Virginia Reeves - Work Like Any Other

I often wonder what Marie would say about this library, this glimmer of knowledge and learning tucked away in the walls of a prison, what she’d say of the things we still share — children’s books, dictionaries, Bibles.

Dean is setting The Old Tobacco Shop down on Rash’s desk, a green metal beast covered with papers and cards. “Let’s see, let’s see,” Rash says. “Mr. Thomas. Did you return your last book?”

“Yes, sir.”

I like the sound of the date stamp on the card, and again on the envelope inside the book’s cover, heavy and permanent.

“D,” Rash is saying, “E-A-N. That’s good, Mr. Thomas. Your writing is coming along. T-H-O-M-A-S. No, not like that. Like a snake. It curves top and bottom.”

The wheels on the library cart spin in circles instead of rolling forward. It’s a hard contraption to maneuver, and over its insistent squeaks and moans, I listen for Marie’s voice reading one of those books from her father’s library. I listen for Gerald’s breathy laugh at the funny parts.

They are silent though, both of them, not like that night I walked the fields, the night I thought of the transformers and the thresher.

They are so different now, Marie and Gerald, so formless and malleable.

I finish with the stacks and sit at one of the tables to help organize the cards. Rash has me looking for overdue books, and it takes hours to go through the small files. When I’m finished, I set a stack on Rash’s desk. “Nothing recent,” I tell him. “But these ones have been out at least a year. This one”—I tap the top card—“is going into its third.”

Rash picks up the pile, looks through the titles, then dumps the cards into the waste bin. “These are convicts, Roscoe. This is a prison library. We have no misconceptions about our customers.”

He waves his hand in the air, dismissing me. Even Rash isn’t above these gestures, the ones that turn us into flies or gnats.

Roscoe got a State-appointed lawyer who refused to listen to any of his explanations about electricity and current and how little he’d actually taken from Alabama Power.

“None of that matters, son,” the man said. “We’ll do best just talking about the hardships on the family — your father-in-law’s death, the struggling farm.”

“It isn’t struggling now.”

“Best keep that to yourself, son. We need the farm to be struggling.”

“What about Wilson? How are you handling his case?”

“I’m not. He has his own representation. You’ll be having separate trials.”

Roscoe sent letters to Marie: Are you covering Wilson’s court fees? Why do we have separate lawyers? Please visit. Marie didn’t respond.

Roscoe’s lawyer had no information about anyone outside the courtroom — nothing about Marie or Gerald or Wilson. Roscoe assumed Wilson was in the same jail, but the colored section was in a separate wing, so their paths never crossed. Roscoe had no connection with the life he’d come from, and he spent most of his time recalling specifics he didn’t want to forget. He took tours of the house, walking slowly up the stairs. At the landing, he took a right and then entered the library. He walked its walls of books, shelves rising from floor to ceiling. He pulled a book out, flipped a few pages, read a passage, slid it back into place. He did this again and again. Sometimes Marie joined him, sometimes Gerald.

The trial came quickly, and the Birmingham News covered it. The guards at the jail passed Roscoe their newspapers when they were finished with them, teasing him about his prominence in the headlines. Roscoe read about himself like a stranger, his time in that city jail one of layered realities. There was his own memory and understanding of events, and then there was the prosecution’s skewed and daggered account, and then the paper’s version, slimmed down to the meatiest, most damning moments. At times Roscoe found himself nearly swayed by some of the information; at other times anger would grow in him as it had in those pre-electricity days on the farm.

In the courtroom, the prosecutor asked an expert from Alabama Power to explain how the company measured electricity: “In layman’s terms, please. So we can all follow you.”

“We measure electricity by kilowatt hours. A watt or kilowatt is a measure of voltage times current — one kilovolt at one amp of current dissipates one kilowatt of energy.”

“I said layman’s terms, please!” the prosecutor said, and the chamber filled with laughter.

The paper wrote, The prosecutor played to the jury with his humor .

The electrician on the stand smiled. “Just kilowatts, then.”

“And what can you estimate about Mr. Martin’s consumption?”

“Preliminary data tells us that the average urban household is using twenty kilowatts a day. Let us say that this farm with its fully electrified house and thresher used only fifty kilowatts a day.” The man had made a chart, and he pointed to it with a long stick. “Alabama Power charges its customers eight cents per kilowatt hour, which puts Mr. Martin’s consumption around four dollars a day.”

The man was exaggerating, Roscoe knew, exaggerating if not outright lying. Nearly 10 percent of a line’s voltage was lost every day in transmission, which made his consumption negligible. Anyone actually working the dam or the powerhouse knew that, but Roscoe could tell the company’s man wasn’t one to put his hands on the lines. Figures and theories were fine if physical evidence backed them up — Faraday always gave numerous demonstrations during every lecture — but the man on the stand had nothing to substantiate his claims.

“Four dollars a day!” the prosecutor was shouting. “Now, that sounds like a lot of money to me, sir, but I’m just a lowly attorney.” Again, the room chuckled. The News wrote, Again, the room murmured with joviality . Joviality?

Roscoe saw the jury growing convinced. He saw their anger rising. Four dollars a day.

“Now, we believe Mr. Martin has been unlawfully routing electricity to his home for two years.” The prosecutor paced in front of the jury. “According to your figures, how much is that voltage worth, sir?”

“Two thousand nine hundred twenty dollars.”

The News: There was a gasp from the jury and the audience .

There was. They glanced at Roscoe with disdain, as though he’d been robbing their own reserves.

“This is a conservative estimate?”

“Yes. With the extent of his consumption, we feel that Mr. Martin could easily have acquired double that figure, if not more.”

“Are you aware of the average household income in this country?”

“Yes, sir.”

Roscoe’s lawyer objected to this question as irrelevant, but was quickly overruled. In the whole trial, the judge only sustained two of the man’s objections.

“Could you please tell the court the average household income in this country?” the prosecutor asked.

“One thousand two hundred and thirty-six dollars, sir.”

The prosecutor stood motionless and quiet at this number, letting it bore down into the hearts of the modest jury members. After a long minute, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, an innocent man paid his life for this greed.” The paper quoted that, too.

ROSCOE’Slawyer called few witnesses. Edgar J. Bean was one of them. “He’s a good character witness,” the lawyer told Roscoe. “He’ll show your integrity, how you make good on your promises.”

Bean told the judge and the jury how Roscoe had paid his debt in full, with interest. “I didn’t require no interest, but Roscoe included a good five percent.” Bean looked over at him. “I’d do business with Roscoe any day.”