My good friend Morrie Greenberg submitted this short story for my blog. Enjoy, Joyce
Frankie and Johnny 592 words
Copyright
2015 By Morrie Greenberg
“Yeah, I shot
him. He was my man and --“
“I now, I know,
—you said it ten times already--he done you wrong.” Defense attorney Ken Wilkins let out a deep
sigh He sat on one side of the desk the jail provided attorneys; his new client
sat slouched on the other side.
“Frankie, just tell me what happened.”
“He tol’ me he’d be true…”
“He tol’ me he’d be true…”
Frankie, still slouched in her chair, poured
out her story.
“He said he was
just goin’ out for a beer….I looked over
the transom…saw him, heard him squealing with that woman… got out the forty-four
I had under my slip. Shot him three times.
He was my man---“
.”I know Frankie,
I know, but he done you wrong.
Listen, that story---it ain’t gonna fly.
Forget it. Suppose you had a gun to protect yourself
from all the bums. Suppose you thought Johnnie
was in trouble. Suppose you rushed in to
protect him. You’d never used a gun
before and you accidentally squeezed the trigger. It was—an accident”.
Frankie let
loose with a soft, long “Oooohhh.”
Oh my God,
he thought, I think she’s got it.
Over the next
few weeks, Wilkins came to the jail almost every day and questioned Frankie as
though she were on the witness stand. In
short time she was spouting out the story very much as he had suggested. Now he felt they had a good shot at
manslaughter or second degree.
No one who was there that warm spring day in
1908 would ever forget it ‘
“Your honor,
the defense calls as its first and only witness Frankie.”
A buzz
traveled across the courtroom. Frankie,
clad in a tight fitting print dress slithered out of her seat. Once seated Frankie feigned pulling down her dress.
Wilkins walked
toward her, dismayed at the dress she wore that highlighted her curvy figure.
“Can you tell
us what happened on the afternoon of February
eighteenth?”
“Well, when Johnny
did not come back, I went looking for him at Joe’s saloon and—“
Good. Wilkins thought: that is just the way they
had rehearsed it.
Then Frankie
paused in mid-sentence.
“Yes, go on.”
“And so, I, I,
I…”
Why is she
stammering? She said it just right
yesterday.
A sudden fire
blazed in Frankie’s eyes. Her face reddened as she swiveled on the witness chair
to face the jury. The movement lifted
her dress above her knees, but this time she made no effort to pull it down.
“Me and Johnny, we were sweethearts”
“Me and Johnny, we were sweethearts”
She waved a
hand toward her lawyer to keep him from interrupting. Wilkins felt the blood drain from his face.
Frankie’s eyes
drifted from one man on the jury to another as she seemed to sing-song her
story.
“Lordy how we
could love
Swore to be
true to each other
Yeah, true to
the skies above
He was my man,
but he done me wrong.”
As Frankie
rambled on, Wilkins glanced at the men on the jury. Their eyes glistened. A few had tears.
The
prosecution had no cross examination. As
Frankie stepped down she offered Wilkins a quick wink.
The jury was
dismissed to deliberate. Thirty minutes
later the jury returned. A nervous
Wilkins stood next to a relaxed Frankie as the verdict was announced..
“Your Honor, we
find the defendant not guilty.”
Before they
parted Frankie hugged Wilkins and whispered in his ear, “…he done me
wrong.” Wilkins only listened. This time, he thought, she was certainly entitled
to the last word.
