I Am Scout Read Online Free Page B

looking at the defendants, Nelle wrote in her notes. “Why they never look at people they’ve sentenced to death, I’ll never know, but they don’t.” 41
    Back in his cell, Smith slipped a note with his signature between two bricks in the wall: “To the gallows … May 13 , 1960 .” 42

Chapter 10
    Quiet Time
    Glimpses of Harper Lee during most of the 1970 s and ’ 80 s were as infrequent as spotting a rare bird, native to the South, in New York’s Central Park. Since 1967 she had been living in a small apartment, only her third address since arriving in the city almost 20 years earlier. All of the apartments where she had lived were within a 15 -minute walk of one another, and none was particularly luxurious. She wasn’t living like a rich person; that wasn’t her style. The new place, a four-story brick building, would have looked quite ordinary to most passersby. “I couldn’t pick it out from a hundred others,” said a visiting friend. 1
    It seemed the perfect camouflage for someone who wanted to go unnoticed. Lining her side of the street were a dozen stunted trees. The usual collection of commercial property interrupted the eye’s sweep of the block. There was a dry cleaner’s, a travel agent, and a restaurant serving wild game. The only hint of community was a storefront church.
    Inside her apartment, the décor was unexceptional, too. There were no indications that she was the author of a book that had sold nearly 10 million copies by the late 1970 s. A visitor couldn’t recall anything special about it years later.
    Slowly, her world was becoming smaller. Although she continued a pattern of returning to Monroeville every October and staying until spring, she remained close to familiar haunts while in New York. “I honestly, truly have not the slightest idea why she lives in New York,” said Truman in an interview. “I don’t think she ever goes out. ” 2 When a friend visiting from Alabama suggested they meet near Rockefeller Center for dinner, Nelle objected. “My God, I wouldn’t go into downtown Manhattan for the world!” 3 Any new venture seemed to make her hesitate. Horton Foote marveled that Nelle lived within blocks of mutual friends of theirs for years without ever contacting them.
    Instead, she preferred friends from long ago. She corresponded regularly with Ralph Hammond, a writer from her days on the Rammer Jammer at the University of Alabama. (“I’ve got a whole drawerful of letters from Nelle,” he liked to boast, “she’s my best friend in all of Alabama.”) 4 And Joy Brown could always be relied on for shopping trips and jaunts to secondhand bookstores.
    Nelle’s oldest friend, however, Truman, whose ties with her spanned Monroeville and New York, seemed to be undergoing a slow-motion breakdown she was unable to stop. Fears and regrets assailed him. When People magazine requested an interview in 1976 , he brought Nelle along for comfort. As he was describing his unhappy childhood, she interjected that the kindergarten teacher in Monroeville had smacked his palm with a ruler because he knew how to read.
    â€œIt’s true!” Truman wailed.
    Glancing protectively at him, Nelle explained, “It was traumatic.” 5
    Truman’s deterioration became newsworthy in July 1978 when he appeared as a guest on The Stanley Siegel Show radio program in New York. During the first few minutes, he seemed all right, but gradually his speech became slurred and hesitant. Clearly, there were problems.
    â€œWhat’s going to happen unless you lick this problem of drugs and alcohol?” Siegel asked.
    Seconds of dead air followed while Truman tried to rally himself. Finally, he replied in a croaky voice, “The obvious answer is that eventually I’ll kill myself.” 6
    He hung on for several more years, washing up now and then like driftwood in hospital