him to take it off,” the judge mumbled.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You know better than that. I don't care how old he is.”

“Take off the hat, Moon.”

I took it off and put it under my arm with Kit's hat. The judge moved his eyes to watch me as I followed behind Officer Pete over to where Mr. Wellington stood.

“Why does he have two?” the judge asked.

“It's all I've got left,” I replied.

The judge squinted at me. “Was I talking to you?”

“Nossir.”

“Then stay quiet until somebody asks you a question.”

“Yessir.”

Officer Pete dropped me off next to Mr. Wellington, and I felt proud to have him on my side. I smiled up at him. “Thought you'd left me,” I said.

Mr. Wellington put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to watch the judge. I felt him pull my hats from beneath my arm and saw him set them on the table in front of us. I looked at the judge and then over at Sanders. His eyes danced like the inside of his head was on fire.

“Now,” Judge Mackin said as he removed his reading glasses and began to clean them with a handkerchief. “We've got an unusual situation here. Because of that, I'm closin' this hearin' to the public. Another reason for that is I've got a bad headache and all those people out there are drivin' me crazy.” He set his glasses on the desk.

“Moon Blake,” he said, “you've stirred up quite a commotion out there. I don't like commotion. I don't like people who shoot at our law enforcement officers. I don't like people who eat other people's dogs.”

“Sanders is a liar,” I said.

“Hey!” the judge snapped. “Did I ask you a question?”

I looked at Mr. Wellington. He put his finger to his lips again. The judge licked his mouth and turned to Sanders. “Okay, then, let's get started. Mr. Sanders, why don't you come up here and give your side of the story.”

“I'm a constable, Your Honor.”

“Whatever. Get up here.”

Sanders acted like he was about to say something, but
twisted his mouth around and stood up. He walked to the front of the room and stood before the judge. The judge winced and shook his head slowly. “What did you get into?”

“Poison ivy,” I said. “He got—”

The judge jerked his head up and pointed his finger at me as his eyes grew wide. Mr. Wellington bent over and whispered in my ear. “Moon, you can't speak in here unless you get permission.”

The judge continued to watch me as he held a book sideways towards Sanders. “You're not gonna tell a lie are you?”

Sanders put his hand on the book and shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Good,” the judge replied. He put the book on his desk. “Go on, then.”

Sanders took a deep breath and sat down. “I'm gonna tell this one more time. I—”

“You'll tell it as many times as I want you to tell it. Just because your daddy's a small-time judge over there in Sumter County doesn't mean you're gettin' any kind of special treatment.”

I saw the veins on Sanders's forehead stand up as he clenched his teeth. He stared at the back of the room at some place on the wall behind us. After a second, his veins relaxed and he continued. “This boy's the son of an outlaw. He's—”

Mr. Wellington stood up. “Irrelevant, Your Honor.”

The judge sighed. “Mr. Sanders, it seems we've got a fancy, big-city lawyer to deal with today. And he's right. Sustained. Did this boy attempt to shoot you or not?”

“He did.”

“With what?”

“A pistol.”

“What kind?”

“.45.”

“Where'd he get it?”

“He stole it from me.”

The judge leaned back in his chair and watched Sanders. “He stole it from you?”

Sanders's veins rose again and relaxed. “Yes, Your Honor.”

The judge looked at me. I nodded to him and his eyes grew wide. “Are you agreein' that you stole it from him or that you shot at him?”

“I stole it from him,” I said, “but I never shot at anybody.”

He turned back to Sanders. “Well, the kid admits he stole your gun. How did you let that happen?”

I leaned forward, but Mr. Wellington pulled me back. I saw Sanders kneading his hands together. He was still staring at someplace on the rear wall. “I was asleep,” he said.

“He's lyin',” I whispered to Mr. Wellington. The judge cocked his eyes at me.

“It's all right,” Mr. Wellington said quietly. “We can tell the judge when it's our turn to talk.”

The judge continued to watch me out of the corner of his eyes while he talked to Sanders. “So he got your gun while you were asleep. What next?”

“He just backed up and pointed it at me and shot at my stomach and missed. Then he turned and ran off.”

“And took your pistol with him.”

“That's right.”

Judge Mackin wrote something down. After a second he said, “Okay, tell me about the dogs.”

“I sent three trackin' dogs after him and the two other boys that broke out of Pinson Boys' Home. I heard the dogs yelpin'. Later on I found their carcasses hangin' from a tree. Guts layin' everywhere. Meat cleaned to the bone.”

“And you say the boy bit you, too?”

“Yes, Your Honor, he did.”

“What else?”

“That's it.”

The judge sat back in his chair and looked at Mr. Wellington. “Okay, lawyer, your turn.”

Mr. Wellington stood calmly and made his way to the front of the courtroom. He faced Sanders. “Mr. Sanders, where were you when Moon supposedly shot at you with your pistol?”

Sanders looked straight at Mr. Wellington's eyes. “I was in the Talladega National Forest.”