Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer 11

by Jay Squires

Final Words From the Previous Chapter: (Reporter) Miss Fanny … I find I won’t be able to write this story at all. No amount of good reporting will get us over this final hurdle. No one—by that, I mean no reader—is going to believe the trial from the memory of a fourteen-year-old girl.

Act III
Scene 2 (Post-intermission Continued)

CHARACTERS:
Fanny Barnwarmer: Eighty-five-year-old woman with plenty of spark and sizzle still in her. Has been performing at the Tavern for forty-four years.
Reporter: Mid-thirties. Works for the New York Times, on assignment in Brady, Texas to write a human-interest story on the famous Fanny Barnwarmer.

SETTING: Front porch of Fanny Barnwarmer’s home. Rocking chair, DOWNSTAGE RIGHT, facing kitchen chair, CENTER, and front steps behind, which descend to street level with a flowerbed to the side. OFFSTAGE LEFT are street sounds of traffic: of vintage 1928 cars, some horse whinnying, etc., that continue as a kind of stew of white-noise background throughout the scene.

PLACE/TIME: Brady Texas, 1:30 P.M., Sunday, August 11, 1929

AT RISE: FANNY answers the REPORTER’S concerns over her memory of the court proceedings. (Please read the Final Words From the Previous Chapter)

FANNY:
(Smiling, patting the album in her lap)
I figgered as like, Robert. ’Twas why I said I had hep.
(Opens the album, thumbs through the heavy photo-laden pages, then hands the opened album to REPORTER)
’Member Mister Jenkins?

REPORTER:
(Looking at the album, then at FANNY, with a grin)
The young reporter. Yes, from the Chicago Times.

FANNY:
He be my mem’ry.

REPORTER:
(Not taking his eye off the album)
Catchy. The guy’s good! Swell header—
(Reading aloud)
“The Trial Illinois Would Like to Forget.”

FANNY:
Ye c’n copy what y’all needs while yer here but …

REPORTER:
I understand. And I’m afraid I don’t have time … but I’m sure I can get a copy from the Times’ archives. Let me just …
(his forefinger skims left to right and down the page)
This is so—Let me see if I can find—Oh … here it is …
(Reading aloud with emphasis)
The Honorable Judge Jonathan Weitherton then cast his eyes down from Olympus to his earthly subjects in the packed courtroom and let them fall first on the widow of the slain Thomas Albright, who was gazing up with hopeful eyes set deep in ebony sockets. The splayed fingers of one sleek black arm rested above her breast, just beneath her throat as she waited. Her other arm was draped over her daughter’s shoulder while the little one squirmed in 5-year-old, creamy white insouciance, playing with her doll.

[The REPORTER looks up from the album with a smile]

REPORTER (Continues):
Oh-ho!— Miss Fanny, your Mister Jenkins’ boss was wise to put this in the editorial section. He’s clearly taken sides—like with the ebony sockets and the sleek black arm and the contrast with little Juniper’s creamy white insouciance! And still—still, it is so good! I’m so—sorry, ha-ha, for laughing, but I’ll go on …
(Continues reading)
Judge Weitherton then drew his eyes to the defendants’ table and he spoke in a voice accustomed to being listened to and acted upon. “The defendants will please stand,” and a hundred heads turned to hear the scrape of chairs and to watch the defendants scramble to their feet. And the judge went on: “In the case of ‘The State of Illinois versus members of the 21st Division of the Army of Uriel, hereinafter known as The Army’, I hereby declare the defendants standing before me to be not guilty of the crime of the murder of Mister Thomas O. Albright …”
And as all the air is sucked out of the lungs of a pugilist after a blow to the solar plexus, just so was the air sucked out of that courtroom for the instant it takes until the lungs of realization begin again to fill, and a spontaneous outcry to erupt—an outcry that will continue to echo for generations.
TRAVESTY! TRAVESTY!

[Here, the REPORTER lets out a whoof of air and blinking rapidly, smiles]

REPORTER: (Continues):
Oh, your Mister Jenkins. I daresay he had no idea how profound his prophecy would be.

FANNY:
T’would be the death o’ Daddy, but go on with yer readin’…

REPORTER:
(Staring)
Your daddy. Oh, Miss Fanny … I’m sorry.

FANNY:
Read on. Y’all a’ see soon a’nuff why.

REPORTER:
(Reading)
The judge, standing from his throne to lend more authority to the thunderbolt of his voice, demanded order in his courtroom after his ill-famed pronouncement. Satisfied, he lowered himself back into the security of his throne, and looking over his steepled fingers he further announced:
“Before this courtroom is adjourned, it falls upon me to enjoin the good people of Lake County in this fine state of Illinois to not follow the lead of your hearts, but always keep balanced the scales of justice in cases such as this.
“To the widow, Missus Albright, I fully affirm a crime of passion against your husband had indeed been committed—that is unchanged—and it may well have been motivated by an inharmony between the races—or the mixing of said races. That said, it becomes even more incumbent upon justice to rule. It is true that Justice is blind—to matters of the heart. The sword of justice only falls upon the head of the guilty when the scales held by ‘Mistress Justice’ are weighted down by evidence.
“Today, no evidence has been forthcoming. Today, the scales did not tip.”
And here, the honorable Judge Jonathan Weitherton’s honorable eyes roved until they rested upon the sole witness in this case, sitting solitary and somber, and the judge said:
“If you might be so obliged, Mister Caleb Barnwarmer, please stand a moment before the court?”
Mister Barnwarmer then stood on visibly unsteady legs, gripping the rail before him with one white-knuckled hand. His expression was grim.
“Mister Barnwarmer,” the judge said, “I want all who are gathered here today to realize how far-reaching the accusations made by” (sweeping the audience with his right hand, then returning the manicured forefinger of it to Mister Barnwarmer), “accusations made by one man can be. If Justice had been ruled by emotions, five men surely would have been sentenced to hang on the morrow for their unproven participation in a high crime.
“As a matter of fact … the only piece of admissable evidence in today’s trial, Mister Barnwarmer, because it came from your—the accusor’s mouth—is that you lured Mister Albright to his door —actually, to his window first, where he drew back the curtain and smiled at you, his friend, and then opened his door—” (and again the judge took his eyes from his target and grazed a lingering smile on his audience, before redirecting his eyes to Mister Barnwarmer, and continuing, cooly), “he opened his door and was chagrinned to see, not Mister Barnwarmer, who your own mouth confessed, was casually walking away at that moment—but five men, or quite possibly women, for that matter, for they had gunnysacks over their heads, who allegedly swarmed Mister Albright … and ultimately, allegedly, hanged him.”
By now, Mister Barnwarmer’s eyes were closed, his mouth slack, his chin rested on his chest, and his rounded shoulders rose and fell as with the rapidity of one who had only now completed running a long distance.

REPORTER:
(Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it, wadded, against his eyes, he stares at FANNY)
Your poor father, Miss Fanny. How all alone he must have felt.

FANNY:
I reckon he was. Me—I was jes fourteen. Mama waren’t no hep. Her head be outen th’ pasture somewheres. I jes lissen, an’ yes, I be scared fer my Daddy.

REPORTER:
(Fidgeting, glancing at his pencil, then at FANNY)
Was—Miss Fanny—would you say Mister Jenkins’ account of the proceedings was accurate? I mean, giving allowance for his editorializing, you know, would you say—

FANNY
Robert, his words brung it all back to me jes as it was—so’s I’s in th’ courtroom agin. Yes. Yes, it be acc’rate.

REPORTER:
He is compelling, though, in his delivery. You were there ... so I needed to ask. I'll proceed ….
(Finding his spot in the album, he begins)
“It is ironic,” the Honorable Judge Jonathan Weitherton went on, “that your accusations, Mister Barnwarmer, which the court can recognize now, equally, as self-accusations, place you, and only you, as the lone identifiable person, at the point of the crime. This, however, is not a charge the court is bringing against you today. For that, you can consider yourself very fortunate. You seem a sensitive man, Mister Barnwarmer. That sensitivity may work against you ... for you will have your remaining years to live with the specters of your past.
“You may sit down … sir.”

INTERMISSION

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June
2022

NOTE TO READER: Again, it is not easy to cut the fabric of one entire Court proceeding into a number of frayed pieces while struggling to maintain a sense of the whole damn quilt. I've lost a few of you, I know. Buh-bye. Peace. Those who've stayed seem to be still in good humor. So ... Love you all.

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The Judge's Admonishment

A chapter in the book The Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer 11

by Jay Squires

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