What made the math complicated was the Tommy Ladue business. The son of an Okie who hadn’t had enough sense to leave Oklahoma back in the thirties, Tommy Ladue was the sort of guy who looked like he was wearing overalls even when he wasn’t.
When Townhouse joined us in Bunkhouse Four as Emmett’s bunkmate, Tommy was none too pleased. As an Oklahoman, he said, he was of a mind that the Negroes should be housed in their own barracks and eat at their own tables in the company of their own kind. To look at the picture of Tommy’s family in front of their farmhouse, you might wonder what the Ladues of Oklahoma were trying so hard to keep the black folks from, but that didn’t seem to occur to Tommy.
That first night, as Townhouse was stowing his newly issued clothes in his footlocker, Tommy came over to set a few things straight. He explained that while Townhouse could come and go to his bed, he was not welcome in the western half of the bunkhouse. In the bathroom, which had four sinks, he was only to use the one that was farthest from the door. And as to eye contact, he’d best keep that to a minimum.
Townhouse looked like someone who could take care of himself, but Emmett had no patience with that sort of talk. He told Tommy that an inmate was an inmate, a sink was a sink, and Townhouse could move as freely through the barracks as the rest of us. If Tommy had been two inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and twice as courageous, he might have taken a swing at Emmett. Instead, he went back to the western half of the bunkhouse in order to nurse his grievance.
Life on a work farm is designed to dull your wits. They wake you at dawn, work you till dusk, give you half an hour to eat, half an hour to settle down, and then it’s out with the lights. Like one of those blindered horses in Central Park, you’re not supposed to see anything other than the next two steps in front of you. But if you’re a kid who’s been raised in the company of traveling entertainers, which is to say small-time grifters and petty thieves, you never let yourself get that unobservant.
Case in point: I had noticed how Tommy had been cozying up to Bo Finlay, the like-minded guard from Macon, Georgia; I had overheard them casting aspersions upon the darker races as well as the white men who favored them; one night behind the kitchen, I had seen Bo slipping two narrow blue boxes into Tommy’s hands; and at two in the morning, I had watched as Tommy tiptoed across the bunkhouse in order to stow them inside Townhouse’s footlocker.
So, I wasn’t particularly surprised when during the morning review, Old Testament Ackerly—in the company of Bo and two other guards—announced that someone had been stealing from the pantry; I wasn’t surprised when he walked straight up to Townhouse and ordered him to unpack his things onto his freshly made bed; and I certainly wasn’t surprised when all that came out of Townhouse’s footlocker were his clothes.
The ones who were surprised were Bo and Tommy—so surprised, they didn’t have the good sense not to look at each other.
In a hilarious show of poor self-restraint, Bo actually brushed Townhouse aside and flipped his mattress over in order to see what was hiding underneath.
—Enough of that, said the warden, looking none too happy.
That’s when I piped up.
—Warden Ackerly? I says, says I. If the pantry has been pilfered, and some scoundrel has impugned our honor by claiming that the culprit resides in Bunkhouse Four, I am of the opinion that you should search every one of our footlockers. For that is the only way to restore our good name.
—We’ll decide what to do, said Bo.
—I’ll decide what to do, said Ackerly. Open ’em up.
At Ackerly’s command, the guards began moving from bunk to bunk, emptying each and every footlocker. And lo and behold, what did they find at the bottom of Tommy Ladue’s but a brand-new box of Oreos.
—What can you tell us about this, said Ackerly to Tommy, while holding up the damning dessert.
A wise young man might have stood his ground and declared that he had never seen that light-blue box. A wily one might even have asserted with the confidence of the technically honest: I did not put those cookies in my locker. Because, after all, he hadn’t. But without skipping a beat, Tommy looked from the warden to Bo and sputtered:
—If I was the one who took the Oreos, then where’s the other box!
God bless him.
Later that night, while Tommy was sweating it out in the penalty shed and Bo was muttering into his mirror, all the boys in Bunkhouse Four gathered around to ask me what the hell had happened. And I told them. I told them how I’d seen Tommy cozying up to Bo, and the suspicious exchange behind the kitchen, and the late-night planting of evidence.