A Time to Kill

Lucien had passed out drunk in the swing on the porch, and Sallie was not around. Jake helped himself to the spacious study upstairs. Lucien had more law books in his home than most lawyers had in their offices. He unpacked his mess in a chair, and on the desk he placed an alphabetical list of the jurors, a stack of three-by-five notecards, and several Magic Markers.

The first name was Acker, Barry Acker. The last name was written in large print across the top of a notecard with a blue Magic Marker. Blue for men, red for women, black for blacks, regardless of gender. Under Acker’s name he made notes with a pencil. Age, about forty. Married to his second wife, three children, two daughters. Runs a small unprofitable hardware store on the highway in Clanton. Wife, secretary at a bank. Drives a pickup. Likes to hunt. Wears cowboy boots. Pretty nice guy. Atcavage had gone to the hardware store Thursday to get a look at Barry Acker. Said he looked okay, talked like he had .some education. Jake wrote the number nine by the name Acker.

Jake was impressed with his research. Surely Buckley would not be as thorough.

The next name was Bill Andrews. What a name. There were six of them in the phonebook. Jake knew one, Harry Rex knew another one, and Ozzie knew a black one, but nobody knew which one got the summons. He pvut a question mark by the name.

Gerald Ault. Jake smiled when he wrote the name on the notecard. Ault had passed through his office a few years back when the bank foreclosed on his house in Clanton. His wife was stricken with kidney disease, and the medical bills broke them. He was an intellectual, educated at Princeton,

where he met his wife. She was from Ford County, the only child of a once prominent family of fools who had invested all their money in railroads. He arrived in Ford County just in time for his in-laws to go under, and the easy life he had married dissolved into one of struggle. He taught school for a while, then ran the library, then worked as a clerk in the courthouse. He developed an aversion to hard work. Then his wife got sick, and they lost their modest house. He now worked in a convenience store.

Jake knew something about Gerald Ault that no one else knew. As a child in Pennsylvania, his family lived in a farmhouse near the highway. One night while they slept, the house caught fire. A passing motorist stopped, kicked in the front door and began rescuing the Aults. The fire spread quickly, and when Gerald and his brother awoke they were trapped in their upstairs bedroom. They ran to the window and screamed. Their parents and siblings yelled helplessly from the front lawn. Flames poured from every window in the house except for their bedroom. Suddenly, the rescuer soaked himself with water from the garden hose, dashed into the burning house, fought the flames and smoke as he raced upstairs, then bolted through the bedroom door. He kicked out the window, grabbed Gerald and his brother, and jumped to the ground. Miraculously, they were not hurt. They thanked him, through tears and embraces. They thanked this stranger, whose skin was black. He was the first Negro the children had ever seen.

Gerald Ault was one of the few white people in Ford County who truly loved black people. Jake put a ten by his name.

For six hours he went through the jury list, making note-cards, concentrating on each name, envisioning each juror in the box and in deliberation, talking to each one. He rated them. Every black got an automatic ten; the whites were not so easy. The men rated higher than the women; the young men higher than the old men; the educated slightly higher than the uneducated; the liberals, both of them, received the highest ratings.

He eliminated the twenty Noose planned to exclude. He knew something about one hundred and eleven of the prospective jurors. Surely, Buckley could not know so much.

Ellen was typing on Ethel’s machine when Jake returned from Lucien’s. She turned it off, closed the law books she was typing from, and watched him.

"Where’s dinner?" she asked with a wicked smile.

"We’re taking a road trip."

"All right! Where to?"

"Have you ever been to Robinsonville, Mississippi?"

"No, but I’m ready. What’s there?"

"Nothing but cotton, soybeans, and a great little restaurant."

"What’s the dress code?"

Jake inspected her. She wore the usual-jeans, neatly starched and faded, no socks, a navy button-down that was four sizes too big but tucked in nicely above her slender hips.

"You look fine," he said.

They turned off the copier and the lights and left Clanton in the Saab. Jake stopped at a liquor store in the black section of town and bought a six-pack of Coors and a tall, cold bottle of Chablis.

"You have to bring your own bottle to this place," he explained as they left town. The sun was setting into the highway ahead, and Jake flipped down the sun visors. Ellen played bartender and opened two cans.

"How far is this place?" she asked.

"Hour and a half."

"Hour and a half! I’m starving."

"Then fill up on beer. Believe me it’s worth it."

"What’s on the menu?"

"Barbecued, sauteed shrimp, frog legs, and charbroiled catfish."

She sipped on the beer. "We’ll see."

Jake stepped on the gas, and they raced across bridges over the countless tributaries of Lake Chatulla. They climbed steep hills covered with layers of dark green kudzu. They flew around corners and dodged pulpwood trucks making their last runs of the day. Jake opened the sunroof, lowered the windows and let the wind blow. Ellen leaned back in the seat and dosed her eyes. Her thick, wavy hair swirled around her face.

"Look, Row Ark, this dinner is strictly business-"

"Sure, sure."

"I mean it. I’m the employer, you’re the employee, and this is a business meal. Nothing more or less. So don’t get any lustful ideas in your ERA, sexually liberated brain."

"Sounds like you’re the one with the ideas."

"Nope. I just know what you’re thinking."

"How do you know what I’m thinking? Why do you assume you’re so irresistible and that I’m planning a big seduction scene?"

"Just keep your hands to yourself. I’m a wonderfully happily married man with a gorgeous wife who’d kill if she thought I was fooling around."

"Okay, let’s pretend to be friends. Just two friends having dinner."

"That doesn’t work in the South. A male friend cannot have dinner with a female friend if the male friend has a wife. It just doesn’t work down here."

"Why not?"

"Because men don’t have female friends. No way. I don’t know of a single man in the entire South who is married and has a female friend. I think it goes back to the Civil War."

"I think it goes back to the Dark Ages. Why are Southern women so jealous?"

"Because that’s the way we’ve trained them. They learned from us. If my wife met a male friend for lunch or dinner, I’d tear his head off and file for divorce. She learned it from me."

"That makes absolutely no sense."

"Of course it doesn’t."

"Your wife has no male friends?"

"None that I know of. If you learn of any, let me know."

"And you have no female friends?"

"Why would I want female friends? They can’t talk about football, or duck hunting, or politics, or lawsuits, or anything that I want to talk about. They talk about kids, clothes, recipes, coupons, furniture, stuff I know nothing about. No, I don’t have any female friends. Don’t want any."

"That’s what I love about the South. The people are so tolerant."

"Thank you."

"Do you have any Jewish friends?"