Thrown-away Child

Zeb Tilton’s embrace. But then Tilton took hold of her thin shoulders, and in a voice hoarse from liquor he demanded, “Lips, my lady-child. Give your dear minister them sweet, young, ever-loving lips. Give us that pretty pink tongue, too.”
    Perry struggled against a choking anger by telling himself, again and again, It’s no good to take him out now—no good! I got to beat him another way—got to beat him for once and for all!
    After Tilton got what he wanted—how was Sister Constance to resist his needs?—he started down from the porch toward the shed. Perry slinked back around the shed, out of sight. Tilton took keys from a pocket of his raincoat, opened the shed, and started up the Rolls-Royce.
    Sister Constance closed the door when Tilton and the Rolls had driven off. She started slowly back up the stairs, walking like an old lady with a backache. She turned when Perry stepped on a patch of gravel.
    “Who that?” she called out.
    It was Perry’s intention to answer, but for a moment he could only look at the dark girl in the pale light, softened by the misty remnants of the storm. Constance put a hand up over her eyes and scanned the parking lot. Then she did something that Perry thought absolutely remarkable.
    Constance sat down on the top step of the porch, pulled her knees to her chest, and hugged them. Just like Perry always did when the visions came. He wondered if she had visions.
    “Sister... ?” he called.
    The girl turned toward the sound of his voice.
    “You don’t got to be afraid.”
    “I ain’t afraid, Mister Whoever-you-are.”
    Perry stepped from around the shed and walked into the light. “Perry Duclat’s my name. You heard of me?”
    “I don’t know.” Constance did not move, she did not even blink. “Should I’ve heard of you?”
    “Well, you will soon. The po-lice looking for me.“
    “For what?”
    “Killing a man.”
    “You do that?”
    “No.”
    “Well, what you be doing here?”
    “Came to see you, Sister.”
    “Who you s’posed to kill anyhow?”
    “Man named Cletus Tyler. Me and Clete, we was up to Angola together.”
    “Now I remember, I seen it on the TV news.” Constance shifted her hands from around her knees to either side of her hips, as if bracing herself in the event she had to jump up and run away from this hunted man who appeared from the shadows. Perry took no offense, it was only natural. “This Tyler man, he was killed bad, the news say.”
    “That’s right, but I didn’t do him.”
    “How’m I s’posed to know whether you honest or not?”
    “All depends on if you believe in the presumption of innocence.”
    “Say what?”
    “A man’s suspected of something, you got to figure he’s innocent until he’s proved guilty. Not that it matters where a black man’s concerned, but at least that’s what it says in the Constitution.”
    “It’s something like respect?”
    “That’s a good way of putting it. I told you I didn’t do what the po-lice think I did. I spoke the truth, but the truth is not respected from a man like me. Before I’m believed, see, the truth’s got to come from a liar—, which is whoever it was did kill Cletus Tyler. That’s the way it goes. They ain’t going to believe me ’til some lying killer backs up what I say.”
    “What if the liar never speaks up? What if they catch you, go ahead and hang the crime on you?”
    “I know that I am not the killer.”
    “Like you say, maybe that don’t matter. What if they set you down and give you the lethal injection anyhow?”
    “Then I would go to my death without begging for my life. I would not humiliate myself that way. I will not let the man break me.”
    “Mister, you an interesting man to listen to. But I can’t see why you telling me all this.”
    “You’re a pretty girl in a trap, ain’t that a fact?” Sister Constance lowered her head.
    “Don’t be shamed, you can’t help it.” Perry took a step closer to the girl “You got no place but this place, do you?”
    “No.” The girl’s voice was sad in the moist black night.
    “What goes on with you and Zeb Tilton, it ain’t your fault.”
    “I hate him.”
    “I understand.”
    “Oh, yeah? What you know about it?”
    “Same as everybody owns eyes, ears, and a good heart knows. The question is, girl, what you going to do about it?”
    “No idea.”
    “You asked me twice now what I’m doing here. I’m going to tell you.” Perry stepped near the girl. He put out his hand and