Virginia Reeves - Work Like Any Other

He nodded, trying to convey the gratitude he was feeling.

“Eaton!” the guard yelled again.

The man stepped to the gate.

“Rest of you stay put till we come for you,” the guard said, pulling the gate open, its hinges singing. Then he clanged it back closed. “You’ll be brought food soon. No fussin’ till then.”

One of Roscoe’s cellmates spat on the floor.

The guard gave him a half-lipped smile, wry and laden with threat. He didn’t say anything as he led Eaton away.

Roscoe stayed in his bunk as his cellmates rose from theirs. He was tired, and his cough had retreated, so he closed his eyes. He couldn’t have slept long, but he felt rested when he woke to the calling of his name.

“Did I miss the food?” he asked the remaining men.

“Nah,” one of them said.

“Martin!” the guard yelled. “Let’s go!”

It was a different guard from the first, and he spoke less, the gate the only noise as it swung open and then closed.

Standing outside the cell didn’t feel any freer than standing inside.

“Walk in front of me,” the guard said. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

Roscoe followed the man’s curt instructions down the cell corridor, then into a hallway that looked more like a hospital’s, then to a door that opened into a small room with a single table and two chairs. A man was seated in one of the chairs already, facing the door. He wore a white shirt and a red-and-blue-striped tie. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. His hair was greased and slicked to the side, and his glasses were thick. Behind him, an unbarred window looked out the side of the building toward fields and a line of trees.

“Take a seat,” the man in the chair said.

The guard nudged Roscoe gently forward. He sat. Behind him, the door closed, and Roscoe looked over his shoulder to see that the guard was still there, guarding.

“Are you comfortable?” the white-shirted man asked.

“No.”

The man smiled. “First honest reply I’ve gotten today. Still, do you need anything? A glass of water? A cigarette?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m an interviewer. I’m going to take down your history. I’d like you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“I imagine you already have my history.”

“We have your court records, Mr. Martin, but we’re interested in more than that.” The man looked down at the file and papers in front of him, and his voice switched to recitation, clearly reading from a text. “ ‘The State of Alabama has adopted a new convict intake process, where convicts will receive a thorough study of their history, a mental and physical examination, a course of treatment to remove any remedial defects, assignment to the prison and employment for which the convict is best adapted, and a systematic course of reformatory treatment and training, in order that the prisoner may be restored to society, if possible, a self-respecting, upright, useful and productive citizen.’ ”

The man looked up.

“I’ll take a cigarette.” Roscoe had had few since Sheriff Eddings first came to the house, and the taste sat warm and thick on his tongue, the smoke clearing the last of the dust from his lungs.

The man watched him smoke for a moment. “Your name is Roscoe T Martin, is that right?”

“Does everyone come through here?”

“This is the central distributing prison, so yes.”

“Did a black man come through named Wilson Grice?”

The man looked at the folder again. “I didn’t conduct his interview.”

“Can you find out who did?”

“No.”

Roscoe took another drag.

“What does the T stand for?”

Roscoe shook his head. “Nothing. My father liked the look of the letter.”

The man wrote something in the folder. “Your parents. Can you tell me about your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

“And before that?”

“My father was a foreman at a coal mine.”

“You’re married?”

“Yes.”

“And does your wife have a vocation?”

“She was a schoolteacher.”

The man flipped a page. “Did she continue teaching once you moved to the farm?”

“No.”

The man flipped back. “How would you describe your profession at the time of your arrest?”

“I was an electrician.”

“You weren’t working for Alabama Power, though.”

“I was working for our farm.”

“Ah, yes, the farm you inherited from your wife’s father.” The man flipped again. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about your childhood.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your childhood?”

Roscoe thought immediately of his sisters, all of them — Anna, Margaret, and Catherine. He thought of the barn he’d shared with Catherine while Anna and Margaret died in the house, drowning in a room full of air. “Little to tell.”

The man in the tie looked disappointed, but he moved past it, scratching something down in the folder before asking his next question. “You had a Negro family working for you, the Grices?”

“Yes.”

“And Wilson Grice — who you were asking after earlier — he was your accomplice?”

“No.”

“He was convicted.”

“That was wrong.”

The man pushed his glasses up his nose and wrote in the folder. “Were you angry with Alabama Power, Mr. Martin? Is that why you targeted the company?”

“No. I love that company.”

The man made one more note, then flipped several pages ahead. “We’re shifting gears here, Mr. Martin. These next questions aren’t about your own life. Please answer them the best you can.”

Roscoe’s cigarette was down to his fingers.

The man noticed at the same time. “Help yourself to as many of those as you’d like.” He nodded toward the box. “Now, Mr. Martin, if you had only one match and you entered a cold and dark room where there was an oil heater, an oil lamp, and a candle, which would you light first?”

Roscoe laughed. He was just pulling a match from its box, so he held it up for the man to see.

“The match, then?”

“Yes.”

Roscoe lit his cigarette.

“Take two apples from three apples. What do you have?”

“Two.”

“How many animals did Moses take on the ark?”

“Is this an intelligence test?”

The man smiled. “You’re full of new responses, aren’t you, Mr. Martin.” He shook his head. “How do you know what this is?”

“I don’t. How can you measure my intelligence by my knowledge of the Bible?”

“What’s your answer?”

“Moses didn’t take any animals on the ark.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Zero is my answer.”

The questions continued. Divide 30 by half and add 10. Numbers were easy for Roscoe. That was 70. Dividing by half was the same as multiplying by 2. They were games, those questions. Tricks.

The man in the tie stood when they were finished. “I’m sorry you’re here, Mr. Martin.”

“Me, too.”

Roscoe shook the man’s hand.

Taylor has given me back my Fridays in the library, and Rash is the one to tell me about the end of convict leasing, a newspaper spread on his desk when I arrive.

“Governor Bibb Graves finally bowed to the pressure,” Rash says, pointing to the front page. “He signed in new legislation that makes it ‘unlawful to work any convict, State or County, in any coal mine in Alabama.’ ” It’s been seventeen years since that Banner mine explosion, long enough for a child to be born and grow to age, get taken in, and sent off to a mine. That’s a life we’ve let pass before making any changes.

What’s become of this state? I hear my father lamenting, and his voice makes me wonder — for the first time in years — about my little sister and her coalman.