The Stool

The Stool

The cold night air rustled through their clothes as they strode along, but Matt didn’t feel the cold.  He had been waiting for years to join his father on one of these expeditions.  Their leather boots crunched in the dirt as father and son traced the path to the old oak tree, stars twinkling overhead.  Matt remembered how he had climbed this very same tree when he was a boy.  It had been there as long as Matt had known, a magnificent specimen of nature with huge overarching arms.  The brawny limbs had supported his weight easily as a child, which was probably why the men had chosen this tree for the job at hand.  Matt’s father threw him a long length of hemp rope Matt had seen hanging on the back of dad’s chair the night before.

            “Go on, climb up and tie it to that limb there,” his father ordered. 

            As Matt dug his boots into the bark of the tree and started climbing, he looked back at his father.  He was standing a couple feet away with a group of men also clothed in white, smoking a cigarette.  It could have been such a peaceful scene, the group of men huddled in a circle smoking in the dim moonlight.  Matt reached the limb of the tree and straddled it, sliding himself forward.  He saw an ant crawling along the rough bark and tried to flick it off, but his hands were shaking so hard that he missed.  He wiped his sweaty palms on the front of his trousers and continued tying the rope.  What would his father say if he saw him in such a state, he thought to himself.

            He looked up from his knot to see a figure being dragged to the tree surrounded by more men in white.  The figure stumbled several times along the path as he was blindfolded with a black hood over his head.  As he stumbled, the hood slipped and Matt caught a glimpse of the dark face.  The men dragged him over to the tree and threw him down in the dirt.  He skidded a little and came to a rest against one of the oak’s giant roots.  Matt silently climbed down from the tree and stood with the rest of the men.

            The group of men smelled like his father, a pleasant, but rough combination of tobacco and liquor.  He felt the heat of their bodies as they pressed forward, encircling the man huddled against the tree.  The men moved as one animal instead of ten and Matt got caught up in the mob.  They kicked and he kicked.  They yelled and he yelled.  They punched and he punched.  As one synchronized machine, they moved, beating up the man huddled under the tree.

            Finally, they stepped back.  Breathed.  Little clouds moved in and out of their mouths.  Matt suddenly felt sick to his stomach and collapsed to his knees a little ways behind the main group of men.  Drops of blood stained his shirt; he didn’t know whose.  His stomach twisted, and he grimaced in pain.  But it wasn’t over yet.  Amazingly the man hadn’t said a word throughout the whole ordeal.  It made him feel worse that the crumpled body under the tree had stood through it all in silence.  If only he had screamed or cursed them or tried to fight back, he would have felt better.  To see the limp body fold over and capitulate like a rag doll…he bent over and retched again.

            The men were calmer now; some were talking over by the tree.  Someone had dragged over a stool from their house and was arranging it underneath the rope.  It was startling to Matt to see the transition between the frenzied beast only minutes previously to the calm, collected individuals he was used to.  He noticed his father talking to their neighbor about the problems with the cotton crop.  Suddenly, his father locked eyes with him and started walking towards him.

            “When they put him on the stool in a few minutes, son, I’d like you to be the one to knock it over,” he said.

            The matter was clearly over.  Matt gulped nervously and again ran his palms down his pants.  They were now dragging the man toward the rope swaying in the breeze.  The man’s body trailed limply along the ground, little drops of red speckling the dust.  As he was being hoisted onto the stool, Matt coughed nervously.  His throat was suddenly drier than it had ever been before in his life, and his eyes darted around the group of men.  Impassive, leathery faces met his gaze wherever he turned.  Men like his father who had been to many of these.  Men who had kissed their children good night before coming out to do this unspeakable thing.  He coughed again and looked down at the ground. 

            Two men tied a noose from the rope Matt had tied to the tree.  They removed the blindfold and slipped the noose over the man’s head.  Then, they stepped back as Matt stepped forward to face the man.  His head was covered in a mess of blood and dirt, but the man stared back at him.  His coal-black eyes burned unflinchingly and unforgivingly in the man’s hollow sockets, bespeckled with blood. They burned straight through Matt who flinched and turned away. 

Matt looked back at his father who gave him a little nudge with his eyes.  Matt turned back around and glanced quickly at the stool to position himself.  It was just kicking over a stool, he thought to himself.  Nothing wrong with that.  He breathed deeply, chest expanding and contracting like a bellows.  He closed his eyes.  And swung his leg forward with all his might.