Someone laughed and the pair of legs moved away. Avery dove forward and tackled him below the knees. He caught him from behind and locked his wrists and jerked upward. He felt the man struggle for his balance and leap out at the air as he went down. Johnny Big hit the concrete with his full weight. Avery freed himself and got up. He didn’t know if he could stand. His limbs felt disjointed from his body. Johnny Big pushed himself up from the floor. There was a cut right at his hairline. Avery clenched both his hands together and swung his arms downward in one motion like an axe and hit him across the bridge of the nose. Johnny Big fell back to the floor with his hands to his face. He was sitting on his rump, and he took his hands away and looked at them dumbly and put them back. His nose was broken. He got to his feet and swayed across the room to where his felt hat lay. Avery watched him, believing he had quit. Johnny Big put his fingers in the hatband and pulled out a thin, single-edged razor blade. He came forward, holding the razor between his thumb and fingers, low and out to the side like a knife fighter.
Avery backed away. The men scattered about the room. He looked around for a weapon. There was nothing he could use except a broom propped against the opposite wall, and Johnny Big was between him and it. He moved along the side of the tank, watching the razor blade all the while.
“Let him go, Johnny. We don’t want a cutting,” Shortboy said.
Johnny Big backed Avery towards the wall.
“He fought you square. You got no right to cut him,” the older inmate said.
Some of the men agreed and told Johnny Big that he should let Avery go. Johnny had been beaten in a fair fight, he had had his nose broken, and he was no longer head man of the tank. He had betrayed the others by losing the fight.
“You ain’t got call to cut on him.”
“You done beat one man almost to death,” the older inmate said.
“Yeah,” Shortboy said.
“I’ll cut any man that comes near us,” Johnny said.
Shortboy stepped back, although he was already twenty feet away.
The main door swung open and Ben Leander and two of the guards came into the room.
“I told you what would happen if I caught you at it again,” the jailer said. “There isn’t one of you going to get out of it this time.” He saw LeBlanc lying on the other side of the room. Johnny Big pushed his razor blade down into the back pocket of his denims. Avery was standing against the wall, and his face and neck were beaded with drops of perspiration.
“You guys don’t know when you got it good,” Leander said. “The only time you’re going to get out of the tank is to sandpaper the concrete. I told you I don’t take crap in my jail. It hasn’t been two hours since I warned you. Now it’s your ass.” He turned to the guards. “Go see if the sonofabitch is dead.”
The guards went over and looked at LeBlanc. One of them lifted his head and put it down again.
“He’s bleeding inside.”
“Did you start this, Johnny?” Ben Leander said.
“No sir.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Leander walked over and picked up the stub of frayed newspaper from the floor. He held it towards Johnny Big.
“Is this yours?”
He shook his head.
“This is one of your tricks.”
“I didn’t start the fight. It was LeBlanc and his buddy. LeBlanc started throwing things around after you left and we tried to stop him and the kid jumped in.”
“You don’t look too good, boy,” Leander said to Avery.
“Johnny Big don’t look too good, neither,” the older inmate said.
“That’s enough from you,” Leander said.
“Everybody beat up on LeBlanc and the boy tried to help him,” the older inmate said. “Johnny thought he could have some fun knocking him around and he got his nose broke.”
“Is that straight, Shortboy?” the jailer asked.
“I didn’t see it too good,” Shortboy said.
“It don’t make any difference who started it,” Leander said, “because all of you are going into the tank until I see fit to let you out.” He spoke to the guards. “Get LeBlanc out of my sight. Put him downstairs and keep him there till I call an ambulance. I don’t want to see him again. Take Johnny with you and get his nose fixed.”
The guards put LeBlanc’s arms over their shoulders and lifted him. His head hung down and his feet dragged across the floor. Johnny Big followed them.
“Wait a minute,” Leander said.
Johnny Big stopped.
“You put something in your back pocket when I came in.”
“I ain’t got nothing.”
“Take it out.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now throw it on the floor and get out of here.”
“Yes sir.”
Leander picked up the razor blade and dropped it in his shirt pocket.
“Come with me,” he said to Avery.
Avery went out of the room and Leander pulled the door shut behind him. He shot the steel bolt in place and clamped down the handle of the safety lock. They went down a corridor and up a spiral metal stairwell to the third floor of the building. Leander opened the door to a bare white room with a single window and an iron cage in the center. Avery stood by the window and looked down into the street while Leander unlocked the hole. The courthouse was across the square, with its white pillars and classic façade, and the well-kept lawn in front, green and wet from the water sprinklers in the sunlight, and the Confederate monument in the shade of the trees.
“Get inside,” Ben Leander said.
Avery walked to the open door.
“What do you get out of it?” he said. “Is it the money?”
Leander pushed him inside and swung the door shut. He twisted the key in the iron lock.
“They’re taking you to the work camp next week. You’re goddamn lucky,” he said.
That afternoon Avery had a visitor. Batiste had ridden the bus from Martinique parish to see him. He sat in the waiting room with his hat in his hand, wondering who to ask about Avery. There was a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with cord by his side. Ben Leander came out of his office and asked him what he wanted. Batiste said he wanted to see Avery Broussard, he had some tobacco and breadcake for him. Leander said that he was not allowed to have visitors, no one could see him on that day or any day as long as he remained in the parish jail. Batiste wanted to leave the package.
“He’s in the hole. He can’t get anything from outside when he’s in the hole,” Leander said, to make him understand how things were run in the parish jail.
J.P. Winfield
He was in the recording studio of a Nashville radio station. Three mornings a week he did a half-hour show which was put on tape and broadcast in the afternoon. The show was almost over. He stood at the microphone and sang the last number. The announcer sat at the table before another microphone, reading over the typewritten pages in his hand. A very plain woman in a cotton-print dress sat on the other side of the table, nervously twisting a handkerchief around her fingers. There were two men standing beside J.P., one with a guitar and the other with a banjo. They were waiting to do the advertisement. One of the sound engineers in the control room behind the sheet of glass signaled to them when J.P. finished. They strummed and sang the Live-Again slogan: