Eden Rise. Robert Jeff Norrell

the recession of 1958, and analyzed why Bear Bryant was a good football coach and Ears Whitworth had been a lousy one.

      Years later, long past the summer of 1965, I realized that from watching Granddaddy in social situations I learned how one man influenced the thinking of another. He smiled quickly but never so long as to make one think he was overly accommodating; spoke to people by name and remembered something personal about each one; interjected an old joke here and there and a witty remark frequently, but never made fun of anyone, at least not any white folks from Alabama; never openly contradicted a wrong opinion, even when he went on to demolish the very idea; and remembered any shrewd thing ever said by the person to whom he was talking.

      “But, you know, Tommy,” Cathy went on, her eyes still on Marvin, “if Granddaddy had lived, he would have been just as upset as Daddy has been the past few months. He might not have showed anger like Daddy but he wouldn’t have liked it a bit.”

      She bobbed her eyebrows. “You remember what he used to say all the time?” She tucked her chin, put a frown on her brow, and lowered her voice to sound like a man. “‘We let the little white chillun go to school with the nigguhs, they’ll grow up and wanta get married.’”

      “Cathy!” I cringed and shot a look at Marvin.

      “Cathy, please.” Mama was embarrassed too.

      Marvin burst out laughing. He looked at me. “I’m interested in the one they called Big Tom.”

      “That was our great-grandfather,” I said. “He was dead before Cathy and I were born. How’d you know about him?”

      Marvin shrugged. “From William.”

      I turned to Mama, who had a puzzled look on her face. Finally she spoke.

      “He filled the room when he was in it. You should ask Brigid about Big Tom.”

      Cathy sat down with Marvin and began quizzing him about Chicago. Marvin was responsive enough but kept it general and didn’t mention anything about prisons, mobsters, or pistols, which was fine with me. Cathy would have been even more dazzled if he had. Feeling unnecessary, I went outside with my basketball to the hoop beside our paved driveway and began shooting baskets, something I had often done when I needed to think through things or just get the hell away from the people inside my house.

      Marvin followed me out and stood between the goal and the street, surveying up and down. I asked him if he wanted to shoot with me, but he shook his head as he was lighting a cigarette. Here was another strange thing about the guy—I’d never known a male who wouldn’t shoot basketball when the opportunity presented itself. Weren’t all black guys devoted to basketball?

      In a few minutes Mama came out to tell me that it was time to get ready for church. I hadn’t even realized it was Sunday. “I’m not going.” Church was the last place I wanted to be.

      Mama started to speak but stopped and gave me a skeptical look. I shook my head at her slowly. She nodded solemnly. I could see her deciding against making an issue of it. But Mama was a powerful believer. “Next week.”

      I shrugged. If she pushed, I’d have to tell her just what a doubter I was these days. God didn’t save Jackie. Therefore God must not exist.

      A familiar car stopped in front of our house, and I felt myself smile in relief. This Ford Falcon belonged to Bobby Ray Shoemaker. “Shoe” was my closest pal since the first grade. Short and wiry with a narrow mouth and a perennial buzz haircut, Shoe had been the best guard on all our school basketball teams—a good ball handler and passer with a deadly set shot if he was left wide open. We had been active in the Methodist Youth Fellowship and the Future Farmers together—his daddy was a part-time farmer and the town’s fire chief, indeed the only paid fireman in the county. We had double-dated to the prom both junior and senior years and spent lots of time just talking, and sometimes not talking, while we shot baskets on my driveway.

      “Wha’ ya say, Tommy?”

      I bounced him the ball and he stopped, took aim, and fired off a twenty-footer. Net. “Still the deadeye, Shoe.”

      He laughed and we shook hands. He glanced over at Marvin, who stood a discreet ten yards closer to the street. Shoe looked back at me and frowned, asking silently who Marvin was. “Bodyguard,” I said very low.

      “Fuckin’ A,” Shoe said.

      “Didn’t you hear about somebody shooting up our house?”

      He frowned again. “Well, I guess . . . I mean . . . I heard somethin’ but I don’t know if it was right.” The Shoemakers lived five houses down, and his daddy worked closely with the sheriff’s office. In a place the size of Eden Rise, everybody knew all there was to know about something like that. There was no way he didn’t know.

      “You talked to Diane?” he said. Diane Maxwell had been my high school girl friend.

      I shook my head. “She around?”

      He said she wasn’t in Eden Rise.

      I threw Shoe the ball and studied him a minute. Shoe wasn’t looking at me, even when he didn’t have the basketball. He was by nature a talkative guy and we were the best of friends. I asked about his first year at the University of Alabama, who he was dating, what his summer job was. He was friendly enough, but he didn’t ask any questions in return. I felt like an old-maid aunt extracting information from a nephew late for a hot date.

      I bounced him the ball but he let it fall on the driveway. “Hey, Tommy, it was great to see you, but I gotta get on to church.” We shook hands again, and he finally looked me in the eye. “You okay, buddy?”

      “Yeah, I’m all right, Shoe. Good to see you.”

      He turned, glanced at Marvin, and stepped quickly toward the Falcon.

      A rush of anger came over me. “Hey, Shoe, just a second.” He looked back over his open door as I trotted toward him. I stopped just on the outside of the open door.

      “Shoe, you know who shot up my house?”

      His eyes bugged momentarily before he looked to the side. When he looked back toward me, he was shaking his head, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Unh-uh.”

      I nodded, and he quickly slipped inside the car and pulled the door to. He drove off without another word, and he and I both knew his silence was a goddamn lie.

7

       Joe Black Pell for the Defense

      I had come with my father to Bebe’s for lunch. Joe Black Pell was due to arrive any minute. “Mama, it’s a mistake to use Pell to defend Tommy,” my father said. “I’ve talked to Harve Foster and he’s willing to help. Pell doesn’t have any principles.”

      Bebe frowned. “Buddy, you’re just parroting your father, and he never liked Joe Black’s politics. Joe Black is very smart, tough as they come, and he’s loyal. If Harvey Foster took the case and some big shot said ‘boo’ to him, he’d drop Tommy in a second.”

      “You don’t know that.”

      “I think I do, and you know why? Harvey never uttered a cross word to your daddy, and a good lawyer will take his client on when he needs to.”

      “A good lawyer does what his client wants.”

      “Look, Buddy, Joe Black has already started defending Tommy. He jumped right in that night at the hospital, and we should be thankful to have him.”

      Daddy sat back and scowled. “Well, I just don’t like the sonuvabitch.”

      She winced as she leaned forward in her easy chair, her legs still propped on the ottoman. She pointed a bony finger at Daddy. “You know, Buddy, you may be forty-seven years old, and I may be about to die, but it’s still not all right for you to cuss in front of me.” They glared at each other for