The Pecan Man (8 page)

“What in heaven’s name? Are you
all right?”

“I’m in trouble, Miz Ora. Bad
trouble.”

“I’m callin’ your mama.”

“Oh, Lord, Miz Ora, please
don’t do that. It’ll kill her. It’ll kill her, what I done.”

I saw then the ever-widening
red stain on my linoleum floor. It was blood that held the dirt to his head,
despite the steady flow. I tossed the towel onto the floor, as if mopping up
the mess would stop the bleeding.

“What happened to you? Why are
you bleeding?”

The more I stood gaping at him,
the more I realized how serious this was. Marcus’s right hand bled profusely.
His shirt was saturated with blood and dirt. I flung a drawer open and pulled
out several more towels. Marcus reached for one and I wrapped his hand with the
largest, remembering finally the first aid I learned at the Ladies’ Auxiliary.
He winced and clutched the towel against his chest.

“This doesn't look good,
Marcus. Don't you think I should call a doctor?”

“I don’t know. I don't think
so.”  

“Well, I need to call somebody!
Do the police know about this?”

“No! Lord, no! And they cain’t
know. Oh, Miz Ora, what have I done? What have I done?” He looked at me then,
as if he really expected me to answer him, but I had far too many questions of
my own.

I pulled him to the sink and
rinsed the dirt off his hands first, so I could see where to apply pressure.
There was one deep cut below his thumb and several smaller wounds on his palm.
I wrapped his hand tightly and told him to keep it that way. I was torn between
the need to tend to his wounds and the desire to yank a knot in him and make
him tell me what happened.

I forced his head over the sink
and rinsed the dirt off with the spray nozzle. The matted mess had actually
been helping to stem the flow and rinsing made the wounds bleed anew. I pressed
a towel to the worst cut and pushed him toward the kitchen table. He stood,
leaning on the table as I applied pressure to the wounds on his head.

"Are you hurt anywhere
else?"

"No - I don't know. I
don't think so."

"You have to help me, son.
How did you get hurt?"

“I went to find Eddie. I wanted
to know what happened to Grace.”

“Good Lord, Marcus, did he do
this to you?” I couldn’t imagine it, but anything seemed possible at the
moment.

“No, Ma’am. He didn’t even
wanna talk to me, but I kept after him. Finally he told me somebody'd attacked
her in the woods.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“I couldn’t get it straight in
my head, though. I thought he had just let it happen or something and I got
really mad. God, I was so mad, I didn’t know what to do.” Marcus paced as he
spoke. “I think I scared him pretty bad, ‘cause he got real calm and told me to
sit down, so I did.” Then, as if obeying the command a second time, Marcus sat
down at the table and finished his story.

"He told me he'd heard a
commotion near where he stays and then he saw a couple of boys headed out of
the woods. They were laughin' at another boy who was pulling up his pants and
runnin' to catch up with 'em. He figured they just stopped to make water, like
boys'll do, so he just turned around to go back. Then he said..." He
paused then, his voice shaking with emotion.

"He said he thought he
heard a...a puppy cryin'..."

"Oh, dear Lord." I
felt sick to my stomach.

"But it wasn't no puppy."
Marcus tried to go on, but his entire body shook with the effort and no words
came out.

I thought my heart would break
right there. Blanche and I had not spoken of this. I hadn't wanted to ask. I
didn't want to know.

Marcus took several ragged
breaths and continued.

"He found Gracie, cryin'
and tuggin' on her clothes. He said he didn't touch her, just walked her here
to Mama, and Gracie told her what happened."

I remember thinking I'd never
felt so tired in my life. My jaws ached and my ears burned from trying to hold
back tears. We sat in silence for a few minutes, long enough to breathe again.

“Did Eddie tell you who raped
Gracie?"

“He didn't want to,"
Marcus shook his head, “I swear, Miz Ora, I only meant to take the boy’s name
to the police, but once I learned who he was, I knew why Mama lied."

“I told her not to..."

“She couldn't do it no
different, Miz Ora. That's the God's truth."

The boy was still bleeding on
my table. I didn't have time to debate the particulars.

“You still haven't told me who
hurt you. Did you have a fight with Skipper Kornegay? Is that why you don’t
want to call the police? Because I swear to you, Marcus. I’ll make sure Ralph
Kornegay treats you fairly. I tried to tell your mama the same thing...”

“No’m, that’s not what I’m
worried about, Miz Ora. I wish that was all it was, but it’s not.”

“Then, what is it, son?”

Marcus took a long, ragged
breath and dropped his head onto the table with a wail of anguish I’d never in
all my life heard. I could barely understand him through his sobs.

“I killed him, Miz Ora. Jesus
help me, I killed him.”

I don't know how long I sat
there, stunned into silence, before I heard myself whisper, “You killed Skipper
Kornegay?”

Marcus nodded, wiping his face
on his arm as he did. Then, with his head still resting on the crook of his
arm, he looked up at me. His jaw quivered and he drew in a few short,
hiccoughing breaths and then grew calm.

“He’s dead, Miz Ora.”

I stood then, and walked into
the kitchen on weak and shaky legs. I pulled two cups from the cabinet and
poured water into the teakettle. I was buying time, I think - time to consider
what had to be done and in what order.

Skipper must have put up some
kind of a fight to have caused the damage to Marcus’s head and face, but I knew
without having seen them together that Marcus was the stronger of the two.

I had to do something. But, I
had to
think
. I finished brewing the two cups of tea and sat them both
on the table. Marcus had not moved.

“Here's you some tea.”

“I cain’t drink nothin’ right
now.”

“Yes, you can and you’re going
to,” I commanded. “I need for you to compose yourself and tell me everything
that happened.”

“You gonna call the po-lice,
Miz Ora?”

“I’m not calling anyone until I
hear the whole story, but first I have to know something.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Are you positive he’s dead?
And I mean really positive, Marcus. I can’t sit here and do nothing if he's out
there somewhere needing help."

“He‘s dead, Miz Ora. Graveyard
dead. I know ‘cause I tried to wake him up when I got hol’ta myself, but he
wasn’t breathin’ at all. I sat there for a long time prayin’ he’d wake up or
breathe or something, but finally I knew it was done. I heard a noise off in
the woods and I ran. I didn’t know where to go. I knew I couldn’t run down Main
Street lookin’ like I did. So, I stayed in the woods as long as I could and
came up in your back yard.”

Then he told the rest of his
story. I never had a doubt that Marcus told me the truth. He never hesitated
and he never blamed anyone but himself for doing what he did.

When Marcus left Eldred Mims,
he was beside himself with grief and fear. He wanted justice for Grace and
punishment for Skipper, but he was scared of what would happen to his entire
family if he went to the authorities. There seemed to be no way to do the right
thing. He needed time to think, so he walked through the woods and out around
the Minute Maid plant at the other end of Main Street.

He was coming back through town
when he saw Skipper and his friends coming out of the door of the local pool
hall.

“I saw them boys and I got mad
all over again. But there was four of them and only one of me. So, I ducked
into the alley behind the drug store. My heart was beatin' so fast, I thought
it was gonna jump out my chest."

He said he waited until the
boys' laughter grew faint and then he waited ten minutes more.

“There was so much hate inside
me, I was burnin' up with it. But still," he added softly, "I jus'
couldn't put Grace through somethin' worse than what she already suffered, so I
figured I'd best steer clear of him for now."

“Your mama said the same thing."

“I wish she hadn't lied to me.
That hurt me the worst. I ain't never known her to lie straight out."

“She never meant to hurt you,
Marcus."

“I know that. And I'd made my
peace with it in those ten minutes. Army say it done made a man outta me, so I
decided to go home a man. I was go’n tell Mama I knew she did what she had to
do. But, the more I thought about my mama, the more I just wanted her to wrap
her arms 'round me and tell me everything was go’n be all right, like she did
when my daddy died."

I thought about my own mother
then, and how much I would have loved to have her hold me that way.       

Marcus stepped out of the alley
just as Skipper Kornegay crossed the street and stepped onto the curb, less
than ten feet from where Marcus now stood. He said they both jumped like they'd
grabbed a cow fence.

“Shit!” Skipper bellowed. “Boy,
you scared the piss outta me. What the hell are you doin’ sneakin’ outta there
like that?”

“I ain’t sneakin’ nowhere.”

“Looked like you was sneakin’
to me. You got some business back there my daddy oughta know ‘bout?”

“They’s a lotta things your
daddy
oughta
know ‘bout, but I don’t reckon you’d really want him to
know everything ‘bout everything.”

“What the hell is wrong with
you, boy?"

Marcus said he got really calm
for a minute. He stood looking at Skipper Kornegay dead in the eye. Not
blinking. Not wavering. Just staring. I remember thinking that was downright
courageous of him, starin’ a white man down. But, then I remembered that we’d come
a long way since those days and that shouldn’t really be anything notable.

Finally Marcus found his voice
again. “Ain't nothin' wrong with
me.
Not a damn thing!”

“Boy, you what my daddy calls
a’ uppity nigger, ain’tcha?”

If I hadn’t known before, I
knew when I heard that. Blanche was right about Ralph Kornegay and I was a
fool. I’d been in polite society so long that I took social graces for social
conscience. We may not hear that word much in public anymore, but it doesn’t
mean it isn’t said in private.

Marcus said he'd held his
tongue all he could.

“If uppity means I don’t take
any shit off a child molester, then yeah, Skipper, I’m the uppity-est nigger
you ever go'n meet.”

“What the…?”

Marcus said Skipper had looked
confused for a split second, until he made the connection with Grace. He
laughed then.

I saw the anger rise up in
Marcus when he recalled that part of the confrontation and I knew what he must
have felt when he stood face to face with that monster.

“I wanted to smash his face
into the sidewalk, Miz Ora,” Marcus said through clenched teeth. “I knew right
then I had to get away or I would do it. So help me, God, I would stomp him
into the ground. I turned around and I ran - like a coward.”

Marcus’s face contorted with
rage and shame. Listening to him then and knowing all I know to this day, I am
absolutely certain that running was the most courageous thing he could have
done at that moment, but you couldn’t have told him that. He saw no honor at
all in the act, only necessity. He wiped his face on his sleeve and went on
with his story.

“I ran as fast as I could, Miz
Ora, but it felt like my legs was made of cement. I could hear Skipper runnin’
behind me, laughin’ the whole way. I made it as far as the woods and ran far
enough in that I thought I had lost him. I stopped to catch my breath and I
listened for him to follow, but I didn’t hear nothin’ so I thought he’d gone on
home.”

“But, he didn’t, did he?”

“No ma’am, he didn’t,” Marcus
sighed. “I had barely calmed my breathin’ down and all of a sudden he was just
there, right in front of me. He was holdin’ out his right hand and he threw his
left one up in the air like he was sword fightin’ or somethin’. I heard the
click before I saw the blade. I hate knives, Miz Ora. Jesus help me, I hate
‘em.”

Marcus seemed resigned then. “I
figured I was a dead man. I almost didn’t even try to fight him off. If he’da
come cut me up slow, I’da pro'bly let him. But he just jumped on me swingin’
and so I fought him."

“Well, that’s self-defense,
Marcus! You fought him in self-defense. No court will convict you for that!”

“But, that’s not all.” Marcus
dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head from side to side. “I don’t
remember what all happened, I swear I don’t. I just remember doin’ everything I
could to keep him from hittin’ me with that blade. I reckon he got me a few
times anyway. I don’t even remember tryin’ to get the knife outta his hand; but
all of a sudden, it was in mine. We wrestled around ‘til my forearm was
across’t his neck and I was pressin’ on his throat as hard as I could. He
stopped fightin’ for the knife and started grabbin’ at my arm and that’s when…
Oh, Jesus…” Marcus wailed. He grabbed the back of his head in both hands and
rocked back and forth.