Twenty-three
Eddie's arraignment was scheduled for January 26th, 1977. That left him a little less than two weeks of freedom and I was bound and determined to make that time nice for him. Chip borrowed his father's pickup truck and went back to Eddie's camp in the woods to pick up his old chair. It was a beautiful thing, despite having been in the open for God knows how long. Eddie came outside to help decide where the chair would go and we chose a cozy spot where the yard made a little alcove beside the garage. He wanted to fix it up though, so we put it in the garage first, right in the empty spot where Walter's car once sat.
“Where in the world did you find this chair, Eddie?"
He chuckled when I asked him that.
“You ain't go'n believe this, Miz Ora, but I only paid ten dollars for that ol' thing."
“You're kidding."
It was hard to believe. The chair must have once sat in a fairly nice barber shop, judging by the ornate scrollwork in the metal base.
“Nope," he laughed “Ten dollars I paid and had it delivered to boot."
“Delivered?"
“Yes'm, out to the woods."
“Good Lord," I said, “How in the world did you manage that?"
“Used to hop me a freight train every now and again, jus' to get away for awhile. Sometimes I'd go all the way to Alabama to see Tressa. Most times I'd just go down the tracks and back. Used to see this here chair, jus' sittin' in the back yard of this man's house. Wasn't all that far from here, just out by the Minute Maid plant."
Not far from Blanche's house, I thought to myself.
“Then one day, when I got my check cashed and had some money to spend, I hopped off the freight car - they always switchin' cars out there, so it goes real slow - and I asked that ol' man 'bout this chair."
Eddie went on to tell how the man said for five dollars he could take it right then. Eddie couldn't figure out how to get it back to the woods, so he offered the man ten dollars if he would get his nephew to deliver it. They made the deal right then and Eddie paid him when they got to the woods with the chair.
Eddie spent the next week fixing the chair up with tools he found in the garage. I found some old red vinyl in my fabric stash, left over from recovering some dinette chairs we had in the fifties, and we recovered the seat and back of the barber's chair with it. That's when we discovered the seat had been stuffed with horse hair, which I knew indicated quality in the manufacturing.
When it was done, Eddie decided he rather liked the chair in the garage and, since there wasn't likely to be another car in that spot anytime soon, I agreed to leave it where it was. Eddie spent as much time as possible out there before his court date. If he drank at all, I didn't see or smell the alcohol.
Eddie was clean and sober the day of his arraignment and he went to court in the same suit he wore to talk to his lawyer the weeks before.
The Kornegay family was not in the courtroom. I'm not sure what Ralph said to the rest of his family to keep them away, but he managed it well. There were only a few local reporters and a handful of townsfolk there to witness Eldred Mims plead guilty to the charge of Second Degree Murder. In a deal with the county prosecutor and the Honorable Judge Harley T. Odell, Eddie was sentenced immediately to twenty-five years to life, whichever came first.
Blanche and I sat in the second row, directly behind Eddie. I sat with a straight back, one gloved hand clutching Blanche's bare one. She held a handkerchief in her other hand and dabbed at her eyes throughout the proceeding, but didn't make a sound until they placed the cuffs on his wrists and led him away.
Then she groaned softly and began to mumble, “This ain't right, Miz Ora. This ain't right."
“Blanche," I whispered. “Shhh, now...shhh."
She quieted down, but continued to cry. The bailiff adjourned the court, Poopsie retired to his quarters and we sat until everyone else had left. We were just standing to leave when the good judge appeared in his doorway and motioned us into his office. I shook my head in protest and he came to us instead.
“You okay?" he asked.
“I've been better."
“Anything you want to tell me now? Last chance, Ora. After today, I really don't want to know."
“I believe it's all been said now, Harley."
“Same for you, Blanche?"
She stood and looked him square in the eye and I thought it was all over for us. But she turned without a word and left the courtroom. Harley sighed and gave me a hard, perplexed look. I returned his gaze until I had to look away.
“Good day, Mrs. Beckworth," he said and returned to his office without so much as a backward glance.
It had all been said, as far as I was concerned. Ralph Kornegay knew the truth - the whole ugly truth - and I left it up to him to decide which way the ball would bounce. If he interfered or caused Eddie any further harm, I would tell everything, and I meant everything, including what Skipper did to Grace and what I did to cover up for Marcus. Prison be damned, the town would know the truth.
It hurt to watch the man receive my news. He may have been ignorant; he may even have been a bigot, but he was a father first and his pain was raw. I remember thinking it was odd that Ralph never once tried to deny what Skipper had done. He was silent at first; then he asked one pointed question after another until he had no more to ask.
I gave him the names of the boys who I believed were with him that day. His shoulders dropped with each name I spoke until I thought he would disappear beneath the seat of his patrol car. He never condemned or threatened me. He simply received the news, asked his questions, nodded his acceptance of my terms and drove away. We never spoke again after the day I delivered my ultimatum. Not once. Ralph was dead of a heart attack within a year. His wife survived him by only two years. If he ever told her about their son, I never knew and never wanted to know.