The gospel singer, p.24
The Gospel Singer, page 24
“A picture?” said Richard.
“For the television,” said Mrs. Carter. “My MaryBell was struck down and never had a chance for no television nor nothing else. And it’d purely make a picture, MaryBell on that white wagon and them white horses.”
Now Richard and the cameraman were looking at one another. “It’s a natural,” said the cameraman. He held up his hands, the thumbs extended and touching. He looked through the frame of his hands at MaryBell’s face. “And maybe we could get the people of Enigma to follow along on foot behind the wagon.”
“It ain’t nothin folks in Enigmer would ruther see than MaryBell on the television being pulled by them white horses,” said Mrs. Carter. “They’d foller that wagon to the cemetery and back again. They’d foller it anywhere.”
“It might even rain again,” said Richard. He was smiling. He saw a news tape taking shape. A burden lifted from his heart. “Can you imagine all those people in black clothes behind white horses in the rain?”
“It’d make a picture,” she said.
“You stay right here, Mrs. Carter,” said Richard. “We’ve got to see the sheriff. But we’ll be back.”
Out on the sidewalk, the cameraman stopped Richard. “I thought she was crazy in there for a minute.”
“She may be,” said Richard. “But that doesn’t change anything. It’s still a natural. Get the truck and let’s go.”
The sheriff was sitting behind his desk in the courthouse chain-smoking Camel cigarettes and sipping diet-rite cola. “You’ve come to the wrong man,” he said as soon as he knew who they were and what they wanted. He leaned forward in his chair and turned his head to show a red swelling behind his ear. “That’s where I spent the night. Just me and that bump. Hit me right in the head, they did, and taken the nigger. And you know something? I’m glad. Hurt like hell, but now I’m glad. Me? Don’t know a thing. Didn’t know, don’t know, won’t know.” He fell back in his chair wheezing and started another Camel cigarette from the butt he was smoking.
“Why did they kill the Gospel Singer?” asked Richard.
“Why did who kill him?”
“Whoever it was.”
The sheriff stood up. His belly swayed under his shirt. He caught it and held it in his hands. “It ain’t but two people in Enigmer who couldn’t know—me and MaryBell.” He picked up the package of cigarettes from the desk and turned.
“Where are you going?” asked Richard.
“I’m gone take the one good lung I got and go back here and lock myself in Willalee Bookatee’s cell and lay down on his cot and smoke up some Camels.”
Richard and the cameraman went back out to the truck and started for the tent. A news truck from a rival network passed them headed for the courthouse. A car stopped in front of the funeral parlor. Richard recognized a syndicated newspaperman getting out of it. He sighed and spat out of the window. He could have scooped the world. He could have had a lynching on tape. But he missed everything for a bottle of whiskey and a soft bed. He stayed in Tifton the night before instead of coming back to the revival because there was no hotel in Enigma and he was tired and disgusted with the crowd and had not been about to drive all the way back in a rain storm. So he had been on top of the greatest story of his career and missed it.
Outside of town, the entire field had been roped off. Two police cars from Tifton were parked in front of the rope, and beyond them was an army helicopter from the airforce base in Albany. Several men in white shirts roamed around under the spreading limbs of the huge oak tree at the edge of the field. Richard was relieved to see that the bodies had been taken down.
A small man the color of a walnut with a brown mustache and brown teeth got out of a police car and walked toward the WWWW television truck. His name was Chester Miles and he ordinarily worked out of Atlanta. Richard had known him for years. They had talked together over innumerable mutilations, bombings and murders. The little man leaned on the door of the truck. He and Richard Hognut looked at one another with sympathetic understanding.
“It’s a strange one,” said Richard.
“It’s a bastard, just a bastard, Rich,” said Chester.
“Have you got a lead on who did it?” asked the cameraman.
“I don’t even have a lead on who didn’t do it,” said Chester. “The tracks under that oak tree look like everybody in the world was there.”
“Have you found Didymus?” asked Richard.
Chester Miles took out a small black notebook. “Let me just give you what I’ve got, Rich. One male, white, approximately six feet tall, one hundred seventy pounds, abrasions and contusions about the head and shoulders, dead by strangulation. One male, Negro, approximately six feet tall, one hundred seventy pounds, abrasions and contusions about the head and shoulders and genital area, dead by strangulation. One Woody Pea, evangelist, suffering from shock, incoherent. One Didymus—obviously an alias—nothing known, missing, presumed dead. One Gerd, brother of dead white male, missing, may be dead or may be with one freak fair run by one midget, Foot by name, missing from area. Mother and father of dead white male hospitalized in Tifton with abrasions and contusions, suffering shock, incoherent. One large brown tent, ruined.” He closed the notebook. “That’s it, Rich, and you know the strangest thing about this case?”
“What?”
“No contradictions. Anything that happens, you get forty stories and all of them different. Not this one. No contradictions. Mainly because nobody’s got a story. I haven’t been able to get one person to say what happened, or what they think happened.” He took a deep breath and looked back toward the police car. “Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve got one story.”
“Well, for God’s sake, what is it?” cried Richard Hognut.
“I got the brother and sister of the dead white male over here in the car. One Mirst and Avel. They’re the only ones that didn’t seem to get hurt in this.”
“What’s the story?” Richard had been writing in his own notebook while Chester read from his. Now he sat with his pencil poised over the page and his tongue caught between his teeth.
“I’ll get them over here. They can tell you.” He went back to the car and Mirst and Avel got out of the back seat. Mirst was wearing his guitar strung about his shoulders from a red strap. He strummed it with his thumb as he came toward them. His hair looked wet.
“This is Richard Hognut,” said Chester Miles. “He’s a newsman. Tell him what you told me.”
“We caint hardly talk about it,” said Mirst. “We cried all night.”
“We sure did,” said Avel. “You from the television?” She was looking at the call letters written on the side of the truck.
“Tell me the story,” said Richard.
“Sure,” said Mirst. “It was a accident.”
“An accident!”
“A accident,” said Avel.
“But how could it have been an accident?”
“You caint tell about a accident,” said Mirst. “That’s how come it’s a accident, right?”
Chester Miles gave Richard a sympathetic smile. “That’s the only story we’ve got so far,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to my men.” He walked away across the field.
Richard looked at Mirst and Avel. “Son,” he said, “you can’t hang a man accidentally.” But he was saying that for his own benefit. It seemed to him that the whole thing was somehow an accident.
“If you’d a been there, you’d a seen,” said Mirst. “Them cripples was strainin and hollerin and the wind was blowin and everbody was steppin on one another and first news you know the stage was full of people. Somehow the Gospel Singer ended up on the end of that rope with the nigger.”
“Whatever it was, it’ll make a hole in the gospel business,” said Avel, staring at the writing on the side of the truck.
“That’s for dang sure,” said Mirst, giving his guitar an angry stroke with his rigid thumb.
Richard’s nose twitched. His lips pursed. His breathing went shallow. “Do you sing gospel?”
Mirst and Avel looked at one another. “Been singing gospel for years,” said Mirst. “He trained us.” The two of them inclined their heads together and burst into Onward Christian Soldiers.
Richard caught his tongue between his teeth and waited for them to finish. “Do . . . uh . . . do you have a manager?”
“Not yet,” said Mirst.
“I know everybody in television,” said Richard. “How would you like me to be your manager?”
“Would you?” asked Mirst, his knuckles going white where he held the neck of the guitar.
“I know a lawyer in Tifton,” said Richard. “He can make the contract. Get in the back of the truck.”
They ran around to the back of the truck, jerked open the doors and jumped in. Mirst immediately sat on the floor and began practicing chords. Avel hummed.
The cameraman turned to Richard and said softly: “That was the worst singing I’ve ever heard. I’ve got a dog that can sing better than that.”
“Nobody’ll care if they can sing. Everybody’ll remember him. They’ll remember what he sounded like and that those kids are kin to him.” Richard slammed the cameraman on the back and screamed with laughter. “You get to Tifton in an hour, and I’ll let you be my assistant. We’ll make a million dollars next year.”
“But what about the story?”
“To hell with the story! Let somebody else get it.”
The cameraman slammed the truck into gear and they raced away from the ruined tent with Mirst and Avel singing at the top of their lungs.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
_139403811_
Harry Crews, The Gospel Singer
