Limb

Taking the lives of innocent people is not what I envisioned myself doing. It’s not right and it’s inhuman.

            I remember the first time they swung the rope over me and pulled tight. I remember smelling the kerosene. I remember hearing the screams. I remember feeling the shaking. I remember hearing the laughter and taunts, the pleas and prayers. I remember seeing the first person that hung from me. I remember not recognizing him. I remember his family carefully lowering his charred body from my limb.

Out of all of the others I am the one they choose and I hate it. I am the perfect height; you can reach my best limb by simply standing on a small chair. And I’m strong; my limb can hold up two young boys.

I knew Jody. I’ve known him ever since he was a little boy. He use to run up and down the small dirt road, chasing after little girls with frogs and spider webs. I was there when Jody learned to ride a bike. I saw him when he went off to school. Right under me is where Jody experienced his first kiss.

But I wasn’t there when he supposedly sassed a miss. I didn't hear when the girl’s father, brothers, uncles, cousins, and neighbors decided to get Jody. Larsin told Macy, who told Douglas, who told Mathew, who told Shelly, who told me.

“They say he doesn’t have a chance,” Shelly said. “Just look at the situation, Marshall! It’s Jody we’re talking about. He lost his job five weeks ago. What do you expect? He spends his days going from store to store, factory to factory. No one is hiring a black man.” The wind began to pick up and I lost a couple of leaves when a big gust whipped around us.

 “Do you think a storm’s coming?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You should ask the birds.”

+++

The sun was being chased out of town by a looming storm when I saw a woman, worn out and hopeless, walking down the dirt path. She barely picked her feet off the ground. For a long time her thin, frail body rested heavily on my trunk. She just stared up at the darkening sky. Then she started crying a soulful, mournful cry. I could feel her shaking against my trunk.

“Lord, why, oh, why? Why muh Jody? Why it gottuh be ‘em? Why? Why me? I’m not strong anuf to deal wid this. I can’t hol’ himself and muhself up too,” she cried out. It was just the others and me that heard her that evening though. I think God was somewhere else.

I whispered over to Shelly, “Why is she crying so much?”

“Damn, Marshall you really are thick at the roots! Jody’s been caught! They on their way to you!”

“Me!? Well, his wife’s gotta get out of here! They’ll get her too! Help me get her out!”

“What am I supposed to do?” Shelly asked. But she didn’t have to worry because Jody’s wife heard the angry mob coming. She quickly ran further into the woods and hid behind a high bush.

I heard the voices too and then I could see flickering lights of red and orange. Finally, I saw the men, women, and children. There were old men, teenage boys and girls, and mothers carrying babies on their hips. Smaller boys and girls ran in front of and behind the loud mob.

Through the large mob I saw Jody. He was beaten up real bad. His eyes were swollen from where men hit him with the butt of their guns. His mouth was bloodied too. Every time he tripped on a root or fallen branch his captors would fiercely pick him up.

When they reached me they took a noose and placed it over his bleeding head. They threw the other end of the rope over my limb. It was rough and tore off a couple of my leaves. Jody tried to run away but it was no use; there were fifty of them and one of Jody. They made him get up on a chair. As soon as he stood up they kicked the chair out from under him.          Immediately, there was a huge pull on my limb. I wanted it to break, but then they would have found another limb of mine. A huge gust of wind made Jody’s body sway back and forth. The mob men, women, and children, stood silently and watched his body. They stared as if they had never seen a body hang from me before, but I recognized all of their faces. They had all been here before. Then someone yelled out, “Burn him!” and they did.

+++

Jody’s wife saw it all happen. She was close enough to smell his burning body and close enough to see when his charred body fell to the ground. By then the mob had dissipated. She crept quietly out from behind the bush and ran straight home. I didn’t expect to see her ever again.

But she returned and this time with an axe. She carried it over her shoulder like a huge burden was caste upon her. By this time it was darker than coal outside. I don’t know how she was able to find her way back to me. She stood next to me, set her feet apart and then swung down with the axe. It wasn’t long before she grew tired, sweaty, and realized that her axe was too dull and my trunk was too thick. Breathing heavily she walked back down the path.

Later, she returned with a rope and stool.

Jody’s wife tied a noose and threw the remaining rope around the same branch Jody once hung from. His body was still on the ground. She nervously placed the noose around her neck, climbed onto the stool and kicked herself off. She didn’t say anything, she wasn’t crying.

No one came looking for her.

Her body stayed hanging from my limb for months.

No one came down the dirt road anymore. The path was forgotten.

“That’s a strange fruit hanging from your limb, Marshall,” a young sapling said to me one day.

“Strange indeed,” I replied. “Strange indeed.”

By Marlena A. Elmore © 2012

The Strange Story of the Man Behind "Strange Fruit"  by Elizabeth Blair