Five Miles to Paradise

20

A colored woman's testimony against two white boys would never be admissible.

Sheriff Heck and I had discussed the options.

"If Miss Nell refuses to press charges and testify, Leah, we don't stand a mosquito's chance in a whirlwind. I've talked to some folks. Leland Ransell has been the county prosecutor for decades. He's been around long enough to know that family those boys come from. That group is nothing but white trash.

Even Leland would like to see those two boys get what's comin' to them, but even Leland agreed that auto theft would be the only thing we could bring them up on. And he knows Clint Baxter would say they were just having some harmless fun. Boys will be boys, and all that rot. Even when I mentioned a woman was assaulted and could have been killed, Leland was quick to point out the fact that the woman who was assaulted was a 'nigra.'

He said he'd be hard pressed to explain how a woman, and not to mention a nigra woman, was driving about these parts in a Cadillac convertible, all shiny and not her own. Twelve white men on any jury in this county would never believe the girl had not stolen it to begin with. And Miss Nell is refusing to press charges, so the whole thing is moot.

Even if by some miracle, your Miss Nell changed her mind and testified, it's still not an open and shut case. 

Leland says that those boys father is well liked in this county. We can't put them in the car. We have no witness who saw them. They deny it. Even if you were white, Leah, it would still be your word against theirs. And the plain fact in a nutshell is you didn't see who struck you."

"I wouldn't be so quick to throw our chance of winning away. You don't know Miss Nell," I had told Heck later that afternoon. "If I would have gone back with her, Heck, I know her, she would have spent her last dime to make sure those two spent hard time turning big rocks into little ones for stealing her car. But since I didn't, she'll forget the whole thing."

"Well, I've got to tell you, even if the case had gone to court, those two would have come up before Judge Henry Blakemore. I think he's too old to sit on the bench. The last three cases I had any part in, Judge Henry appeared to sleep through most of the proceedings.

Those two boys are young. They're a nuisance, minor brushes with the law, but nothing major. I think Judge Henry would have let them of with a spanking and sent them on their way.

There's no hard evidence that puts that rock they bashed your head with in their hands. Nobody saw them in the car. Dead of night. Country road."

Heck remembered Leland's words that day, "Your maid can't identify them, not that her testimony would mean squat, even if it could be heard.

The boys are denyin' any wrong doin'. They swear on their dead mother's grave that when they found that automobile by the roadside, it was abandoned. They didn't steal it. They 'found' it. That's their story, and they are stickin' too it. If either of them had one lick of sense, they would have denied any knowledge of the automobile in the first place.

Those two are as dumb as concrete, but they stick together, and they're stickin' to their story.

I know they done it, Heck. The list of probable suspects is short. But you know and I know, knowin' and provin' are two entirely different things.

The general consensus is that the lady has her car back. It wasn't damaged. The maid has recovered. And all's well that ends well. Wrap the whole affair up and put a bow on the box. Life goes on.

So, I don't think you should stew on it. The owner of the automobile does not want the inconvenience of traveling back down here. I'm sorry, Heck, but I just don't think the lady can be bothered," Leland had said. "And if Miss Nell can't be bothered, neither can anybody else. It's just something that should just fade into forgetfulness."

Heck looked at Leah. He didn't want to hurt her, but he knew she knew the score.

"And the fact that I was assaulted and left for dead means nothing," I said. "That just kills me."

"I know. You won't be allowed to have your day in court. Even if Leland let you take the stand, those twelve white men would tune you out. It's unfair, I know, but that's the way the system works," Heck said.

"Oh, don't I know it. Well, I should count my blessings, and start cooking your dinner."

"Don't go to a lot of trouble for us. I'll be happy with a cold plate. A sandwich is fine."

"Now, Sher'f Heck," I said smiling, "you knows Miss Anjohn cross't da streets gots hah bes' smellin' nose on tonight. Dat busybody jes waitin' fah da days I fixed you nuthin' but a cole plate suppah! She be on me like whites on rice!"

Heck laughed.

"You fix us a sandwich. I got some weedin' 'round the front steps to do. If Miss Anjohn dares to cross the street tonight to ask me what delicacies you're preparing, I'm gonna tell her a seven course meal straight from heaven!"

"Heck" I said, "you're incorrigible."

"I know. Being beyond redemption is one of my best qualities. I know it's what attracted you to me."

I swatted Heck's cute behind as he exited my kitchen.

It wasn't really my kitchen. Nothing in the house was mine at all, except for the few clothes I owned. The Sheriff had taken me in as his housekeeper, and amazingly, a wonderful relationship had blossomed.

This being the South and the early 1940s, I dare say I would have been lynched, and the sheriff run out of town if anyone knew, but I trusted Heck, and he trusted me.

In the South, many things are slow to change, and many more may never.

The sheriff is a lonely man. He is a widower, suffering from the loss of a woman who meant a lot to him. He tries to hide it from me, but a man's eye often give him away. If you are attentive, you can catch the shadow that passes across them, the pain that pierces them, the sadness that fills them without end.

Sheriff Heck Waterstim was kind and fair and white. 

You wouldn't think it from his childhood, which had included a weak, but loving mother, and an abusing, racist father who spread his bigotry in the name of God as an evangelist in the deep South, a Bible-thumping adulterer who would hump anything female, black or white, but Heck Waterstim was one of those rare individuals who sees the world through a lens that is color-blind. The sheriff was known in the county to deal a fair hand to anyone, no matter the hue of their skin.

This is important to me, for I am a Negro, and I live in Mississippi. If you walked in my shoes, you would understand what I am talking about. But why would any sane person wish to trade places with me?

They say that the Depression will end soon, but here in LeFayettahCounty, you wouldn't know it. Folks are still hit hard by poverty and disease. Jobs are scarcer than moles' teeth, and money is even scarcer. As I do my cooking and housecleaning for Sheriff Heck, I listen to the radio. It seems that lately, all the news coming out of that brown box is bad and worrisome.

Germany is intent on trying to take over every country in Europe. Nobody here wants another war. Especially not after the last one.