The Knoxville Girl

They say I should have left the poor girl alone. That I should be stoned for what I’ve done. They don’t know what they say. Don’t know what she was. Of course, down in Knoxville, they say a lot of things. It’s all just a matter of who you listen to.

         I spent every Sunday evening after church with the prettiest little girl you’d ever see this side of the Mississippi. Not a girl in the city could compete, not in my mind. My Bessie, with her tawny hair and cornflower eyes. She was like the sun to me, filling my life with brightness, chasing away all those cloudy days I‘d seen, showing me a shining light after so many days being buried in the coal mines.

         She’d pledged herself to me on the bank of the Tennessee River. That day in May… well, I thought that just had to be the very best day of my life. We’d had the most delightful picnic, and she was holding my hand as tight as ever. She told me wouldn’t nothing ever come between us. She told me she was mine forever. That girl was my everything.

         That is, until I saw her with that boy Samuel behind the church. How such a lovely holy girl could commit such unholy acts… How she could do such a thing at the very place we met, the very place we prayed and congregated, I’ll never know. Right there as the sinking black took over the sky that had been so clear and blue. Right there as I watched. Knowing not an hour later I’d be sitting with her at her farm house, having supper with her and her mama. She knew what she was doing, that girl did. But she didn’t know that I knew, as well.

         Evenings don’t last too long in Tennessee in October. The haze of dusk sets in before you even know what’s happened. After supper that Sunday night, I told little Bessie that I reckoned we should have a walk, that even though the sky was getting inky, we could take a lantern and have us a good stroll to the river, to be together and settle our stomachs. She agreed and we set out ambling the mile or so to the waterfront. Bessie stayed awful quiet, holding my hand and smiling at me in the setting sun. That smile told me just what she needed from me.

         As we neared the shoreline, I picked me up a stick. It was a nice, thick oak limb, the best you can find for a walking stick. I suppose we were both pretty silent that evening. We listened to the water flowing down that river, lapping on the rocks. As soon as she turned to look out over the small waves, I knew I had me a chance. I set down my lantern and took me up  that walking stick and knocked her right on the head with it. It made the nastiest thunk you ever heard, and she fell right down on her knees, which is where I reckon she belonged all along.

         Oh, did she ever ask for mercy and forgiveness. Mercy, mercy, mercy. Willie, dear, she cried, don’t kill me, not here, I can’t die here, I’m not ready. Have mercy. I suppose I let her hear my idea of mercy. And then she didn’t say one more word. I beat her and beat her with that piece of oak, till her lips broke and bled, to forgive her for her spoken lies. Till her blue eyes were closed, to make up for what she’d seen. Till her face was bruised and broken. If I could forgive her, I thought God could, too.

         The ground by the river ran red that night. I grabbed her up by those beautiful golden curls and drug her to the nearest tree, thinking I could bury her till I realized I didn’t have a shovel. I drug her back over to the riverside, and tossed her into the water. Her eyes were open and looking at me, I tell you, those roving eyes that she saw fit to set on someone else. Those devil eyes. Go down, I thought. Go down, you Knoxville girl, your eyes are dark now, and you won’t ever be my bride, you‘ll be the devil‘s instead. I watched her float. Then I watched her sink.

         I washed all that awful red off of me and hurried home to Knoxville as fast as I could. I prayed, but I knew God had wanted me to forgive her. I got home sometime around midnight. The door woke up my mama, who had been real worried about me. She asked me plenty of questions about all the red on my shirt, but I told her I’d bled from the nose, and I needed my handkerchief. I lit my way to bed and slept deeply.

         That night I tossed and turned and tumbled till dawn. I saw blue eyes in my sleep, dipped in the fires of hell. Split lips kept kissing me, and I tasted iron. It tasted like the coal mines. Waterlogged hands reached up for me, to hold me and take me down with them. I woke with pits of flames all around me. I’d been drug down to Satan by that awful little girl.

         After that it wasn’t too long before they came to get me. They carried me off from my mama, taking me to the jail in Knoxville. They wouldn’t hear my reasoning or my explanations. They just locked me up as tight as they could. I think they might have thrown away my key. I had plenty of friends come along and offer bail, but no one could make it.

         They say I’ll spend my life here, living in the darkness of this dirty old jail. I try and tell them I saved that girls soul, that maybe because of me God will forgive her the way I did. They say I’m crazy, that I’m never leaving. They say I’ll serve here for murdering that girl. That girl I loved so well.