Haywood Patterson Story, Pt. 1

Soft rains fell over the city. Fog came up from the river in little cat steps and street lights twinkled in the grey afternoon. Clouds in the sky turned into each other and a deep, heavy thunder rolled behind them. Somebody laughed far-off, then there was only the rains again. It was Sunday afternoon.

Under empty awnings and concrete eaves people hid away in pairs, alone sometimes, and watched the rain fall on the streets and buildings. They laughed, talked quietly and smoked cigarettes. Some of them drank from brown paper bags and looked up at the sky.

The newspaper house on 11^th Street churned out smoke and fog and their workhouse bells rang letting everyone know that the world had not stopped. I was the fool walking in the rainy shadow of the old building and a stray black and white mutt dog trotted through the rain behind me. He followed me as far as the railroad bridge then ducked down a bushy trail with somewhere better to go. I went on a little ways and walked up the front steps of the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

Brother Ron Fender, an Episcopal monk in full monk's garb, was leaned back in an office chair behind a help desk just inside the front door. He looked at me as I walked in seeming ready to answer whatever question I had but I had been there before.

It was just after dinner and in the back corner of the Kitchen's dayroom a small crowd had gathered around two men playing checkers. In contrast to the rainy quiet outside this crowd was huddled over the two chess players clapping their hands and acting up like they were watching a chicken fight in the back yard. Hootin' and hollerin', they made careless fools of themselves and they seemed to be the most hospitiable people in the room. I walked back to their corner.

“You ever heard of Haywood Patterson,” I asked one of the men.

“Who?”

“Haywood Patterson.”

“No, I ain't heard of him.”

“He was one of the Scottsboro Boys,” I tried to explain, but one of the checker players made a quick slick move and the crowd of men erupted in howls and laughter. The other checker player cursed him and I was shoved out of the way by the laughing men.

That was that.

I left them alone, went to sit in a chair near near the front door to dry out. An old black couple, sixty years old or so, sat side by side near me. The old man wore stained denim overalls and the woman wore a dress. Their other belongings were in plastic grocery store bags at their feet. The expression on their faces was like the man and woman in the American Gothic painting. They sat still and stared with blank faces at the drizzling rain outside.