I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did
not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still,
I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there. Either I sat
behind my aunt and his godmother or I sat beside them. Both are large
women, but his godmother is larger. She is of average height, five four,
five five, but weighs nearly two hundred pounds. Once she and my aunt
had found their places--two rows behind the table where he sat with his
court-appointed attorney--his godmother became as immobile as a great
stone or as one of our oak or cypress stumps. She never got up once to
get water or go to the bathroom down in the basement. She just sat there
staring at the boy's clean-cropped head where he sat at the front table
with his lawyer. Even after he had gone to await the jurors' verdict,
her eyes remained in that one direction. She heard nothing said in the
courtroom. Not by the prosecutor, not by the defense attorney, not by
my aunt. (Oh, yes, she did hear one word--one word, for sure: "hog.")
It was my aunt whose eyes followed the prosecutor as he moved from one
side of the courtroom to the other, pounding his fist into the palm of
his hand, pounding the table where his papers lay, pounding the rail that
separated the jurors from the rest of the courtroom. It was my aunt who
followed his every move, not his godmother. She was not even listening.
She had gotten tired of listening, She knew, as we all knew, what the
outcome would be. A white man had been killed during a robbery, and though
two of the robbers had been killed on the spot, one had been captured,
and he, too, would have to die. Though he told them no, he had nothing
to do with it, that he was on his way to the White Rabbit Bar and Lounge
when Brother and Bear drove up beside him and offered him a ride. After
he got into the car, they asked him if he had any money. When he told
them he didn't have a solitary dime, it was then that Brother and Bear
started talking credit, saying that old Gropé should not mind crediting
them a pint since he knew them well, and he knew that the grinding season
was coming soon, and they would be able to pay him back then.
The store was empty, except
for the old storekeeper, Alcee Gropé, who sat on a stool behind the
counter. He spoke first. He asked Jefferson about his godmother. Jefferson
told him his nannan was all right. Old Gropé nodded his head. "You
tell her for me I say hello," he told Jefferson. He looked at Brother
and Bear. But he didn't like them. He didn't trust them. Jefferson could
see that in his face. "Do for you boys?" he asked. "A bottle of that Apple
White, there, Mr. Gropé," Bear said. Old Gropé got the bottle
off the shelf, but he did not set it on the counter. He could see that
the boys had already been drinking, and he became suspicious. "You boys
got money?" he asked. Brother and Bear spread out all the money they had
in their pockets on top of the counter. Old Gropé counted it with
his eyes. "That's not enough," he said. "Come on, now, Mr. Gropé,"
they pleaded with him. "You know you go'n get your money soon as grinding
start." "No," he said. "Money is slack everywhere. You bring the money,
you get your wine." He turned to put the bottle back on the shelf. One
of the boys, the one called Bear, started around the counter."You, stop
there," Gropé told him. "Go back." Bear had been drinking, and his
eyes were glossy, he walked unsteadily, grinning all the time as he continued
around the counter. "Go back," Gropé told him. "I mean, the last
time now--go back." Bear continued. Gropé moved quickly toward the
cash register, where he withdrew a revolver and started shooting. Soon
there was shooting from another direction. When it was quiet again, Bear,
Gropé, and Brother were all down on the floor, and only Jefferson
was standing.
He wanted to run, but he couldn't
run. He couldn't even think. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know
how he had gotten there. He couldn't remember ever getting into the car.
He couldn't remember a thing he had done all day.
He heard a voice calling.
He thought the voice was coming from the liquor shelves. Then he realized
that old Gropé was not dead, and that it was he who was calling.
He made himself go to the end of the counter. He had to look across Bear
to see the storekeeper. Both lay between the counter and the shelves of
alcohol. Several bottles had broken, and alcohol and blood covered their
bodies as well as the floor. He stood there gaping at the old man slumped
against the bottom shelf of gallons and half gallons of wine. He didn't
know whether he should go to him or whether he should run out of there.
The old man continued to call: "Boy? Boy? Boy?" Jefferson became frightened.
The old man was still alive. He had seen him. He would tell on him. Now
he started babbling. "It wasn't me. It wasn't me, Mr. Gropé. It was
Brother and Bear. Brother shot you. It wasn't me. They made me come with
them. You got to tell the law that, Mr. Gropé. You hear me Mr. Gropé?"
But he was talking to a dead
man.
Still he did not run. He didn't
know what to do. He didn't believe that this had happened. Again he couldn't
remember how he had gotten there. He didn't know whether he had come there
with Brother and Bear, or whether he had walked in and seen all this after
it happened.
He looked from one dead body
to the other. He didn't know whether he should call someone on the telephone
or run. He had never dialed a telephone in his life, but he had seen other
people use them. He didn't know what to do. He was standing by the liquor
shelf, and suddenly he realized he needed a drink and needed it badly.
He snatched a bottle off the shelf, wrung off the cap, and turned up the
bottle, all in one continuous motion. The whiskey burned him like fire--his
chest, his belly, even his nostrils. His eyes watered; he shook his head
to clear his mind. Now he began to realize where he was. Now he began
to realize fully what had happened. Now he knew he had to get out of there.
He turned. He saw the money in the cash register, under the little wire
clamps. He knew taking money was wrong. His nannan had told him never
to steal. He didn't want to steal. But he didn't have a solitary dime
in his pocket. And nobody was around, so who could say he stole it? Surely
not one of the dead men.
He was halfway across the
room, the money stuffed inside his jacket pocket, the half bottle of whiskey
clutched in his hand, when two white men walked into the store.
That was his story.
The prosecutor's story was
different. The prosecutor argued that Jefferson and the other two had
gone there with the full intention of robbing the old man and killing
him so that he could not identify them. When the old man and the other
two robbers were all dead, this one--it proved the kind of animal he really
was--stuffed the money into his pockets and celebrated the event by drinking
over their still-bleeding bodies.
The defense argued that Jefferson
was innocent of all charges except being at the wrong place at the wrong
time. There was absolutely no proof that there had been a conspiracy between
himself and the other two. The fact that Mr. Gropé shot only Brother
and Bear was proof of Jefferson's innocence. Why did Mr. Gropé shoot
one boy twice and never shoot at Jefferson once? Because Jefferson was
merely an innocent bystander. He took the whiskey to calm his nerves,
not to celebrate. He took the money out of hunger and plain stupidity.
"Gentlemen of the jury, look
at this--this--this boy. I almost said man, but I can't say man. Oh, sure,
he has reached the age of twenty-one, when we, civilized men, consider
the male species has reached manhood, but would you call this--this--this
a man? No, not I. I would call it a boy and a fool. A fool is not aware
of right and wrong. A fool does what others tell him to do. A fool got
into that automobile. A man with a modicum of intelligence would have
seen that those racketeers meant no good. But not a fool. A fool got into
that automobile. A fool rode to the grocery store. A fool stood by and
watched this happen, not having the sense to run.
"Gentlemen of the jury, look
at him--look at him--look that this. Do you see a man sitting here? I
ask you, I implore, look carefully--do you see a man sitting here? Look
at the shape of this skull, this face as flat as the palm of my hand--look
deeply into those eyes. Do you see a modicum of intelligence? Do you see
anyone here who could plan a murder, a robbery, can plan--can plan--can
plan anything? A cornered animal to strike quickly out of fear, a trait
inherited from his ancestors in the deepest jungle of blackest Africa--yes,
yes, that he can do--but to plan? To plan, gentlemen of the jury? No,
gentlemen, this skull here holds no plans. What you see here is a thing
that acts on command. A thing to hold the handle of a plow, a thing to
load your bales of cotton, a thing to dig your ditches, to chop your wood,
to pull your corn. That is what you see here, but you do not see anything
capable of planning a robbery or a murder. He does not even know the size
of his clothes or his shoes. Ask him to name the months of the year. Ask
him does Christmas come before or after the Fourth of July? Mention the
names of Keats, Byron, Scott, and see whether the eyes will show one moment
of recognition. Ask him to describe a rose, to quote one passage from
the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Gentlemen of the jury, this man
planned a robbery? Oh, pardon me, pardon me, I surely did not mean to
insult your intelligence by saying 'man'--would you please forgive me
for committing such an error?
"Gentlemen of the jury, who
would be hurt if you took this life? Look back to that second row. Please
look. I want all twelve of you honorable men to turn your heads and look
back to that second row. What you see there has been everything to him--mama,
grandmother, godmother--everything. Look at her, gentlemen of the jury,
look at her well. Take this away from her, and she has no reason to go
on living. We may see him as not much, but he's her reason for existence.
Think on that, gentlemen, think on it.
"Gentlemen of the jury, be
merciful. For God's sake, be merciful. He is innocent of all charges brought
against him.
"But let us say he was not.
Let us for a moment say he was not. What justice would there be to take
this life? Justice, gentlemen,? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in
the electric chair as this.
"I thank you, gentlemen, from
the bottom of my heart, for your kind patience. I have no more to say,
except this: We must live with our own conscience. Each and every one
of us must live with his own conscience."
The jury retired, and it returned
a verdict after lunch: guilty of robbery and murder in the first degree.
The judge commended the twelve white men for reaching a quick and just
verdict. This was Friday. He would pass sentence on Monday.
Ten o'clock on Monday, Miss
Emma and my aunt sat in the same seats they had occupied on Friday. Reverend
Mose Ambrose, the pastor of their church, was with them., He and my aunt
sat on either side of Miss Emma. The judge, a short, red-faced man with
snow-white hair and thick black eyebrows, asked Jefferson if he had anything
to say before the sentencing. My aunt said that Jefferson was looking
down at the floor and shook his head. The judge told Jefferson that he
had been found guilty of the charges brought against him, and that the
judge saw no reason that he should not pay for the part he played in this
horrible crime.
Death by electrocution. The
governor would set the date.
Use of this excerpt from A Lesson Before Dying
by Ernest Gaines may be made only for purposes of promoting the book,
with no changes, editing or additions whatsoever and must be accompanied
by the following copyright notice: copyright ©1993 by Ernest Gaines.
Excerpted from A Lesson Before Dying © Copyright 2009 by Ernest J. Gaines. Reprinted with permission by Vintage. All rights reserved.
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