Mockingbird

by Walter Tevis

Spofforth placed me in the defendant’s chair, which was made of something called wood and was uncomfortable. Then he removed my handcuffs, with a surprisingly gentle touch, and had me place my right hand in the Truth Hole that sat directly in front of me. He said quietly, ‘For each lie you tell, a finger will be severed. Answer the judge with care.’

‘Where are we?’ I asked. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Everybody gets knocked out in court and they don’t wake him up till he gets here. But one guy told me once he thought it was North Carolina.’ He spoke to the man who had taken the joint. The man was passing it to the next man. ‘Is that right, Foreman? North Carolina?’ Foreman turned around. ‘I heard South,’ he said, ‘South Carolina.’ ‘Well, somewhere in there,’ the gray-haired man said.

I read continuously, and take no sopors and smoke no marijuana. I read until I can stay awake no longer and fall in bed and lie there with my mind whirling and with faces and people and ideas from the past crowding and confusing me until, exhausted, I fall asleep.

They were willing to accept their stringent piety, and silence, and sexual restraints, all unthinkingly, along with a few platitudes about Jesus and Moses and Noah; they were overwhelmed, however, at the effort it would require to understand the literature that was the real source of their religion.