Fiction Short Story

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Fiction Short Story

Billy Bob Comes to Dinner

By Grady Kirbo

What a day. The sun burned off the fog early and was shining bright. There was a soft breeze blowing that made the heat bearable long as you had a glass of iced tea in your hands.

Grandmother Kate had invited Billy Bob Thorton over to supper on account of all of the hard work he did around the place for next to nothing. It was the least she could do. She started to cook about two in the afternoon for the occasion.

The supper was suppose to be no big thing but Kate saw it different. Billy Bob was to be treated like the preacher come over for Sunday dinner. Although Archie Lee frowned at all the preparations he kept his mouth shut. He knew when he was outgunned and this was one of those times. There was no way to dampen Grandmother's spirits when she was fixin' for company.

Supper took on the looks of itself about six o'clock. There was fatback, black-eyed peas, cornbread, greens boiled with bacon bits, roast beef and biscuits with honey and gravy. There was also a generous helping of fried okra and a stack of fresh corn to be buttered up. To top it all off there was coffee and a large blueberry pie that went with a helping of homemade ice cream that us younguns had cranked up in the ice cream maker that afternoon and put into the ice box for safekeeping away from the hungry folks who had been smelling the fixin's all day long. Granddaddy Archie Lee also bought a little white lightning that he hid in his hollowed-out waking cane. Wouldn't do to have company and not be able to offer them a snort of Uncle Joe's shine.

Billy Bob showed up at six-thirty like he was told. He and Archie Lee sat rocking on the front porch dippin' into the shine while Kate got the table set and the good silver out of the box. Then at long last it was time to eat. We was all so damn hungry by then we would have eaten anything, much less a sumptuous meal like the one that was laid before our eyes on company-come-for-supper occasions. Billy Bob was dressed in his Sunday clothes. He wanted to honor Grandmother Kate as best he could for having him over. He was hill folk though and he put his napkin in his shirt collar to protect his shirt and tie from drippings. First though was the blessing. Then after a good showing of reverence for the Lord, we went after the food that sat there in glory.

There is nothing like the sense of contentment in a meal well put on. We all stuffed ourselves with the fixin's till we were about to bust open. Then after pie we all settled back to hear Billy Bob tell us a story of his life on the road as a hobo. He told a good one too.

Billy Bob told us the story of the Scottsboro Boys. Seems like he was on the train bumming with several Negroes. He knew them all from riding around the south. They were like family to Billy. Seems though they made acquaintances with a white girl who was riding the trains on a lark to make her parents mad and to get their goat. When they got to Scottsboro she got off the train and told the police that the colored boys had raped her.

Well you never seen the likes of the uproar this caused. The sheriff and deputies came out to the hobo yard and found the boys that had been accused and hauled them off to jail to stand trial. Billy Bob knew they hadn't done it, and said so, but to no avail. Every one of them boys, all six of them, were tried and convicted and got sentences from a low of twelve years to twenty years for most of them. Never you mind that they were innocent. Just a white girl sayin' they had done the deed was enough for the sheriff and the jury back in those days. Proof enough.

Years later a writer fellow from up north came down and found the proof they were innocent and presented the case to the circuit court in Atlanta. Even so, it took over two years for the authorities to release those boys. Once you're in the hooch house it takes a powerful lot of convincing to get them to let you out and say it was all a mistake. The white girl who had lied about the deed finally 'fessed up and they were all released after serving almost ten years in jail. Nothing happened to her or anybody else who had railroaded them into the penitentiary.

The sun had gone down and the crickets were singing by the time Billy Bob had finished his yarn. Us younguns were getting sleepy as we always did after a company-come-to-eat meal. We were climbing into bed as Billy Bob drove off into the night hollering that he loved us and thank you very much. I never rode the rails but I always dreamed of such foolishness when I was young and the stories we heard were oh, so grand.