Grave Truth

Chapter 4-2

Roger folded his suit coat over the chair by his father’s head, and I took the next seat. Mr. Weber relaxed into his pillow and let his eyes drift into the middle distance. Into the past.

“I was working for a mechanic when Loretta and I got married,” Mr. Weber said. “But my boss had a drinking problem, and I wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to keep his shop going. The juvenile facility over near Vicksburg was looking for help—this would have been the early sixties. I can’t say it was my first choice, but with a wife to support and high hopes for a family, I did what I had to do.

“I worked there for almost four years. And I saw a lot of things…” He paused, cleared his throat, then took a sip of water Roger offered before continuing. “It’s true that power corrupts. There were men I was sure I knew, and knew what they were capable of, until they put on that uniform and proved me wrong. Now I’m not saying everybody was a bunch of psychos, but there were more people turned dark by that place than I ever would’ve imagined.”

“What age range were the children?” Roger asked, voice soft.

Mr. Weber glanced at him briefly before turning his gaze away again, as though embarrassed. “Almost every age. I remember a little boy there once that was nine years old, but I’d say most were around eleven to sixteen. Once they hit the top end, they were putting them in adult prisons. And it was all boys. Which isn’t to say they didn’t have a place for girls—we just weren’t it. Thank God, because I hate to think what would’ve happened to girls.

“But I didn’t know what all was happening for a long time. Maybe I just didn’t want to know, but I do think people hid it, knew I wouldn’t approve. The duty roster, for example. They were careful about who they assigned me to work with and when.”

“So this was something that went up the line?” Roger asked calmly, more like he was interviewing a witness than speaking with his dying father. “Not just a few bad apples rotting on the ground.”

Mr. Weber’s eyes finally focused on his son’s face. “Oh yeah,” he nodded. “I’m pretty sure it went all the way up the line. To the top, or darn near it.”

Perhaps Roger knew some of the background already or was just speaking a shorthand with his father. Either way, I needed the men to be more explicit. “Mr. Weber, what went all the way up to the top? What was happening?”

He blew out his breath, then rubbed eyes that had started to tear. “We’re talking about seriously hurting kids, maybe even killing them.”

Roger leaned back in his chair, jaw working, but I moved closer, placing a palm on the edge of Mr. Weber’s bed near his blanket-covered hip. “How were they hurting them?”

“The whole system was set up to hurt them. There was no question of rehabilitation except on paper. It was basically a work camp, with children providing free labor. Of course, so long as they were being taken care of, back then most folks probably wouldn’t have objected to the children earning their keep.” A sad smile touched the edge of his gray lips. “At least, that’s what I told myself.”

“But the working conditions were bad?” I asked, ignoring the voice screaming in my head, What are good working conditions for a nine-year-old?

Mr. Weber made a frustrated noise. “It was too hot to be out in the fields in the middle of the day, they weren’t given enough water or food, and the discipline…”

He broke off, tried to sit straighter. “See, I didn’t know. I usually worked on the main grounds around the administration building and the classroom—they did have one of those—so I didn’t see what went on at the farm. Until one day, somebody called in sick and I drew the short straw. I like to thought I’d collapse out there, and I wasn’t doing anything but standing around. My supervisor was not happy when I fetched more water for the kids, and the boys acted like they were afraid to thank me. At the end of the day, I went to the director—they never called him a warden, because that’s not a rehabilitation type word—and told him what was going on.”

“Were you reprimanded?” Roger asked.

“Not that time, not officially,” his father said. “The director thanked me for my input, and I wasn’t assigned to the farm again. But I heard plenty from the other officers, mostly that I needed to keep my GD mouth shut.”

Under other circumstances, I would have smiled to hear Mr. Weber’s coded profanity, considering what I’d heard from his son’s mouth in the past. Instead, I brought us back to, “What did you mean about the kids’ discipline?”

Mr. Weber’s eyes drifted to the ceiling. I wondered if he’d answer or he’d relived as much as his heart could take, just as a nurse stuck her head in at the door. Mr. Weber ignored her, and she left us in peace at some nonverbal signal from Roger.

Then Mr. Weber continued. “There was another place they kept me away from, besides the farm. They told everyone the infirmary was off-limits because the sick kids could be contagious, or we could make them sick, or some such foolishness that seemed plausible enough at the time. Until that day in the fields, when I watched children bake and started looking around with fresh eyes.”

Mr. Weber began coughing again, this time in earnest, simultaneously dry and hacking and full of phlegm. Full of pain. I winced to hear it and said, “I can come back again tomorrow.”

“I don’t have many tomorrows left,” Mr. Weber said, shaking his head and sipping the water Roger offered. He breathed shallowly, the way you do when you’re afraid you’re going to start coughing again. “I waited about a week for things to die down before I went to the infirmary. Not sneaking, just walking in like I had business being there. No one challenged me. And that’s where I saw the bad cases—the boy who lost a toe to a piece of machinery. The one who wheezed worse than you’ll ever hear me, and I’m a dying man. And the one who… Well, there’s no other way to put it. He’d been beaten within an inch of his life.”

“For what?” Roger asked sharply.

“Depends who you ask,” Mr. Weber said, grimacing. “A nurse tried to tell me he’d been in an accident. One of the other officers said he’d ratted out his buddies and they’d beaten him for it. I wasn’t about to ask the child—even if he could speak, I sure as heck didn’t want to put him in more trouble than he already was.”

Mr. Weber smiled at Roger. “Your mother always was the brains of the operation. I’d held my tongue until then, but that night I told her everything. Together, we decided that I should go to the sheriff, job or no.”

My stomach rolled with a bit of nausea around the edges. I had a bad feeling about what came next, like I’d heard this story before. Mr. Weber read more in my face than he should have after an hour’s acquaintance.

“Uh-huh,” he acknowledged. “You know what happened. First the sheriff said I must be mistaken. I told him I’d be happy to show him what I’d seen, and he changed tactics. Said he’d talk to the director and get to the bottom of it, nobody wanted a child punished who didn’t deserve it. When I said no child could have deserved such a beating, he said that was awfully naïve for a man in my job. And if I wanted to stay in that job, I’d best be figuring out how the world worked.”

Roger stood abruptly and circled his chair, standing over it and gripping its back. “Bet that went over well with Mom.”

Mr. Weber tried to smile, but his lower lip trembled slightly. “Normally I’d have been pulling her off the man’s back. But she was pregnant then. Her second time. That’s why I’d waited to tell her what was going on as long as I did. She was still teaching then, too, and it was almost summer break. We figured we’d wait, see if the sheriff would do the right thing. For a while, it seemed like he might have done. I didn’t get near the infirmary again, but everyone treated me polite enough, even if they were standoffish. I really thought it was okay.”

Looking at his son, his eyes filled. “But it wasn’t. A couple weeks later—it was toward the end of the day—my supervisor put me in a truck and we drove to another area of the property I’d never seen before.”

Mr. Weber paused for breath. “It was all high grasses, and when we got out, my boss handed me a shovel. He told me to dig, and keep digging because…” He choked back a sob. “Because we had a boy to bury.”

“Did you see the boy?” Roger asked.

Mr. Weber nodded. “Before they wrapped the sheet around for us to carry him, but I didn’t recognize him. White boy, maybe twelve years old. The sheriff and the director brought him, saying he died of the flu, and I couldn’t see a mark on him. But still… I asked if it was proper, burying him this way. They said he didn’t have any family, and who else was supposed to bury him if not the state.”

I looked away from the man and his grief, staring at the opposite wall to keep from crying myself.

“I might have believed them,” he added, “if they hadn’t lied to me so much already.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“My mind was racing, deciding the best way to find out who the boy was and what had happened. But it didn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t believe it himself. “When I got back to the main building, they told me Loretta had been taken to the hospital. It was the baby, way too soon. The sheriff said he’d drive me, with lights and everything so we’d get there faster. But we were too late, she’d already lost our child. Again.”

Elbows resting on his chair back, Roger dropped his head as his father continued.

“They kept Loretta overnight. The sheriff took me back to work for my vehicle, and he’d been all proper concern to that point. But when we got to the parking lot, he grabbed my arm as I was reaching for the door. Instead of something comforting, he says, ‘Isn’t life tragic. So many innocent lives just disappear. But y’all have another chance for a family. So long as your wife’s still alive.’ It was obvious what he meant.”

“Who was sheriff?” Roger demanded.

“He’s dead now,” Mr. Weber said. “Long dead, from a bad traffic stop. When I heard, I couldn’t help thinking he’d finally got what was coming to him. But Loretta and I were gone by then. We put the house on the market, moved to Tallahassee, and never looked back.”

The nurse who’d popped her head in earlier appeared at the door. Her hair was an odd shade of orange, but her freckled face was kind. “Mr. Roger, I think you’ve worn your daddy out enough for tonight, don’t you?”

“He and the young lady were just about to leave,” his father said, managing a smile until she reluctantly left. Then Mr. Weber told Roger, “I’ve wondered almost every day since if that boy had family after all, people that never got to stand over his grave and say goodbye. I don’t know what can be done for him or them, after so long. But I do know if anyone can figure it out, son, it’s you.”