Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr

Author:Ross Howell Jr. [Howell, Ross Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Virginia, capital punishment, electric chair, racism, racial justice, equality, Jim Crow, Virginia Christian
ISBN: 9781603063968
Publisher: NewSouth Inc.
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

17.

So Long!

The morning air on the street was humid. I could feel beads of sweat on my upper lip. Ahead the Virginia State Penitentiary loomed dark and grotesque in the early light. I decided to have a smoke before I went inside.

At the entrance a Haxall Flour Mills freight wagon was parked, a pair of big mules standing in harness. The mules flicked their ears and switched their tails at flies. Two Negroes in floppy hats and overalls were unloading oak staves from the wagon onto a hand cart. Their shirts were stained with sweat. One man came forward to the wagon seat and pulled two burlap feed sacks from under it. He draped a sack over the face of each mule.

He paused as I struck a match.

“Morning, sir,” he said. “Doggone flies about to eat the eyes plumb out of them mules’ heads.”

“Morning,” the man at the cart said.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Got one for a colored man, sir?” the first man asked.

“Sure,” I said, tipping the pack.

The man took the Lucky and smelled it.

“That some fine Richmond tobacco right there,” he said, tucking the cigarette between his lips. I struck another match. The man cupped my hand to his face.

“Will you have one?” I said to the man at the cart.

“Why, thank you, sir, I don’t mind if I do. Hot already, ain’t it?” He took the cigarette and placed it behind his ear. “I’m gone save mine,” he said.

“Bet you here to see the colored girl they gone electrocute tomorrow. I seen you here before. Ain’t that right?” the first man said. I realized I had the “Press” tag tucked above the bill of my cap.

“Yes,” I said.

“Heard a white man say, back during the trial, say they gone burn that girl or they gone burn the town of Hampton, what that man say.”

“Her attorneys did their best,” I said. “Given the circumstances.”

“Humph,” the man smoking said. “Them attorneys don’t matter. Jury, neither. That colored girl killed a white woman in her own house. Say her children even seen it.”

“Well,” I said. “Her daughters found her corpse.”

“Don’t matter—seen it, found it,” the man at the cart said. “How old them girls, anyways?”

“One’s eight. The older girl is thirteen.”

“Lord,” the first man said, puffing smoke. “It’s a good thing they gone burn her. Else it’d be they gone burn us, is how it is. That colored girl don’t amount to no more than a dog.”

“The governor can change her sentence,” I said. “Even today, he could grant clemency.” The two men looked at me quizzically.

“How old you is, sir, you don’t mind me asking?” the first man said.

“Eighteen.”

“Well, then, sir,” he said. “See, Governor Mann now, he done fought in the war. I just don’t see him, being the governor—what you call that, sir, what the governor gone grant?”

“Clemency,” I said.

“You two gone jawbone all morning or you gone unload this wagon?” Another colored man was walking briskly from the prison entrance. He wore the same floppy hat as the other men.

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