heard.
Billy wat
c
hes th
e
ni
g
ht follow the
wi
ndow until the
v
an slows and stops, th
e
n h
e
tries to list
e
n an
d
tri
e
s lo hear th
e
voices in the night.
"Whatcha
g
ot for u
s
tonight
,
Barn
ey?"
a
v
oi
ce
out
s
id
e
th
e
van shout
e
d.
B I L L
y
I 177
"Cots that little Banes nigger." The
shout
is
closer
and
comes
from up front
of
the van.
"Yeah,
we expectin him. Take him on over. Ed got the
duty
tonight."
The
shout fades into the night. Billy listens to the slow clanking sound as the van moves forward. Lights
come
into
the
dark, Billy can see them
out
the window, see them hanging, and flickering. The van stops, then the lights come into Billy's face.
"Come on out of there, boy. Get out here, now."
Billy shifts and drags his
chain
to the opened
van
door. "Come on, boy,
ya
get on out here, now."
The lights make Billy squint, the leg irons cause him to stumble and nearly fall to the ground.
"Git up, boy. Ain't nobody carryin
ya
around here."
Ed Welte is the night-watch sergeant, a tall heavy man
with
a quick way about hi m
.
He watches Billy gather his
balance,
calls to the driver, "See ya next trip. Tell old Bentley Ah
says
hello,"
then
looks down at Billy and shouts
,
"Follow
me, bo
y.
Ya just keep ya eyes on my back and follow me."
Ed Welte turns on his heels and walks towards the heavy door, yells through a slit in its
center,
"Open up."
Billy sees the big door open and the
wall
of bars. He i
s
used to the big men's
ways
now, he has learned to move to his keepers' calls, learned to listen wh ile footsteps leave, listen until he can't hear them at all, before he moves, climbs up to find out if he
can
see through a window
.
"What the hell is this? Whatcha
got
there, Ed ?" a
voice
behind the wall of bars rings out.
''This
is that Banes nigger, ya know
,
th
e
one that knifed that girl to death. Just got him in," EJ Wel te
yells
to
the
guard behind the gate.
A
ce
nter
door in the wall of bars
comes
open, Billy know
s
I
78
I
Albert
French
it is for
h i m,
he drugs his legs irons and wobbles
his
body through.
"Come
h
ere,
boy,
get
over here,
s
tand
still." Ed Welte points to where he wants Billy to
stand.
Bi ll y lowers his head and jumps
a
little when the big man
goes
behi nd him
and
kneels to unlock his leg irons,
th
en comes
around to his front and
takes
his wrist irons off.
"Step
here, now,
ya
follow me." Ed Welte moves and
Bill
y follows
him through another door, and then another.
"Stand
right here. Don't
ya
move," the
guard
shouts and
opens a
closet.
"Here,
boy
,
ya
get one blanket. Ya piss on it,
ya sleep on
it. Here,
come get
it.
Now,
follow me." Ed Welte leads Billy down a long dark hall to a door
of
bars.
"Open
up here, got us a new
one."
The door
of
bars
slides
open. Except
for a
dim light, the
walkway ahead
is dark,
cells along each side. Snores and
heavy breathing
can
be heard,
but
the
air
is tight
and
hard to breathe.
Ed
Welte stops up
short,
takes his key,
and opens
the
cell
h
e
has turned to.
"Get on in
there
,
boy
,
and Ah
don't
want
ta hear
no
nois
e
out
of ya. Ya do whatcha
told
when
y
a
told ta
do
it,
for
th
e
time
ya
here. Ya ain't gonna
hav
e
no troubl
e
outta
m
e,
but
ya
start actin
up,
ya gonna
wish
ya
hadn
'
t.
Now
,
get on
in ther
e."
"Boss
man
Welte,
what
's
ya got over
ther
e?
Who
that
?
They
gonna
burn that
boy?
Who that?"
"Shut
up,
Sack
Man,"
Ed Welte
s
houts into the dark
cell
across
from
Billy's.
"Hey, Sack
Man,
we git
us
some
new
meat? Whatcha got
up there? M
ea
t
wagon come in? What we git?" comes a voice
from furth
e
r
up
in
th
e
darkn
ess.
B I L L Y
/
179
"Shut up, god damn it," Ed Welte shouts and locks Billy in his cell,
then turns
and leaves.
Shouts come from the dark again.
"Hey, Sack Man, we git somethin new up there? Where they put him, they put him in Tinker's cell?"
Billy puts his blanket on the bottom of the
cot,
then tries to look around his dark cell. He looks up on the wall, there is no window.
"Hey
.
Hey, boy. Hey," comes a whisper across the walkwa
y
. Billy moves to the bars and peeps out through them, his eyes search the darkness in the
cell
across from his until he sees the face come out of it. It's a big face as dark
as
the dark, the face of Sack
Man,
Raymond
"Sack
Man" Tate. He is fifty-three and won't get any older. The
State
of Mississippi found him guilty of killin a man with
a
hatchet, then robbing his house. Sack Man is a big man with
only
one arm,
said
he got his other arm cut off fightin Germans in the big
war, said
he lived up north in Chicago Town and
would
have stayed
if
things hadn't got so bad, said he had to kill that man befor
e
he got his gun.
Sack Man whispers
to
Billy,
"Boy,
what's they
got ya
in here for? How old ya be? Ya ain't bu ts
a child.
What's the
y
Billy looks up into the dark and its
face,
then whispers
,
"Ah gonna be electrics. They say they do that ta me. The
y
say that makes me dead."
"What ya do, boy?"
"Ah stuck a girl. She tries and beats me up. Cits me do
wn
agam
.
.
"
"Did ya kill her, is
she
dead?"
"They say she killed. They say
she
l
lW
I
Albert Fre11cli
"Ah
ten, but Ah be !even in Febueries."
A
sneering
piercing whisper
comes
from far in the dark.
"Hey,
Sack Man. Hey, Sack Man,
what
we got up there?
Sounds like we
got
us a little pussy,
we
got us a pussy up there?" The far whisper
comes
from Di]
Martin,
thirty-two, with black curly hair, blue eyes, and a baby's face. He
shot
two men to death in a bar in Jackson, then shot one of Jack son's policemen in the leg.
In
the cell next to Dil Martin is Gilbert Knox, he's awake but just setting in the dark like he always does. Gilbert Knox is twenty-seven, lived outside Biloxi on a
small
farm
with
his mama, daddy, and two sisters until he killed all four of them with a shotgun. You
ask
him about it, he
just
laughs and
says,
"They got on my nerves." He is next to die.
Sack Man moves back into the dark of his
cell,
but Dil Martin's whispers
still come. "Sack
Man,
hey,
Sack Man. We gots us a little boy-girl up there, huh?"
"Shut up, crazy man, shut
up,"
Sack
Man yells.
"Hee . . . hee . . . hee
. . .
hee . . .
"
Dil Martin's
taunting
laugh wiggles through the dark
cellblock.
Billy sits
on
his
cot
with his
blanket over his shoulder, he
is
cold
now and begins to
shiver.
"Hey, boy. Hey, boy
,
you
up there,
he
y,
you.
This is Dil Martin
down
here. Dil
Martin. You hear of me,
boy?
You ever
hear of me, huh? Huh? You hear
of
me,
answer
me, boy,
"
Dil Martin
calls
again.
Billy
crawls on
his
cot and pulls
the
blanket ov
e
r
his head, he
can
see more in his nights than his long days. In his day
s
,
he can only see
cracks
in hard
cement floors, cracks
in
dark
walls, watch the
shadows
lift and move
slowly across
the
cell.
In
his
days, he may only
get a glimpse of Cinder, a glimps
e
of
the
Catfish, the red Patch Road,
Gumpy waiLin on
the pat h.
but
B I L L Y
I
181
the nights, Cinder brings the Catfish Creek, Patch ways, and Gumpy to stay, until the morning comes, then they run away. Mississippi's sun
comes
up, dark-gray walls and thick black bars lighten but do not become bright. Food comes to cellblock nine, but the shouts and
grunts come
first. All five condemned souls, Sack Man, Dil Martin, Gilbert Knox, Preacher Man Sam, and Jimmy Johnson, know of the sixth,
Billy Lee Turner.
Day Guard Russell Vent comes to
see what
the night has brung. Billy sits on his cot and looks up at the guard looking in at him and waits for his barking words, but instead hears the shouts of "Boss man Vent, how bout bringin that boy down here, let him
spend
some time with Dil here, whatcha say, boss man Vent?"
"Shut up, Martin," the guard yells over his shoulder, then walks away.
"Hey,
Billy
boy," Sack Man calls.
"Huh," Billy answers and goes to his bars.
"Yo
u
listen
to
old Sack Man here, don
'
t ya pay that old crazy fool down there no mind, you hear me? He ain't nothin but a crazy fool," Sack Man whispers across the walkway.
Billy begins to talk, ask questions of Sack Man, then slowed his words and
stared
at Sack Man's missing arm until Sack Man tells him of the big war and the
Germans.
Then the talk becomes Chicago, the Catfish, and,
"My
mama,
she
comes gits me." Time left them alone.
Dil Martin
calls
out for Preacher Man Sam,
"Hey,
Preacher Man, Preacher Man, how many days ya got? How many ya
got
left
now? Ya countin
right?
How many da
ys
ya got fore the
y
bum ya to hell? Hee . . . hee . . . hee
. . .
Tell me, Preacher
Man.
Ya gonna preach to that old devil? Ya gonna tell him he ought
ta
change
his ways
some?
They gonna like ya down