Billy (12 page)

Doctor
Grey
i
s
up
now,
h
e
ha
s
h
eard
the
shouts and
th
e
screams, and
now h
e
hears
th
e
une
ven
thu mp of
so
meon
e
rumbling into th
e
hou
se.
H
e
opens
th
e
bed room door for
R
ed
Pasko
,
looks
into
hi
s
face until he
ca
t
ches
his
eyes
wit h his own,
then he
leaves
Lori
wi th
h
er
father and slowly walks
through t h
e
house, out onto
th
e s
i tti n
g
porch.

The midaft
ernoon s
u n
glares,
th
e
blue
s
k
y see
m
s
t
o sim
mer.
The porch
is
silent, exce
pt
for
so
ft
sob
bing, it i
s si
lent.
Sheriff
Tom has
brought
Jenny back t
o
t h
e
porch and
sa
t
her
with the
younger ones. Now
he leans
against
the
porch post,
h i
s arms
folded
and resting above
hi
s
ma
ssive
belly. Ginger
Pasko is motionless,
s
h
e
sits with
her
elbows on her
l
egs
and

R I L L
y
I 39

her face buried in her hands. David is
with
her. Kevin has come to the porch and sits with his cousin Jenny. He is
si
lent. Doctor Grey is old, seen his years, the wrinkles in his face seem to catch the shadows of the sunlight baking down on it. He had glanced at Sheriff Tom, but they had not spoke, it was a time of keeping words.

Now the dogs bark, Sheriff Tom and Doc Grey keep still, the you nger children turn and look towards the house as the crashing sounds of glass being broken and things smashing into walls shatter the
silence.
The
screen
door flies open and Red Pasko comes storming out onto the porch, then
stops
at its edge, throws his hands above his head, and shakes before he screams.

"Who did this? Who did this to my little girl, who did this?" Red Pasko's screams
cannot
carry his grief, and they break into cries of, "She's dead, my God, she's dead. Who did this, Tom? Ah want to know who did this to her? My God, somebody tell me who did this."

Sheriff Tom raises his head, sighs, and walks slowly up to Red Pasko. "Red, we got some talkin to do here, but not a lot of time for it. I talked to Jenny over there. She's a11 right, she's just hurtin real bad inside, seen too much for a day. You had some niggers comin in at your pond down there. From what I can tell, they were you ng uns . . . thirteen . . . fourteen maybe. Girls here try to chase em out of there, one of
em
pulls that k nife. Now, I ain't sure if they're some of our nig gers or some of them rail-I
know they on foot, and they ain't no trains comin through here until after midnight. We gain to get the niggers, [ tell
ya
that right now. I'm gon na go down that pond now, look around, see if that knife layin around down ther
e
.
I'll
hav
e
em fore sundown, Red. I'll have them niggers,
ya cou nt
011
ii."

3

It did not take much to make Shorty happy. James Harris "Shorty" Anderson always had a smile on his face. Folks sa
y
he went to bed with it, slept with it, and woke up with it too. Everybody liked Shorty. He wasn't mu
c
h bigger than one of them midget people in that travelin show that came to Banes a couple years back. Shorty's close to sixty now, but still got the quick hoppin walk, looks like he's bouncing stead of walking, but he alwa
y
s smiling. Down there at LeRoy's place, Shorty be hoppin to that music, smiling, sweating, and shin ing. You could not help but look at him.

Shorty lived down in the Patch, lived up behind Rever
e
nd Sims' place, you had to go through Reverend Sims' dirt
y
ard to get to that little
s
hack Shorty stayed in
.
Town folks had

41

42 I Allwrt
f're
11
c
h

ta ken a likin to
Shorty a
long time ago,
got
used to his "Good mawnins" on
rainy days. Sh011y got
his
own
little business like,
works
up there in
town,
doin all kinds of things, sweepin here, moppin there,
runnin
packages over that way,
every body
knew
where
lo find
Shorty,
here, there,
or
just
call
him and he
come ru nnin and smilin.

Saturdays were good
for Shorty, town
folks
be payin what they
owed him,
folks be in a good mood, liquor be startin to flow, and nighttime be
comin.
He'd usually
stay
up town till
the shoppin stores close,
that
would
be
about five
o'clock, then he
come
down Front Street, turn there at the
courthouse, and scoot
down Dillion Street past them Saturday-nigh t
places, cross
them tracks, get on the Patch Road, and bounce
across
the Catfish bridge. Patch
ain't
far
from
there.

It's not five
o'clock yet,
Shorty doesn't know what time it is. Sun
still
high
and
hot,
but Shorty is just a bouncin
down Dillion Street with that
smile on
his face. When he
gets across
the tracks, he looks
back over his shoulder,
then
al
most
stumbles
but keeps the
smile on
his
face
and that talk he's
carryin
in his mind. He hurries
his
hop. He
got some
talk Patch
folks ain't
heard
yet
,
some
talk
that
might have to be whispered
first.

Reverend
Sims spent
his
Saturday
morning readin that Bi ble of his,
you could always find
him up
on
his
sittin porch
with that Bible
in his
hands. He had
two
Bibles, the
one
he readin and won
'
t
let
nobody touch
and
that
one
he holds
and gets
to
slammin down at Sunday church. That one
he don't let
folks
touch or
read,
he
say came
through
slavin
time, he
say
his daddy
carried
up
from slavin
time,
said
his daddy learned the Word from
it.
Reverend Sims had
a good
livin that
showed on
hi m. Kept
some chickens and
pigs up in the
sheds

B I L L
y
I 43

out behind his place, had more of everything than most Patch folks had of anything, except LeRoy.

Reverend Sims had some years too, that hair he had left was cotton-white, but when he got to preachin and jumpin up and down at the old Patch church with that sparkling sweat just a rolling down that deep-black face of his, you'd think he was just born.

Things and time had a certain way of moving in the Patch
.
Folks had their predictable ways, could tell who was who b
y
the way they might bang a cookin pan or yank an outhouse door closed, even how they might carry a night-light, which way it swung might let you know who wa
s
swinging it.