Death Sentence (8 page)

Startled, Ronnie blurted, “Daddy, don’t do this.”

Velma had come to the door by this time and saw what was happening. “Thomas, what are you doing?” she cried. “Please, put it down.”

“Mama, don’t come out here!” Ronnie called frantically.

“Not until he gives me those fucking keys,” Thomas told Velma.

“Have you gone completely crazy?” she screamed.

Ronnie was scared, but he stared straight into his father’s eyes. Never before had he seen him with such a wild look. But he dropped the keys in his jeans pocket. “If you want to cut me, go ahead,” he told his daddy, “but I’m not giving you the keys.”

Suddenly, the look in his father’s eyes changed, as if he had just realized what he was doing. The wildness instantly dissolved into an overwhelming sadness. He closed the pocketknife, and without saying another word he staggered into the house, collapsed on the couch and went to sleep.

Despite the problems in his family, Ronnie continued to make straight A’s in high school and to help his sister, who was struggling with her studies. Ronnie also had discovered athletic talent. A chain of miniature golf courses called Putt-Putt had started in nearby Fayetteville, and Ronnie went there often with friends. He entered his first tournament that summer and placed fourth. He went on to play in others and was always a top contender. Trophies began to line his bedroom dresser.

Pam, too, had found a sport in which she excelled. Like her mother before her, she loved basketball. Lean and rangy, she would be nearly six feet tall by the time she finished high school. She became a starter on her school’s team in her freshman year. When the season began in her sophomore year in the fall of 1968, she was elected co-captain. A shooting forward, she quickly became the team’s leading scorer.

Ronnie was immensely proud of Pam, and he became the team’s scorekeeper. Velma never missed one of Pam’s games, always sitting at the same spot so Pam would know where to look for her, always cheering loudly. Pam longed deeply for her father to be proud of her, but he never came to see her play. He was still too humiliated by his brief commitment to the mental hospital. When Pam led her team to the conference championship game, Ronnie begged his daddy to come, but Thomas refused.

“Someday you’re going to regret not seeing this girl play,” Ronnie told him disgustedly.

Early in 1969, after many months without work, Thomas got another job at yet another textile plant, working the third shift. He would do his drinking when he got off at eight in the morning, sleep through the afternoon and early evening, go back to work at midnight.

Usually, the uneasy silences prevailed between Thomas and Velma, but now and then she still managed to provoke hostile exchanges. When she accosted him about his drinking now, however, he had an easy comeback: “You’re just as bad about taking pills as I am about drinking.”

Ronnie and Pam had to admit that was true. They had seen their mother just as unable to function as their father. Several times Ronnie had spoken to her about it. She had to have the medicine, she told him. He knew how bad her nerves were. It was the only way she could get by.

But she didn’t have to take more than the doctor prescribed, Ronnie pointed out. She knew that, she told him. And she would do more to control her dosage.

In March, after Thomas staggered home drunk one Saturday night and a shouting match ensued, Velma told him that she was leaving. “I can’t put up with this anymore,” she screamed.

Thomas passed out on the couch while Velma, sobbing, was packing her clothes. She was going to her parents’ house, and Pam was leaving with her.

“What are you going to do?” Velma asked Ronnie.

“Somebody’s got to stay here and look after him,” he said.

Thomas woke up with a severe hangover the next morning and went in search of aspirin. “Where’s Pam and your mama?” he asked.

“They left,” Ronnie said. “Mama’s left you. She wants a divorce.”

Thomas couldn’t believe it. He professed no memory of the previous night, and Ronnie knew this probably was true. His father rarely remembered anything that happened during his drunken bouts. He grew morose and quiet, and Ronnie suggested that they drive to Fayetteville to have lunch.

“I never thought it would come to this,” Thomas told his son as he picked at his food.

“Your drinking is what’s caused it,” Ronnie said.

Thomas came back with his familiar line about Velma’s pills.

“Yes, but she’s working on it, and you’re not.”

Thomas grew contrite. He would change, he promised. “I’d like to see us try to make it as a family again.”

“Pam and I would, too,” Ronnie told him. “It’s been tough on us, you know.”

“I know it has, and I’m going to make it better.”

Ronnie later reported this to his mother, and after several days she and Pam returned. Velma knew how desperately Ronnie wanted them to be a family again. For a few days the fragile peace held. Thomas didn’t drink; Velma didn’t take as many pills. But they seemed unable to communicate any longer. Within a week the anger and shouting had returned, but that soon would be ended by a silence that would last forever.

On the weekend of April 19-20, Ronnie stayed with his grandparents. When things got bad at home, he and Pam knew that they always could find refuge at Murphy and Lillie’s house.

Ronnie got up Monday morning and went to school without going home. He was in his last class when the town’s fire siren went off, summoning the volunteer firefighters. The siren caused Ronnie no concern, and when school let out a half hour later, he waited outside for Pam. They usually walked home together. The two had crossed the school’s broad front lawn when they heard a car horn. Ronnie was surprised to see his mother sitting in the front seat of a car belonging to a local merchant, Fred Bodenheimer. Mrs. Bodenheimer was behind the wheel. Ronnie could tell that his mother had been crying.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, bending to the open window, but she began sobbing and couldn’t answer.

“Get in,” said Mrs. Bodenheimer, who was serving as Good Samaritan. “Your daddy’s been in an accident. We’ve got to go.”

She seemed extremely anxious, and Ronnie and Pam obeyed. Both realized from their mother’s distress that the situation must be bad, but despite repeated questions they couldn’t find out what had happened. Ronnie figured his father had been in another wreck.

“He’s going to be okay,” Mrs. Bodenheimer kept telling Velma, but she could not be consoled.

“I know he’s not, I know he’s not,” she kept repeating, still sobbing.

They went first to Highsmith Hospital in Fayetteville, only to be told that Thomas had been there but had been taken to Cape Fear Valley Hospital. “They’re better equipped to handle this type of emergency,” a nurse told them.

That gave hope to Ronnie. It meant his father was alive.

At Cape Fear Valley, emergency room attendants told them that doctors were with Thomas and one would come to talk with them as soon as possible. Velma sank into a chair, still too distraught to be questioned. Ronnie paced in a hallway nearby, while Pam and Mrs. Bodenheimer attempted to calm his mother. Within minutes, Faye burst through the emergency room doors. She had been close to Velma and Thomas all her life and she was extremely emotional. Ronnie couldn’t tell her anything and took her to his mother. Velma and Faye fell into each other’s arms and while they cried, Mrs. Bodenheimer slipped away.

A couple of minutes later, Ronnie glanced into the lobby and saw Mrs. Bodenheimer talking with Ernest Hagins, Parkton’s sole police officer and the father of Ronnie’s best friend, Julius. Ronnie seized his chance to find out what had happened.

There had been a fire at his house, Hagins told him. Apparently his father had gone to sleep with a cigarette. Because he had been found unconscious on the floor near his bed, it looked as if he had awakened and tried to get out but had been overcome by smoke. His father didn’t appear to be burned badly, Hagins said, but there had been a lot of smoke.

Soon after Ronnie returned to his mother, a doctor appeared, looking grave.

“Mrs. Burke?”

“Yes,” Velma said expectantly, struggling to stand.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do for your husband.”

Velma began moaning and sank backward. Ronnie and Faye grabbed her to keep her from collapsing. Pam burst into tears. Faye was sobbing. Ronnie stood for a moment in stunned disbelief, but he knew he could not collapse. He was just seventeen, still had a year to go in school, and suddenly he was the man in the family.

He put his arm around his mother. “I’m still here,” he said. “Pam’s still here. We’ll make it somehow.”

“Mrs. Burke, would you like something for your nerves?” a nurse asked, and Velma nodded. Ronnie knew that this was not what his mother needed. He had no idea what she might have already taken. But he said nothing, and the nurse soon appeared with a needle to give Velma a shot.

On the way home, before the shot had taken full effect, Ronnie was able to get a little out of his mother about what had happened.

His father had come home from work that morning and, as he often did, downed a six-pack of beer before going to bed. Monday was Velma’s day off, and after lunch she left the house to go to the Laundromat. After putting the clothes in the machines, she drove to her mother’s house. A niece was there, and she went with Velma when she returned to the Laundromat to put the clothes in the dryers. Velma drove home, less than a mile away, to wait until the clothes dried. When she opened the door leading from the kitchen to the carport, she discovered the house was filled with smoke. She slammed the door and ran into the yard yelling that the house was on fire.

Thomas’ sister Frances, who lived close by, was passing in her car. She stopped, and Velma frantically told her what had happened. Frances summoned the volunteer firemen and rescue squad.

The firemen and investigators had left by the time Ronnie, his mother and sister got home, but several cars were at Thomas’ mother’s house next door. Word of Thomas’ death had preceded them, and family, friends and neighbors were gathering.

Ronnie sensed the tension in his grandmother’s house as soon as they entered. Within minutes, Thomas’ family began questioning Velma, and Ronnie could tell by their tone that they thought his mother’s absence had contributed to his daddy’s death.

“I’ve always done all I could for Thomas,” Velma kept saying.

Ronnie’s anger flared but he held his tongue. How could they blame his mother when it was his father’s drinking that had killed him? He had to get out of that house, and the arrival of his friend Julius Hagins gave him the excuse. He stepped onto the porch with Julius, but as they stood talking, Ronnie’s eyes were drawn to his house.

Unexpectedly, he found himself striding determinedly across the field toward the house, wishing as he went that he had not spent the weekend away from home. He couldn’t even picture his last image of his father. What had he been doing? What had they last said to one another? Whatever it was, it hadn’t seemed important at the time. Now it was vitally so, and he couldn’t remember. He had reached the carport when a familiar voice stopped him.

“Ronnie!”

He turned and saw his grandfather hurrying toward him.

“Are you going in there?” Murphy asked.

Ronnie nodded.

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Yeah, I want to see it.”

“I’ll go with you then.”

Ax marks scarred the kitchen door where the firemen had chopped it open. That was strange, Ronnie thought. Had his mother locked the door when she closed it?

The sun was setting, and electricity had been shut off to the house. Soot covered everything inside, making the house seem even darker. The acrid smell of smoke was nearly overwhelming. The floor was standing in water. No sign of fire damage was evident, however, until they started down the hallway and caught a glimpse of his parents’ bedroom. The mattress where his father had been sleeping was as charred as a slice of burned toast. Ronnie’s own room, just across the hallway, was blackened, all of his clothes and possessions ruined.

As Ronnie surveyed the damage, he suddenly remembered the pets, the family’s Siamese cat, Sadie, and Termite, the poodle they were keeping for his mother’s sister, Arlene. Nobody had said a word about them, and he hadn’t seen them anywhere. He found them under Pam’s bed, huddled side-by-side, dead, like his father, from the smoke.

Ronnie’s first tears came as he carried Sadie from the house. She was his daddy’s cat really. She loved to curl up in his lap while he watched TV, or lie beside him as he slept on the couch. She usually woke him, licking his face until he stirred.

With help from his grandfather and his friend, Ronnie buried Sadie and Termite in the back yard, and as he shoveled the dirt on the graves, he felt almost as if he were burying his father as well.

The funeral was at Parkton Baptist Church on Wednesday, one month before Thomas’ thirty-eighth birthday. He was buried only a few feet from his father in the town’s small cemetery, within sight of the big white house where he and his wife and children had spent the years of their greatest happiness.

Volunteers had cleaned and made emergency repairs to the Burke house, allowing Velma and the children to continue to stay there, and that night, in the lonely period after all the visitors had departed, Ronnie and his mother sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking. His mother had taken his father’s death hard, and Ronnie was worried about her. He knew that she would be looking to him for stability, for guidance, that she would be more dependent on him than ever.