Sycamore Row

“An all-white jury?”

“No, but at least eight or nine of the twelve.”

“Wasn’t the Hailey jury all white?”

“Indeed it was, and it seemed to grow whiter each day. But that was a different trial.”

She took a sip from the can and looked again at the rows of important books covering the walls. “It must be pretty cool being a lawyer,” she said in awe.

“Cool” was not an adjective Jake would use. He was forced to admit to himself that it had been a long time since he viewed his profession as something other than tedious. The Hailey trial had been a great triumph, but for all the hard labor, harassment, physical threats, and raw emotions, he had been paid $900. For that, he’d lost his home and almost his family.

“It has its moments,” he said.

“Tell me, Jake, are there any black female lawyers in Clanton?”

“No.”

“How many black lawyers are there?”

“Two.”

“Where’s the nearest black woman with her own law office?”

“There’s one over in Tupelo.”

“Do you know her? I’d like to meet her.”

“I’ll be happy to make the phone call. Her name is Barbara McNatt, a nice lady. She was a year ahead of me in law school. Does primarily family law but also mixes it up with the cops and prosecutors. She’s a good lawyer.”

“That’d be great, Jake.”

She took another sip as they waited through an uncomfortable gap in the conversation. Jake knew where he wanted to go but couldn’t be in a hurry. “You mentioned law school,” he said, and this grabbed her attention. They talked about it at length, with Jake careful not to make his description as dreadful as the three-year ordeal itself. Occasionally, like all lawyers, Jake was asked by students if he would recommend the law as a profession. He had never found an honest way to say no, though he had many reservations. There were too many lawyers and not enough good jobs. They were packed along Main Streets in countless small towns, and they were stacked on top of each other in the tall buildings downtown. Still, at least half of all Americans who need legal help can’t afford it, so more lawyers are needed. Not more corporate lawyers or insurance lawyers, and certainly not more small-town street lawyers like himself. He had a hunch that if Portia Lang became a lawyer, she would do it the right way. She would help her people.

Quince Lundy arrived and broke up the conversation. Jake introduced Portia to him, and then walked her to the front door. Outside, under the terrace, he invited her to supper.

The hearing on Kendrick Bost’s petition for habeas corpus relief was held on the second floor of the federal courthouse in Oxford, as scheduled at 1:00 that afternoon. By then, the Honorable Booker F. Sistrunk had been wearing the county-jail coveralls for over twenty-four hours. He was not present at the hearing, nor was his presence expected.

A U.S. magistrate presided and did so with little interest. There was no precedent, at least not in the Fifth Circuit, for a federal court to get involved in a contempt ruling in state court. The magistrate asked repeatedly for some authority, from anywhere in the nation, but there was none.

Bost was permitted to rant and pant for half an hour, but said almost nothing of substance. His ill-grounded claim was that Mr. Sistrunk was the victim of some vague plot by the authorities in Ford County to remove him from the will contest, and so on. What was not said was the obvious: Sistrunk expected to be released simply because he was black and felt mistreated by a white judge.

The petition was denied. Bost immediately prepared an appeal to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. He and Buckley had also filed an appeal challenging the contempt order to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sistrunk played checkers with his new cell mate, a hot-check artist.

The maternal side of Carla’s family claimed some German roots, and for this reason she studied German in high school and for four years at Ole Miss. Clanton rarely provided the opportunity to practice the language, so she was delighted to welcome Portia to their modest rental home, even though Jake forgot to tell her about his invitation until almost 5:00 p.m. “Relax,” he’d said. “She’s a nice girl who might play a crucial role, plus she’s probably never been invited to a white person’s house for di

Their guest arrived promptly at 6:30, and she brought a bottle of wine, one with a cork. Though Jake had stressed that the evening was “as casual as possible,” Portia had changed and was wearing a long, loose, cotton dress. She greeted Carla in German, but quickly switched to English. She apologized for the bottle of wine—a cheap red from California—and they had a good laugh over the paltry selections in the local liquor stores. Jake explained that all wine and booze in the state were in fact purchased by the State, then doled out to privately owned liquor stores. This led to a lively discussion about the ridiculous liquor laws in Mississippi, where in some towns you can buy 180-proof rum but not a single can of beer.

Jake, holding the bottle, said, “We don’t keep alcohol in the house.”

“Sorry,” Portia said, embarrassed. “I’ll be happy to take it home.”

“Why don’t we just drink it?” Carla asked. A great idea. As Jake rummaged for a corkscrew, the women moved to the stove and looked at di

“What does ‘ciao’ mean?” Ha

“Among friends it means hello and good-bye in Italian, also in Portuguese, I think,” Portia said. “It’s a lot easier than ‘guten Tag’ or ‘bonjour.’ ”

“I know some words in German,” Ha

“We’ll practice later,” Carla said.

Jake found an old corkscrew and managed to wrestle the bottle open. “We once had real wineglasses,” Carla said as she pulled out three cheap water goblets. “Like everything else, they went up in the fire.” Jake poured; they clinked glasses, said “Cheers,” and sat at the kitchen table. Ha

“Do you talk about the fire?” Portia asked.

“Not much,” Jake said. Carla shook her head slightly and looked away. “However, if you’ve seen the paper, you know that one of the thugs is now back on the streets, or somewhere around here.”

“I saw that,” Portia said. “Twenty-seven months.”

“Yep. Granted, he didn’t light the match, but he was in on the pla

“Does it worry you, now that he’s out?”

“Of course it does,” Carla said. “We sleep with guns around here.”

“De

“Five if you count Blunt,” Carla said.

“He hasn’t been prosecuted. Blunt was the Klucker who tried to blow up the house a week before they burned it. He currently resides at the state mental hospital where he’s doing a good job of acting crazy.”