My Father and Atticus Finch Read Online Free Page A

backed-up sewage, and the sweat and breathing of its crowded captives. Foster gagged on the stink of urine, excrement, rotted food, and unwashed bodies.
    â€œYou gotta bail me outta here, lawyer,” Charles White demanded right off the bat, in a rude tone Foster had never heard used by a colored man addressing a white. Charles White was from Detroit and Chicago, not from the South, and his attitude showed it.
    â€œBail’s already been denied, Charles. Sentencing’s in three weeks, but I hope to have it all worked out before that.”
    Charles White glared at him. Foster guessed that Charles must have weighed upward of 275 pounds, close to twice his own weight. Maybe five inches taller. Late forties to mid-fifties. A burly, dark black Negro. Scowling and stinking. “It didn’t happen the way she said.”
    â€œI can argue all that when we ask for a lighter sentence, Charles—”
    â€œ Shee-uh ,” Charles White interrupted. There were no chairs forthe Negro prisoners who had lined up to see their families behind the mesh screen of heavy steel. Charles had to squat to make eye contact with his appointed lawyer, who had been given a low stool on the visitors’ side of the screen. The only other white person in the holding pen was a guard armed with a double-barreled shotgun, a measure that struck Foster as ridiculous. He was more afraid of the guard accidentally discharging his shotgun than of the manacled colored men squatting behind the thick steel mesh. And he certainly was not afraid of the Negro women and children on his side of the screen, wailing and moaning for the fifteen minutes they were allowed to visit.
    Having expressed his contempt for his lawyer, Charles White leaned his head back and stared at the prison ceiling stained in shades of brown, yellow, and olive, the residue from years of mildew, leaks, and worse.
    â€œYou want to tell me what did happen?” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Foster almost wished he could retract them. Why go into whatever happened? There was not going to be a trial on guilt. Charles already had confessed.
    For a flickering moment, Charles White looked at him as if he were looking at another human being; however, he did not reply.
    â€œCharles, you say it didn’t happen the way she says. But then why’d you sign that confession?”
    â€œYou don’t know? They say I don’t sign, they turn around and take me straight back to Troy that night. They say I’m dyin’ on a rope that night. If I sign, they promise I can stay here in this place till the trial, then I can come back here to serve out my sentence.”
    â€œWho promised?”
    â€œFive white men. Sheriff, deputy, three others.”
    â€œMaybe we can suppress the confession on the ground it was coerced. But if we succeed, the state may try to seek the death penalty. Are you all right with a life sentence?”
    â€œI don’t want to go to jail for life for something I didn’t do.”
    â€œIf you plead in exchange for a promise of life, not the chair, at least you will be alive—”
    â€œNot how I want to live,” Charles White said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Foster guessed Charles was getting tired of squatting in order to look him in the eye, and he thought about standing up, but he didn’t.
    â€œCharles, I may be able to bargain for less time than life. And make you eligible for parole.” Again, Foster almost wished he could retract. He had never tried to bargain for less than life with eligibility for parole in a capital case. He would have to research it.
    â€œI’m not entering a plea of guilty. I want that confession suppressed,” Charles White said, staring at his seated lawyer. Foster was surprised Charles even knew what a plea was, much less a motion to suppress.
    â€œWell, I think that’ll be up to the judge whether to suppress but—”
    â€œDo something for