Jake Dennis8th Hour4/17/08

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry-Epilogue

As I was looking out the kitchen window at the charred remains of the cotton fields, Mama interrupted my daydream.

"Cassie, what's the matter with you girl? Why ain't you eating?" Mama asked. "Are you still upset about Papa goin' back to the railroad?"

Papa left one week ago, when his leg finally healed, even though he still couldn't do a whole lot on it though.

"No'm, It's 'bout T.J.," I replied.

"Sweetie, that was two months ago, sometimes you just have to let go of things in life," Mama sympathized. "If T.J. would have stayed out of trouble and listened to his parents he would be alive today."

It didn't seem like two months ago, T.J. had always been a part of my life, and the Logan family's life. Even though we were never actually called friends, I always felt like he was part of my life. I know he had it comin' when he was hanging out with those Simmses. I knew R.W. and Melvin were trouble, but how could Stacey and I have stopped T.J.

If only T.J. wasn't put on the chain gang, he would be alive today. He died from dehydration while digging a trench for the county irrigation system two weeks ago. R.W. and Melvin should be the ones that should be on the chain gang.

T.J. and Mr. Jaimison lost their case against R.W., Melvin, the Wallaces and their attorneys 3 months ago. This was not a fair trial like it should be; the judge and jury were all white men. Stacey and I still had a bit of a grudge against T.J. for tellin' on Mama, but we still cared for him and the Avery family. The Avery family is in bad shape now, Mr. Avery died that awful night of the fire from his bad health and the beating he took from those night men. As for the Mrs. Avery, Claude, and the girls they are recovering nicely. The boys and I are going to be bringing them some groceries today, for they are strapped for cash. We are doing all we can along with other black families in the community (as well as Mr. Jaimison) to help them in any way we can.

"Mama, are we going to lose our land? Little Man asked out of fear.

"Well, I just don't know. I'll be honest with you it doesn't look good after we lost a quarter of our cotton, and we didn't get a whole lot of money for our other "unburned cotton". Just enough to finally pay off the other 200 acres to the bank, but we can't afford any more groceries for a couple more months or until Papa gets his paycheck in a month or so," Mama replied in a reassuring voice. "For now, we are going to have to get by on what we have at the moment."

Little Man acknowledged the unusually honest response by Mama. Mama always tried to hide things from us, things that would worry us. I think Mama knows that we understand this whole mess now.

"Is Mr. Morrison still gonna stay with us?" inquired Christopher-John.

"Of course dear, Mr. Morrison has grown very near and dear to our hearts," responded Mama. "Cassie please, eat your supper, you're gonna starve to death girl. I thought you didn't even like T.J. that much."

"I don't like T.J.," retorted Cassie, "at least I don't think so. I've always felt like we had a connection of some kind, like I…I loved him?"

Everyone dropped their eating utensils and stared at me in disbelief. Stacey gagged on some cornbread.

I finally figured out why I cared about him.