“Hello, Ned. What’s new?” I asked. “You’ve heard, haven’t you?” he asked. “About what?” “My brother, Bob?” “No, what happened?” Ned began to weep softly. “They killed him,” he managed to say. “The white folks?” I asked in a whisper, guessing. He sobbed his answer. Bob was dead; I had met him only a few times, but I felt that I had known him through his brother. “What happened?” “Th-they t-took him in a c-car…Out on a c-country road…Th-they shot h-him,” Ned whimpered. I had heard that Bob was working at one of the hotels in town. “Why?” “Th-they said he was fooling with a white prostitute there
...more
