Shadrach Johnson faces the jury with the self-possession of a gifted young choir member asked to sing a solo for a strange congregation. With solemn gravity, he says, “Mr. Avery just asked me if I have no shame. That’s a hell of a thing to say, ladies and gentlemen. And while I don’t believe that he deserves an answer, I believe you do. Let me tell you why I brought this case to trial.
“To help make things clear, I’m going to take a page out of my learned opponent’s book. From the very beginning of this ordeal, when I first learned about the relations between Tom Cage and Viola Turner, I was reminded of the biblical parables I’d heard in my youth. And I’ll be frank with you: when the pastor told those stories, I often didn’t fully grasp their meaning.”
Several jurors nod in empathy at this.
“But,” Shad goes on, “even when I was confused, I sensed that an important truth was buried in there somewhere. So today I’m going to tell you a parable.” Shad steps away from the lectern and begins walking slowly and apparently without destination, with one hand folded into the other at the height of his first jacket button. “I want you to think back to ancient times, to biblical times, to a land known as the Caucasian Empire. That empire was a kingdom of white people. But within it lived many black folks, people who had begun life as slaves but who had shed their chains and lived and worked among the Caucasians, trying to earn a meager living.
“In that hot and ancient land, a young black man and woman were walking down a road. They were brother and sister. And on that road they met five ignorant, cruel soldiers of the empire. Why do I say soldiers? Because what were the members of the Double Eagle group other than the soldiers of an invisible empire? So . . . the soldiers challenged the brother and sister, saying, ‘You have broken our law and refused to remain in your place.’ When the brother argued, the soldiers beat and killed him. Then they raped his sister, to punish her, and because they had always coveted her. Then they told the girl, ‘Leave this land and never return. If you do, you shall suffer the same fate as your brother.’
“That poor girl hobbled down the road, wounded and bleeding. After a while, she came to the house of a learned physician. She knocked on the door and asked for help. The physician took her in, tended her wounds, and asked what had befallen her. When she told him, the physician said, ‘I can tend your wounds and nurse you back to health, but we cannot tell the sheriff what happened on the road, because the emperor will not punish his own soldiers for hurting you.’
“The girl stayed in that house and began to heal. But late one night, as he tended her wounds, the learned physician seduced the girl and lay with her in secret. She fell in love with him and believed all he told her. Then one day, a knock came at the door. When the girl answered, she found one of the soldiers who had raped her on the road, bleeding from wounds. ‘Call the physician,’ he begged. ‘I am dying.’ The girl let the soldier inside, but there, remembering her pain, she picked up a hammer and smashed the soldier’s skull. When the learned physician came down the stairs, he cried, ‘What have you done?’ The girl said, ‘I have killed the man who raped me, and who murdered my brother. Nothing more.’ ‘Go back to your room and say nothing of it,’ said the physician. ‘I will make it so that no one asks questions.’
“As the physician predicted, all was well for a few days. But then the girl discovered she had got with child. Confronted by this evidence of their sin, the physician said, ‘You cannot stay in this house. I have a wife and children. They cannot discover what has passed between us.’ Handing her a few coins, he pushed her out into the road and locked his door. Stripped of her job, her virtue, and carrying his child, she fled the land of her birth. She eventually settled in a far country, where her life grew worse each year.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you a simple question. Who did the more terrible deed? The ignorant soldiers on the road, who simply took what they wanted and went on their way? Or the learned physician who knew better? The man who took what he wanted, not with a club or a spear, but with honeyed lies and empty promises?”
Without waiting for an answer, Shad lowers his head, walks toward the bench, then turns toward the spectators, continuing to pace as he speaks.
“Half a century passed, and the beautiful girl became old, frail, and sick. She was dying. Fearing the pain of her illness more than the old threats of the soldiers, she returned to the empire where she was born, to the house of the learned physician. ‘I know you hoped never to see me again,’ she said, ‘but I have one boon to ask of you. Please help me pass to the other world without further pain. Surely you owe this to me.’ ‘Yea, I will do this thing,’ said the physician, ‘for I treated you badly in your youth.’ The physician made preparations to fulfill her request. But as he did, the woman said, ‘Wait—one more favor I must ask before I die. All these years I have been haunted by the sin of murder we committed upon the soldier. I must confess this to the community. But most important, you must acknowledge the child you begat upon me, for his life has been hard and filled with sorrow.’
“Exactly what happened after that, we cannot know. But in the morning, the old woman was found dead from a dose of poison, and the learned physician refused to speak of what had passed between them. It was left to the people of the city to decide what had transpired during the night.”