No, he said, Charlie Watson wouldn’t have been 3-C. ’Cause he couldn’t grow grass in the Garden of Eden. He must have been 4-F.
Here, Jimmy turned a finger around his ear to imply Charlie Watson’s incapacity to reason.
Granted, these were juvenile taunts, but they had begun to make Emmett grit his teeth. He could feel the old heat rising to the surface of his skin. But he could also feel that Billy was tugging at his hand—maybe for the simple reason that the fiddling contest was about to begin, or maybe because, even at the age of six, Billy understood that no good could come from engaging with the likes of Jimmy Snyder. But before Billy could tug Emmett away, Jimmy took one more crack at it.
No, he said, it couldn’t have been because he was 4-F. He’s too simple to be crazy. I suppose if he didn’t fight, it must have been because he was 4-E. What they call a conscientious— Before Jimmy could say the word objector, Emmett had hit him. He had hit him without even letting go of his brother’s hand, extending his fist from his shoulder in one clean jab, breaking Jimmy’s nose.
It wasn’t the broken nose that killed him, of course. It was the fall. Jimmy was so used to speaking with impunity that he wasn’t prepared for the punch. It sent him stumbling backward, arms flailing. When his heel caught on a braid of cables, Jimmy fell straight back, hitting his head on a cinderblock that was bracing the stake of a tent.
According to the medical examiner, Jimmy landed with such force that the corner of the cinderblock dug a triangular hole an inch deep into the back of his skull. It put him in a coma that left him breathing, but that was slowly sapping his strength. After sixty-two days, it finally drained the life out of him altogether, as his family sat at his bedside in their fruitless vigil.
Like the warden said: The ugly side of chance.
Sheriff Petersen was the one who brought the news of Jimmy’s death to the Watsons’ doorstep. He had held off on pressing charges, waiting to see how Jimmy would fare. In the meantime, Emmett had maintained his silence, seeing no virtue in rehashing the events while Jimmy was fighting for his life.
But Jimmy’s pals did not maintain their silence. They talked about the fight often and at length. They talked about it in the schoolhouse, at the soda fountain, and in the Snyders’ living room. They told of how the four of them had been on their way to the cotton-candy stand when Jimmy bumped into Emmett by mistake; and how before Jimmy even got the chance to apologize, Emmett had punched him in the face.
Mr. Streeter, Emmett’s attorney, had encouraged him to take the stand and tell his own version of events. But whatever version prevailed, Jimmy Snyder was still going to be dead and buried. So Emmett told Mr. Streeter that he didn’t need a trial. And on March 1, 1953, at a hearing before Judge Schomer in the county courthouse, after freely admitting his guilt, Emmett was sentenced to eighteen months at a special juvenile reform program on a farm in Salina, Kansas.
In another ten weeks, the fairgrounds wouldn’t be empty, thought Emmett. The tent would be raised and the stage rebuilt and the people would gather once again in anticipation of the contests and food and music. As Emmett put the Studebaker in gear, he took little comfort from the fact that when the festivities commenced he and Billy would be more than a thousand miles away.
* * *
Emmett parked along the lawn at the side of the courthouse. As it was Sunday, only a few stores were open. He made quick stops at Gunderson’s and the five-and-dime, where he spent the twenty dollars from his father’s envelope on sundries for the journey west. Then after putting his bags in the car, he walked up Jefferson to the public library.
At the front of the central room, a middle-aged librarian sat at a V-shaped desk. When Emmett asked where he could find the almanacs and encyclopedias, she led him to the reference section and pointed to various volumes. As she was doing so, Emmett could tell that she was scrutinizing him through her glasses, giving him a second look, as if maybe she recognized him. Emmett hadn’t been in the library since he was a boy, but she could have recognized him for any number of reasons, not least of which was that his picture had been on the front page of the town paper more than once. Initially, it was his school portrait set alongside Jimmy’s. Then it was Emmett Watson being taken into the station house to be formally charged, and Emmett Watson descending the courthouse steps in the minutes after his hearing. The girl at Mr. Gunderson’s had given him a similar look.
—Can I help you find anything in particular? the librarian asked after a moment.