A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines Page A

make her happy.”
    The deputy came up to the cell and let me out.
    â€œY’all doing all right?” he asked, as we walked away.
    â€œHe was glad to get some home cooking,” I said.
    â€œI can’t blame him for that,” the deputy said.

12
    I KNEW MISS EMMA expected me to come back and tell her all about Jefferson, but I had not thought of a good lie yet. I couldn’t go there and tell her what had really happened; that would have hurt too much. I couldn’t go there and say that we had had a good talk; she probably wouldn’t have believed it, not after the way he had acted when we were there together. I needed time to think, to think of something. Not a big lie, just a little lie or a number of little lies, but a lie it had to be. Maybe I could tell her he was concerned about her health. She would like that. Maybe I could tell her he had begun to use the brush and comb I had bought for him. Or maybe I could say that the deputy had told me what a good prisoner he was, and that the sheriff himself had said he was a good boy. I needed time, time to get my lies straight. And the best place for that was at the Rainbow. I got into my car and drove back of town.
    The Rainbow Club was quiet, dark and quiet. There were only two old men in the place, besides Joe Claiborne, who was behind the bar. All three stood talking baseball. Jackie Robinson. Robinson had just finished his second year with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
    â€œWhat’s happening, Prof?” Claiborne said to me.
    â€œA Jax,” I said.
    He brought the bottle of beer to me.
    â€œA little business in town,” I said.
    Claiborne could see that I didn’t want to talk about the business, or maybe he realized what the business was. He nodded his head and went back down the bar where the other customers were. The two old men had continued their conversation, and Claiborne joined them again as if he had never left.
    From where I stood, about halfway down the bar, all I could hear was Jackie this and Jackie that. Nothing about any of the other players, nothing about the Brooklyn Dodgers as a team. Only Jackie. Jackie this and Jackie that.
    I sipped my beer slowly while listening to them. And they were very good. They could recall everything Jackie had done in the past two years. They remembered when he got his first hit, and who it was against. They remembered the first time he stole two bases in one game and the first time he stole home. One of the men backed away from the bar to demonstrate how slow the pitcher was in throwing the ball, which gave Jackie the opportunity to steal home plate. The old man looked over each shoulder, as pitchers do when there are runners on bases. He raised his leg as high as he could, which was only about a foot off the floor, to show how much time the pitcher took to throw the ball to the plate. While the pitcher went through the motion of raising his leg and winding his arm, Jackie was on his way home. Now the old man became Jackie—not running, but showing the motion of someone running at full speed. His arms were doing what the legs could not do. He showed you the motion of Jackie sliding into the plate, the motion of the umpire calling Jackie safe, and the motion of Jackie brushing off his clothes and going into the dugout. The old man nodded his head emphatically, with great pride, and went back to the bar. Claiborne and the other old man told him that he was exactly right.
    Listening to them, I could remember back to the time before Jackie came to the major leagues, when it was Joe Louis that everyone talked about. Yes, I could remember, I could remember when he was the only one. Especially the big fight with Schmeling, that German. I could still remember how depressed everyone was after Joe had lost the first fight with Schmeling. For weeks it was like that. To be caught laughing for any reason seemed like a sin. This was a period of mourning. What else in the world was there to be proud