*** Portrait of Words ***

Already it's time for my third go at writing a Portrait of Words. To find what this is all about and/or to see other participants, visit Jeff, the one who started this challenge, at Portrait of Words. And here are the photo prompts and what they're about for April '09.


My name is Jonis K. Blackbird, and I'm happy to meet you folks. I'll tell the story the best I can remember it. It was a long time ago, back when I was just a boy, though I've never forgotten that day, only maybe a few of the finer details have gotten fuzzy over the years.


It all happened back in '52 when I was 8 years old. No one much paid any attention to an 8 year old colored boy, so I pretty much went unnoticed much of the time. I don't think anyone noticed I was there that day at Caffrey's.


Now, you might be wondering what a boy of 8 was doing in a pub. It wasn't like the pubs today, it was more like a cafe that sold spirits, you know, alcoholic beverages. My mother was the cook there and often I hung around while she worked. The owner paid me a bit if I bussed tables and helped clean the place up between customers, and I was to stay out of the way other that that. I knew how to fade into the background and become invisible.

It was somewhere around 3pm when they came in. The lunch rush was over, the tables cleared off, floors swept, all was ready for the after work crowd. We'd not seen this man before, or the woman that was with him. They were, of course, white folk, and both looked rich, especially him. They drove up in a 1952 DeSoto Custom Coupe... now that was a car. He goes around and opens the door for the lady to get out, then when they get to the door of Caffrey's he holds that open for her too, a real gentleman, though that was normal in those days. Looked like a man and his wife come for a beer and something to eat on a hot afternoon. Mr. Caffrey seated them at the best table in the place, then took their beer order and left them with menus. When he came back with their beers they placed their order and were left alone while Mr. Caffrey went to the kitchen to tell Mam what the rich people wanted to eat.

They had just been served their food and another beer each when he walked in. That's when it all happened. All was pretty quite when this man, a medium sized white man with blonde hair and mustache suddenly kicked open the door and burst into the pub. He had a rifle in his hands and started to shoot up the place. Bullets were flying everywhere. They hit the mirror, smashing it into millions of little bits, and that's when I closed my eyes and couldn't watch any more. I just pushed in tight behind the bar, trying to make myself as little and as invisible as possible so the bullets couldn't find me.

"Stella!!" I heard a man yelling, "Why the F___ did you do it? Why Stella?" another few shots then, "and you SOB. That's my WIFE you've been with. MY WIFE!" he continued to yell. "She has a home and 4 little kids at home, for Pete sake! You rich bastard, you ruined my family!" More shooting. "Stella, how could you go f___ some other guy? The kids go to school and I got to work... you forget you're a wife and mother? How, Stella? Why?" or something like that. Remember, that was a lot of years ago and some things are a bit fuzzy in my memory, so I can't be sure now the exact words, though they were something pretty much like this.

Well, the bullets finally stopped flying and all was quiet. I still just laid there, still as small and invisible as I could be behind the bar. There was no way to know if the guy was still there or not. Then the Police showed up. I could hear them talking.

It's not that often that they have a kid testify in a court of law, not now days and not back then either, 'specially not a colored kid, and yet they said I had to go and tell the judge what I saw and heard. You see, Mr. Caffrey died in his pub that day, as did those folks that were eating and having a few beers. Mam had been taking garbage out back when it started, and it was over so fast that she missed it all. That meant I was the only witness to what happened at Caffrey's Pub that day.


There was a jury of 12 people, all white, 10 men and 2 women as I remember. I had to be sworn in and tell the whole story. I was a shy boy, so it was pretty scary, though with Mam sitting there sending me her love and the prosecuter urging me, I managed to tell all those folks what had happened. After I told my story, Mam & I sat there while some other folk got up and told what they knew. Turns out they'd been out from the next town over, they'd checked into the Sleep Right Inn around lunch time and a couple hours later left there and came over to Caffrey's.

The man was found guilty of 3 murders, and instead of being sent to prison he was sent to a hospital for a few years. His doctor testified that he went crazy when he found his wife was with another man like that. The judge agreed with the doctor. Some said that the man would likely have been hanged otherwise.

The kids, as it turned out, all went to live with their grandparents in another town. I never heard if the father got them back when he got out of the hospital awhile later.

That was my big excitement, and life has been pretty quiet since then. I'm okay with that. One day like that is enough in anyone's life, more than enough. I went on to live a quiet life, back to being small and invisible. When I was a bit bigger, I was strained in carpentry, and that's how I've made me living ever since. My favorite tool is the drill press. After a whole lot of years, I finally bought me one for my own shop I had been slowly equiping over the years while working for someone else. By the time I retired, I had my shop all set up. Now I do carpentry at home in my own shed, at my own speed. I get my pension and make a good living on the side as I sell things I create on my own.


I never did take me a wife. After Mam passed away I just lived alone, still renting this old house that I'd grown up in. Pap passed in '56 from an accident at work, then Mam went in 2004. She was 83 and I think she just got tired of living without Pap. I had an older brother. He left home at age 15 after a fight with Pap. We never heard from him again.

Now that I'm retired and just working at my carpentry at my own speed, I get to spend a lot of time down at the park visiting with other old men and playing chess. I win my share, and I loose my share, not a real fast or fancy player like some of 'em, I just like playing and swapping stories with others down at the park.



Yes, it's a good life. God gives me all I need and that's the way it should be.

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