French Quarter, New Orleans LA.
My cane hitting the concrete floor reminded me I was seventy years old now; my body and mind scarred from years of imprisonment. I took many a beating, night terrors caused me to cry in my sleep. Weeping in the big house was looked down upon, made ‘em think I was weak.
The light still buzzed above me like it did when I was a young man. I worked here for nearly a decade when it was an Elementary school, it now houses public records. I loved the kids, spoke to each one that passed me by, some laughed because I always had a broom or mop in my hand. Never had a chance to have a family of my own. I am nobody’s grandpa, never will be.
I came back to this place to put an end to all the heartaches and lies.
I hobbled into the janitor’s closet and shut the door. I sat down in the child sized, metal legged chair. I guess some things never change. I reached into my pocket, pulled out and unfolded the piece of notebook paper that would help bring Jimmy Ray’s truth.
What I said on the stand that day was true. I had blood on my shirt from dragging that injured pup off the road but, I ain’t never killed that six-year-old boy. I loved them babies. They made me smile. I did forty five years of somebody else’s time. Tomas Hill
I guessed this was suicide in a sense.
Just as I expected Cary Truney opened that closet door and went to shoot me with his handgun. But what a man anticipates, he can stop. I put one right between his eyes. He’d been following me since I got out, scared I would tell his secret. I was a coward back in nineteen fifty-eight, they would have just called me a liar and a murderer had I told ‘em what I seen. I would’ve been killed in the streets.
Maybe my note would help my case and maybe it wouldn’t. I made honest men out of them twelve and Cary Truney started his life sentence today.
THE END
Leesa Writes 