Never Kill A Mockingbird

Locking the door to the office in Renton, a world of personal and financial drama. It makes me tired. But in my car hang the flowered dress and the rest of what it takes to turn me into Mrs. Heck Tate of Maycomb, Alabama.

I pull onto 405 and breathe.

Soon I’m in Snoqualmie at the Black Dog Café, tonight transformed into Theatre Black Dog.  Tonight the home of To Kill A Mockingbird. Closing night. The door squeaks and there’s our tiny stage, maybe ten by twenty feet, which somehow holds a whole town: three houses, a jail, a courtroom with nineteen actors, and the Boo Radley tree.

Part the curtains and I’m in our green room. A table and some chairs surrounded by flimsy black curtains. And mainly my fellow cast members, people I’ve grown to love.

Paige is there, already become Jean Louise, the narrator. A prim white blouse and gray pencil skirt, hair pulled up, and her lovely, warm face. Opening night she gave us each a postcard with a handwritten message.

Tom is there, the evil Bob Ewell, in his torn overalls and filthy shirt. His bubble gum on the table, used to simulate chewing tobacco.

Mick in his navy blue prosecutor’s suit, Bruce in jeans and suspenders, Dixie who plays Mrs. Cunningham, and my stage husband Bill, who’s the sheriff.

We’re here, we’re all here.

I put on the dress and hose, maroon suede heels, fringed shawl, my mom’s pearls, and my grandmother’s watch. Then a raincoat over it all so I can walk through the audience to the back deck for warm-ups.

 Jesse, who plays Mayella, leads us in a song. We pass around fist bumps and on this last evening, a hug. Susie, our director, hands out presents for each of us. Walter Cunningham gets a ceramic turnip. I get a blue heart-shaped stone inscribed with the word, Grace.

Back in the green room, our props sit on the table. The bubble gum. A noose with which they’ll try to lynch Tom Robinson. My embroidered purse and net gloves. Walter’s basket of turnip greens. The rifle Atticus will use to shoot the mad dog because the sheriff can’t shoot.

Things that tell the story.

At the signal we go silent and the room goes dark. Music, beautiful poignant music. Paige parts the curtains and strides down the aisle and begins.

“It was Maycomb, Alabama and it was 1935 back when I was that girl…”

I shiver every time she says it. A woman gone back to her childhood to understand something her father wanted her to learn.

Atticus asks her to walk in other people’s shoes.

“If you’ll do it you’ll get along better with all kinds,” he says.

She also remembers this. “When he gave us air rifles, he asked us never to shoot a mockingbird.”

Mockingbirds don’t eat people’s gardens, they don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out. And that is why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

One mockingbird is killed in this story, and the one who’s responsible will be, too.

“Let the dead bury the dead,” says the sheriff.

But that’s jumping ahead.

Soon the mad dog scene, which we now do without the dog sound effect because once in rehearsal Atticus shot the dog, the sheriff said, “Dead as a doornail,” and then the dog barked. We cut the barking.

The kids come on. Scout and Jem and Dill. Dill says he escaped from chains in his parents’ basement and went on to learn how to wash camels.

Then the courtroom scene. We file onto our tiny stage, where my butt rests on Mrs. Dubose’s knees. Where Tom Robinson is on trial for something that never even happened. Where the truth is present only by its absence.

“Do you want me to say something that didn’t happen?” Mayella says.

“No,” replies Atticus, “I want you to say something that did.”

“Scared you’ll have to face up to what you did?” asks Gilmer.

“No sir, I’s scared to face up to what I didn’t do.” Tom says.

I’m a Southern lady on that stage, I lean in and gasp with dismay, put my hand to my heart when I hear the awful verdict. I actually cry sometimes, there’s so much truth in this scene.

“They did it today and they did it before and they’ll do it again, and when they do, it seems only children weep,” says Atticus.

God.

We fold our chairs and walk back down the aisle to the green room. Cedric, who plays Dill, sticks his sweet little face up to mine and whispers, and we get in trouble for whispering but I don’t care.

Then the fight scene where Bob Ewell tries to kill our beloved children.  I’ve heard it many times, and still it scares me.

Finally we get to see Boo Radley and Scout walks him home, and the audience applauds. The lights come up, and it’s curtain call and we’re on stage again, this time as ourselves.

The show is over and we’re back to ourselves. But I am not the same.