Disclaimer: Don't own. To Kill a Mockingbird and all characters, themes, etc. therein are © Harper Lee.
"I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own."
–Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
: :
"We haven't quite decided yet whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape."
–Captain Renault, Casablanca
Tom Robinson may have been a nigger, but he wasn't an idiot.
Atticus Finch had told him to sit tight and wait for an appeal. Atticus Finch didn't think he had much of a chance, Tom knew, but any chance was better than none at all. Tom also knew that Atticus Finch was the closest thing any nigger'd ever get to a guardian angel on Earth. So he sat tight and waited for the appeal.
Atticus Finch may have been an angel, but he could sure be a damn fool.
: :
It was a murky Alabama evening when the guards came for him. The stars glimmered, the bugs fluttered, and all seemed right with the world. Tom could hear them, a tangle of smoky voices and hard black boots and metal clunks that carried on whiskey-scented air. He could imagine their laughter, the cold gleam in their eyes—this wasn't the first time white men'd come after him. Only difference was, this time he didn't have a Finch to defend him.
: :
Tom flexed his one good arm, wondering when everything had gone wrong. It wasn't really that painful day last September—no, it was before that. Before anything that'd ever happened to him. It was probably even before the Yankees had ever brought nigger slaves to Alabama. He figured it, this, the lying and hating and horror, only really started when the snake had told Eve to eat that apple and Eve had listened. Back when people were given freedom and life, and chose sin instead.
It made a man—well, nigger, really, but weren't they all men?—wonder. Wonder about important things, and not-so-important things.
Tom wondered if his Helen would ever know what really happened to him. Somehow, he hoped she wouldn't.
Tom wondered if that Ewell girl would ever feel sorry for what she had done. Somehow, he knew she already did.
Tom wondered if it would hurt when the guards killed him.
: :
As Tom Robinson was dragged out of his cramped prison cell and onto the unforgiving, unfeeling pavement, he realized that they couldn't hurt him any more than he hurt now.
"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
–Mark Twain
Note: this story was written as an alternate view on the death of Tom Robinson. Meaning that, while I'm sure Harper Lee did not have this in mind when she wrote TKAM, it is possible that Tom's death was a little bit like this. And, yes, I know how Tom was supposed to have died, in the book. I've read it. Several times.
That said, I hope that no one was offended by or disliked this. Thank you.
EDIT: I'm on hiatus, sort of—my computer's broken, and there's been other stuff that's keeping me from writing. I'm working on the problem, but I borrowed my friend's laptop to type this plot bunny up really quick.
Over & Out,
Pepper