-
December 21 1987
- Texas A&M University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
December 21 1987 [3.239.15.46] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:47 GMT) Vermena Let me tell you about Joe Wallace. He come up here one day lookin for work. I told him he was gonna have to wait till Mr Bivens, my husband, got back, bein I dont make them decisions. Mr Bivens wouldnt be back till late the next day anyway, I tole him.Tole him he went to trade with Peaches Covington’s old man Fox over in Opelousas. Most folks’d think I was crazy for tellin this old stranger that I was up in the house by myself without my husband around, but I aint scared a no skinny little boys such as Joe Wallace. I know where he come from. I knew his daddy. Besides, my sons was around the place. My old man wouldnt leave me to tend to all this land by myself. I couldnt even if I wanted to. Got my bad back to worry with. Anyway this Joe he just ast me for work, so I told him to come back tomorrow evenin or better, the next day after that, and he said thank you and then he asked me where he could get somethin to eat, that he was dyin of hunger. I just told him sorry, I couldnt help, that the drought was killin us just like it was everyone else, and I couldnt do nothin to help him as far as food was concerned. 19 We was as poor as the next person and couldnt hardly afford to feed ourselves let alone somebody else. A criminal besides. Say, I said to him, what you doin around here anyway? I thought you was up in Angola for that murder some years back. He said he had been, but that he werent anymore. That they let him out. Hm, I thinks, a convicted murderer out in the streets again. Well, I didnt much care neither way and told him to get on, that he could come back the next day if he wanted, and that was the last I seen of him for a while. He never did come back. Truth be told, I didnt really care what happened to him. I ast my husband when he got back from Opelousas if Joe Wallace come around again and he said he aint heard nothin from him, so we both just figured him gone on. Off to somewheres else. We didnt spend much time thinkin about it. We had bigger fishes to fry up what with that damn drought and all. It wasnt until Miss Tucker come into Shorty’s one day lookin for some plugs for that tractor her old deadbeat husband left behind, and Shorty he ast her what she knew about puttin plugs in a old tractor and she tole him that she didnt know nothin about it, but that someone was out over on her place and was gonna fix the thing for her. Then’s when we all knew where old Wallace had landed hisself. We just knew it. Shorty he never even made the connection until after, so, needless to say, he didnt tell her about Wallace and his conviction and to maybe watch out for him,especially since she be out there in them woods all alone and everything, but you know Shorty, he a little on the slow side sometimes. And like I said, we had bigger fishes to fry up, so aint no one bothered to go out there and tell Miss Tucker the truth about the boy until it was already too late. You see the reason she didnt know about that awful murder was because she moved out here to Sun from Poplarville Mississippi a good deal after the crime done happened, and folks had plumb stopped talkin about it by then. She had moved here with that deadbeat husband of hers since he owned him a piece a land outside of town and since he had him some notions that he was gonna farm it, raise cattle on it, make a decent living. They stayed out there and he didnt do much of anything cept pile up some debt and put a gallon a Old Crow in hisself about once every week. 20 [3.239.15.46] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:47 GMT) 21 True he had that little house there, a little circle of cleared land around it that he done cleared hisself...