More Oddments

I Didn’t Do It

Well, I keep telling you I didn’t do it. I don’t care how much evidence there is. You got to believe me. I didn’t do it.

Sure, I was out there that night. I already admitted that, didn’t I? I went out there to see Mr. Mason about a job. He gave me a dollar in town that day. I told him I was homeless, down on my luck, and he gave me a dollar and said come out and see him and maybe he could put me to work doing something on his farm. He told me his name and where he lived, said it was only about half a mil outside of town. So I walked out there that night. It was a hot night and I didn’t have nothing to do in town, nowhere to go, no place to sleep, so figured why not go out there and see Mr. Mason instead of waiting until the next day. I figured maybe he’d give me something to eat and a place to sleep. SO I went out there. How was I to know he’d gone off to Springville on business and wouldn’t be home until after midnight?

Well, I come onto his property about nine o’clock. Just after dark, so it must have been about nine. Wasn’t nobody around, but lights was on in the house. It was a hot night, quiet, and when I got up near the porch I heard them sounds plain as day. Did I know right off what they was? Well, not right off. They was just moaning sounds to me at first, like maybe somebody was hurt. So I went around the side of the house, through the garden, to see if that was what it was, somebody hurt. That’s how come you found my footprint over by the bedroom window, where I stepped in the mud from the sprinklers. I never said I wasn’t in the garden, did I? But I never went up close to that window. No, sir. I’ll swear it on a Bible. I never went close to that window and I never looked inside that bedroom.

I recognized them sounds, that’s why. I knowed then what was going on. Him and her in there, making all that moaning noise, making them bedsprings squeak and squeal like a soul in torment. I knowed what they was doing. So I beat it right out of there, you bet I did. Fast.

Did I know it wasn’t Mr. Mason in there with Mrs. Mason? Well, I guess I did. I guess I knowed it, all right. I heard the fellow’s voice plain, some of the things he was saying to her... no, I ain’t going to say what them things was. I don’t even want to repeat them things in my own mind, let alone out loud. But I heard his voice plain and it wasn’t Mr. Mason’s voice so I guess I knowed it wasn’t Mr. Mason in there. But I didn’t know who it was. She didn’t call him by his name. No, sir, not by his name.

No, I didn’t go back to town right away. I told you that. It was a hot night and I didn’t feel like going back to town right away, on account of what was I going to do once I got there? I didn’t have no money or no place to go. What I did, I walked down by the river. River runs close to Mr. Mason’s farm — runs right through a corner of it, didn’t you say? Well, it was a hot night and I thought maybe I’d go for a swim.

But before I got there I seen this car parked in amongst the trees betwixt the river and Mr. Mason’s house. Big fancy car, parked right in there under the trees, off the road so you couldn’t see it unless you was walking by like I was. Well, I knowed it was his car, the fellow in the house with Mrs. Mason. Who else’s car was it likely to be?

Sure, I looked inside. Door was unlocked, so I figured I might as well. But it wasn’t my intention to steal nothing, even if there’d been something to steal. Which there wasn’t. Big fancy car like that and not a thing in it that anybody’d want to steal. Not a thing you could of got fifty cents for at a hock shop, let alone a few dollars to buy you a decent meal and some new shoes and maybe a room to sleep in for a few nights.

I sure didn’t wait there for him to show up. No, sir, you’re wrong about that. I went on down to the river just like I said before. I went on down to the river and took off my clothes, all except my underpants, and I went for a nice cool swim. Then I lay on the bank a while and dried off. It was peaceful there on the bank, and I thought I’d stay right there the whole night. No point in going back to town, I says to myself. Might’s well just stay right there for the night and then in the morning go and see if Mr. Mason had come home from wherever he was and ask him for that job he promised. I didn’t have no intention of telling him about his wife fornicating with some other man. Not if he give me a job like he promised, and a place to sleep. I wouldn’t hurt a good man that way. No, not a good man, I wouldn’t.

Why didn’t I spend the night there? Why’d I go on back to town instead? Well, I told you — I found that money. Eighty-nine dollars. Lying right there on the river bank. Way I found it was, I decided to take a walk along the bank, after I dried off from my swim, and see could I find some soft grass for a bed. And there that money was, in a little cloth purse that somebody must of dropped. Some fisherman or somebody. Dropped it right there on the bank and never realized it. There was a bright moon that night, you remember? That’s how I seen the purse with the money in it lying there in the grass.

After I took the money out I throwed the bag in the river. I told you about that too. What did I want to keep an empty for? It didn’t have no identification or nothing in it. Finders keepers, losers weepers. So I walked back into town with that found money. I figured I might’s well spend some of it. I figured I was entitled, being as how I’d been down on my luck so long. So I bought myself a good meal and a bottle of bourbon whiskey and a room for the night, where you fellows found me the next morning.

What’s that? No, sir, I sure didn’t steal that money from Thomas Harper’s wallet. I told you where I got that money. I found that money in a cloth purse lying on the river bank—

No, sir, I didn’t hit Thomas Harper over the head with no chunk of willow limb. I didn’t kill Thomas Harper. I never even knowed his name until you told me, or that he was a bigshot lawyer, or nothing about him except he was sinning with Mr. Mason’s wife.

My fingerprints? Not just on his car but on one of them little window things in his wallet? Well, I don’t know how they could have got there. You sure them fingerprints is mine too? Well, I don’t know how they could of got there.

No, sir, I didn’t rob and kill Thomas Harper.

No, sir, I didn’t.

I tell you, I didn’t do it...

All right. All right, all right. I guess it’s no use. I guess I might’s as well tell you.

I done it.

But I didn’t mean to kill him, nor even to rob him. I come walking back from the river, back toward that fancy car of his, and I had that chunk of willow limb in my hand. I don’t know why I picked it up down on the river bank. I just did, that’s all. And here he comes from Mr. Mason’s house where he’d been fornicating with Mr. Mason’s wife, all cheerful and whistling, real pleased with himself, and I don’t know... I don’t know, I just stepped up behind him and let him have it. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. I truly didn’t.

Sure, I took the money afterwards. Eighty-nine dollars is a lot of money to a fellow down on his luck. But that ain’t why I hit him. I don’t know why I hit him.

Yes I do. He had it coming, that’s why. Sinning with Mr. Mason’s wife like that, saying all them things to her right there in Mr. Mason’s bed in Mr. Mason’s own house. That Thomas Harper had it coming, all right.

But I didn’t do that other thing. I swear I didn’t.

I never looked through the bedroom window when I was in the garden, I never watched them two in Mr. Mason’s bed. It’s a mortal sin for a man to fornicate with another man’s wife, and only a person with lust in his heart would gaze upon what he’s moral certain is a act of fornication. God knows I don’t have no lust in my heart and He knows I didn’t watch them two committing their mortal sin. You got to know it too. You got to believe me.

I didn’t do it!