William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
William Faulkner, SANCTUARY â WordPress.com - literature save 2
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"Sure. Tell it to them. I dont know nothing about it. I wasn't even there. Get out<br />
and walk it off."<br />
The trial lasted one day. While a fellow policeman, a cigar-clerk, a telephone girl<br />
testified, while his own lawyer rebutted in a gaunt mixture of uncouth enthusiasm and<br />
earnest ill-judgment, Popeye lounged in his chair, looking out the window above the<br />
jury's heads. Now and then he yawned; his hand moved to the pocket where his cigarettes<br />
lay, then refrained and rested idle against the black cloth of his suit, in the waxy<br />
lifelessness of shape and size like the hand of a doll.<br />
The jury was out eight minutes. They stood and looked at him and said he was<br />
guilty. Motionless, his position unchanged he looked back at them in a slow silence for<br />
several moments. "Well, for Christ's sake," he said.<br />
The judge rapped sharply with his gavel; the officer touched his arm.<br />
"I'll appeal," the lawyer babbled, plunging along beside him. "I'll fight them<br />
through every court--"<br />
"Sure," Popeye said, lying on the cot and lighting a cigarette; "but not in here.<br />
Beat it, now. Go take a pill."<br />
The District Attorney was already making his plans for the appeal. "It was too<br />
easy" he said. "He took it--Did you see how he took it? like he might be listening to a<br />
song he was too lazy to either like or dislike, and the Court telling on what day they were<br />
going to break his neck. Probably got a Memphis lawyer already there outside the<br />
supreme court door now, waiting for a wire. I know them. It's them thugs like that have<br />
made justice a laughing-stock, until even when we get a conviction, everybody knows it<br />
wont hold."<br />
Popeye sent for the turnkey and gave him a hundred dollar bill. He wanted a<br />
shaving-kit and cigarettes. "Keep the change and let me know when it's smoked up," he<br />
said.<br />
"I reckon you wont be smoking with me much longer," the turnkey said. "You'll<br />
get a good lawyer, this time."<br />
"Dont forget that lotion," Popeye said. "Ed Pinaud." He called it "Py-nawd."<br />
It had been a gray summer, a little cool. Little daylight ever reached the cell, and a<br />
light burned in the corridor all the time, falling into the cell in a broad pale mosaic,<br />
reaching the cot where his feet lay. The turnkey gave him a chair. He used it for a table;<br />
upon it the dollar watch lay, and a carton of cigarettes and a cracked soup bowl of stubs,<br />
and he lay on the cot, smoking and contemplating his feet while day after day passed. The<br />
gleam of his shoes grew duller, and his clothes needed pressing, because he lay in them<br />
all the time, since it was cool in the stone cell.<br />
One day the turnkey said: "There's folks here says that deppity invited killing. He<br />
done two-three mean things folks know about." Popeye smoked, his hat over his face.<br />
The turnkey said: "They might not sent your telegram. You want me to send another one<br />
for you?" Leaning against the grating he could see Popeye's feet, his thin, black legs<br />
motionless, merging into the delicate bulk of his prone body and the hat slanted across his<br />
averted face, the cigarette in one small hand. His feet were in shadow, in the shadow of<br />
the turnkey's body where it blotted out the grating. After a while the turnkey went away<br />
quietly.<br />
When he had six days left the turnkey offered to bring him magazines, a deck of<br />
cards.