Don't know what the argument wuz about. Don't even know there wuz an argument. The big guy got riled by somethin' I didn't say. That's what I think. It all happened so fast.

————

John Hardy was a desperate little man,

Carried a razor every day, Killed him a man down in Pensacola town.

Man, ya’ ought’a seen John Hardy gettin’ away, Poor boy.

Ya’ ought’a seen John Hardy gettin ’away.

Don’t know what the argument wuz about. Don’t even know there wuz an argument. Might’a been just bar talk. The big guy got riled by somthin’ I didn’t say. That’s what I think. Couldn’t make sense of it. It all happened so fast. He started pushin’ me around, screaming somthin’ or other, don’t know what, slappin’ my face, punchin’ me. Hard punches, he was hurtin’ me bad. ‘Thought he wuz gonna kill me.

That big guy’s throat wuz spurtin’ blood all over the place afore I even know’d it. Bartender grabbed my razor. Two other guys grabbed my arms, ‘nother guy went straight for the Sheriff. Sheriff hauled me off. Next thing I know, I’m behind bars in the worst jail I ever did seen.

Man, that place had one bare lightbulb, no window, a rough pine-board bed folded down from the wall, no beddin’ at all. The lightbulb flickered on n’ off, ever now an’ then. All I got fed wuz watery soup, an’ one hard doger, couple times a day. The soup had some kind’a meat in it. Never could tell what kind. Don’t know how many days I wuz there. Kind’a lost track. I wuz plenty worried. Damned shame, bein’ hanged for somthin’ I didn’t even know what happened.

I’m thinkin’, how’s ole’ John Hardy gonna get away from this.

Tha’s what I toll thu judge.

“The County of Pensacola, Florida vs. John Hardy”

Said that right at the start o’ my trial. I had a County lawyer sayin’ what legal things needed to be said. What he said I couldn’t hardly get the meanin’ of. Then the judge said to tell what happened in my own words. I toll what I already said before.

I wuz sweating. Everybody wuz sweatin’. It wuz hot in that courthouse. Must’a been over a hundred. Never seen so many grown men fanning themselves like ladies. I’m thinkin’, “wonder how they’d like that cell I just cum from. It was a whole lot hotter than this?”. Everybody from that damned whiskey shack fanned themselves and talked against me. I wuz a stranger there, didn’t have nobody to talk for me, except that County lawyer.

The lawyer said I wuz a traveler and a peaceable man. Never been in no trouble before - much less a murder. Said I wasn’t even “acquainted” with the deceased gentleman”.

The judge asked why I had that razor in my pocket?

The lawyer said, “Mr. Hardy has sojourned across the depth and breadth of the country working from one job to another. Many of the places he’s traveled have been bereft of proper law enforcement. I’m sure Your Honor is aware of how many places in our still expanding great Nation suffer from that problem. As Mr. Hardy is a small man of slender stature, he carries the razor as his sole form of personal protection against the attacks of violent men such as the one alleged in this case”.

The judge said, “Humph!”, and ordered a gallows to be built right now. He said I wuz to be hanged by the neck, until dead - by 8:00, that very evening. They took me back to the cell.

It wuz cooler now.

There wuz a big storm blowin’ up from the Gulf.

Kind’a funny, I wuzn’t as worried as I should’a been. I been everywhere, seen a lot, did a lot, had good times, good whiskey, good food, good women - even the bad times weren’t that bad – even been baptized. I couldn’t complain, I knew a lot o’ men hadn’t been that lucky. Maybe I was ready for the buryin’ ground. Anyway, I wuzn’t dead yet.

Been to the east, been to the west, been this whole world ‘round.

Been to the river, been baptized. Take me to my buryin’ ground, Lord God.

Take me to my buryin ’ground. Take me to my buryin’ ground.

The storm roared in, wild and rough with hurricane winds blowing sheets of rain

and hail all over. Seemed like the world was tearing apart. The jail did tear apart, so did

the hanging scaffold. Folks were running everywhere searching for shelter. Confusion had

its heedless way with law & order.

John Hardy saw his chance and took it. He took-off into the swamp and was never seen again in Pensacola County.

On the night John Hardy was to be hung, There came a storm and hail,

Blew that hanging scaffold down, Lord, Ya’ ought’a seen John Hardy gettin’ away,

Poor boy, Ya’ ought’a seen John Hardy gettin’ away.

I wonder if John Hardy really did get away? He might have been chewed-up by alligators, bitten by a poisonous swamp snake, drowned, or maybe he did get away. No one knows.

Folk songs never tell the full story, no song does. That’s what makes some songs, poetry.

Did Heaven pass a judgment the Court couldn’t?

I’d like to think so.

You can judge for yourself.

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com