Sycamore Row - John Grisham

farmers and farmworkers with a pulpwood cutter sometimes thrown in for balance. All
white. Blacks would be served without incident but that had yet to happen. Blacks
shopped up front in the grocery; in fact, Tonya Hailey had bought a sack of groceries
there and was walking the mile back to her home when she was abducted three years
earlier.
The two lawyers huddled around a small table as far away as possible from the others.
The table rocked and the ancient floor squeaked, and just above them a rickety fan spun
unevenly, though it was still wintertime and the entire building was drafty. In another
corner a potbellied stove radiated a thick, pungent heat that kept the narrow room
comfortable. After a few bites, Harry Rex said, “Dumas did a good job, for him anyway.
That boy loves a good car wreck as much as any lawyer.”
“I had to threaten him, but, yes, he did us no harm. No more than was already done.
Thanks for hauling in Arthur Welch for a cameo.”
“He’s an idiot, but my kind of idiot. The stories we could tell. We once spent two
nights in a county jail when we were supposed to be in law school. Almost got kicked
out.”
Jake knew better than to take the plunge but couldn’t help himself. “Why were you in
jail?”
Harry Rex shoveled in a load of collard greens and began, “Well, we’d been to New
Orleans for a long weekend, and we were trying to get back to Ole Miss. I was driving,
drinking, and somewhere down in Pike County we got lost. Saw blue lights, and I said,
‘Shit, Welch, you gotta take the wheel. Here come the cops and I’m drunk.’ Welch said,
‘I’m drunk too big ass, you’re on your own.’ But we were in his car and I knew for a fact
he was not as drunk as I was. I said, ‘Hey Welch, you ain’t had but a coupla beers. I’m
stopping this thing right now and you get your ass over here.’ The blue lights were
getting closer. He said, ‘No way. I been drunk since Friday. Plus, I already got one DUI
and my old man’ll kill me if I get another.’ I hit the brakes and slid to a stop on the
shoulder. The blue lights were right behind us. I grabbed Welch, who was quite a bit
smaller back then, and tried to pull him over to the driver’s side, and this really pissed
him off. He fought back. He grabbed his door handle and stuck his feet into the
floorboard and I couldn’t budge him. I was really mad by now so I backhanded him,
slapped the shit out of him right across the nose and this jolted him so bad he let go for
a second. I grabbed his hair and yanked him over, but the car had a stick shift in the
console and he got all caught up in it. We were both tangled up and mad as hell, cussing
and clawing like a couple of cats. I had him in a death grip when the trooper said
through the window, ‘ ’Scuse me fellas.’
“We froze. At the station, the trooper talked to both of us and declared us to be
equally drunk. This was before Breathalyzers and such, back in the good old days.” He
gulped some tea, then attacked a small heap of fried okra.
“So what happened?” Jake finally asked.
“I wouldn’t call my dad and Welch wouldn’t call his. A lawyer was visiting a client in
jail and heard about the two drunk Ole Miss law students in a cell back there, sobering
up and missing classes. He went to the judge, pulled some strings, and got us out. The