There was a tender in them both, a place picked raw.
As Southern men do, the clasping of hands that know
weather. Eye linked to eye, unflinching, the flat-toned,
muttered how-do. How do you? And the scripted respect,
the pudge-cheeked preacher inquiring idly after the dying
man’s days. Whole wars in them, but just a single rupture.
Their halos florid, overglowing, some news reporter hissing
expectantly into a dead silver mic: Say it, say it. James Earl
liver-toned, wobbling on old bone, one lazy eye perked for it.
It. The King rolls his Rs, throats elegant, sweats bullets into
his collar. Having shaved too keenly, his beard is peppered
red, whispering blood. And still the pleasantries. Exactly how
does one go from commenting on the weather (it’s hot: awfully
humid: smells like more rain: hope it lets up) to asking did
you frame my father’s head in your gun sight, did you empty
his dinner chair, lonely my nights, pull back on that trigger?
Jesus, he looks just like his nigga daddy, James Earl thinks,
Bet he can call on God and turn his other cheek with the best
of them. Go on, get it out, boy.  I’m dying heah. Cameras whir.
The men are like fools, silent, damned respectful, exactly a
yardstick between them. And it’s the windup, the pitch: Sir, I
have to ask you, sir, my kind sir, excuse me, I hate to bother
you sir, but I have to ask for the record, Did you kill my father?
And if the answer is yes, will there be a throttling, an errant
sob, a small silver pistol slipped from an inside pocket? And if
the answer is no, will there be a throttling, an errant sob, a
small silver pistol slipped from an inside pocket? Time has a
way of growing things all huge, lifting up our soul to shove in
the splinter. But, surprisingly, James Earl resists double-take,
spittle and the wide-eye. No, I didn’t. No, sir. No. That settles
it then, that settles it.  And we’re locked in on this limp drama
long after the credits have rolled and Hollywood Squares has
taken over, long after the network has anthemed and dimmed
to snow. Time for a Twinkie and a brew. Time to fall asleep with
a clear head. Time to celebrate the slow sweet of Southern men.
It’s time to rejoice in the fact that nobody killed nobody,
and high time to forget that somebody died anyway.