and that John C. had even offered to let him, Bill Gordon, shoot it.
The following day Alice Van Hooser was called to the witness stand and testified that John Charles had telephoned her on August 16, 1939, and told her that Hermie Sledge had been injured while shooting an old shotgun, and was in critical condition. She further added that she had seen Hermie the following day in St. Louis and she had not appeared to be suffering from a shotgun exploding near her. This was taken from the record and the question withdrawn because Alice Van Hooser was discovered to be no true authority on physiology. She admitted a relationship between herself and the defendant and said that John Charles had told her that divorce papers had been drawn up and awaited his signature. John Charles’s attorney asked Alice Van Hooser if she had any reason to believe that John C. would murder his wife but the question was rejected because it was discovered that Alice Van Hooser was not a qualified psychologist. Wayne Hanek asked for a recess and it was granted until the next morning.
“The Last Punch . . . Final Trick from Hanek’s Bag of Tricks . . . Surprise Tactics used by Hanek,” were what the papers wrote about that morning in the courtroom. Hanek’s wizardry over legal rhetoric as exemplified by his brilliant objections to the County Attorney’s evidence was superseded by this final act. The State rested its case against John Charles Sledge and Judge Garnold called out for the defense to offer its case. Wayne B. Hanek stood beside his client and a hush came over the courtroom. The Court Officer stood by the room where the witnesses waited to be called. They had not been allowed in the room. Hanek placed his fists down on the table in front of him and said, “The defense rests.” Then he sat down. County Attorney Vendermarken, surprised and taken off guard, motioned that the court be recessed for thirty minutes while he prepared his closing speech to the jury. Wayne B. Hanek objected. Judge M. Garnold declared that the court be recessed for one-half hour. The County Attorney’s closing speech was given by his assistant over the objections of Hanek and the jury left the courtroom. Fifteen minutes later they returned and every member in turn stood, and giving his name first said, “Guilty, and I advise the court to execute the death penalty.” Wayne B. Hanek stood up then and said he would appeal the case before the State Supreme Court. Judge Garnold, before the five newsmen that had taken notes through the trial, stated that he would follow the recommendation of the jury unless prompted to do otherwise by the Governor of Missouri, which he evidently was not because on November 19, 1939, he declared to John Charles that he should be hanged by the neck until dead. Asked if he had anything to say and John C. said, “I did it and I guess I’ll have to take what’s coming to me.” Judge Garnold leaned forward in his chair and folded his paper hands. “Perhaps it’s only divine destiny that ...” He was not allowed to finish.
“No,” said John Charles, “it’s not. I’m guilty. I’ve even convicted myself. I was just born mean, I reckon.”
The appeal was granted and the Missouri Supreme Court read over the Official Transcript of the trial and upheld the finding of the lower court. John Charles played his guitar and was allowed another interview; then they came and moved him to the State Prison. He remained in “death row” twenty-five days and was allowed no interviews. No one came to visit him and the prison help was cordial to him — beer-can-like people to whom “shotgun killer,” “dynamite murderer,” and “Dirty John” meant nothing. Up to here is about all that I know. Isn’t that really all anyone needs to know? So the following is not fact, but a condition I place on the past, to let John Charles keep ahead of himself — so that he did not wake up that morning covered with a sweet gray sweat growing out of his body, shaking and screaming, vomiting from half-dreamed visions of Hermie and an ugliness too horrible to realize with all the lights turned off by a master switch and his cell door opening and three figures coming toward him across the concrete — only one’s supposed to be a priest but long ago he told them not to bring one because he despised the sniveling excuses of men — and retching green and blood-black vomit onto the bed — sick, they puffing him across his cell — fully aware of his own terror, thus pushing the terror still further and further, up the steps and tying his feet, his body crippling over with pain, unable to see now, and jerking his head up to the rope and the jeering from the throng of good people come to watch him die. Screaming and writhing. I invoke the past to let that not have happened, so that he rose from his bed and walked straight out of his cell, onto the platform waving to the hundreds of people that had come to honor him, knowing that he was not a real killer, and even kicked one of the henchmen down the stairs when he was not looking, saying: “Sucker.” That crowd laughed and another henchman pulled the lever and John C. was dead. And the prisoners rioted because of the hanging and one of the guards was shot off the wall and another lost his hand. Let Fast Eddie inherit his cigarettes and guitar. After all, what does it matter?
And I remembered the child. It took me two full months of looking at dusty, disease-ridden records of long collapsed detention orphanages to find her name — Jennie — and another two months to find her. Alice Van Hooser had wanted to adopt her but was unable to because of her unworthiness revealed by herself during the trial. Alice’s mother took out adoption papers for the girl but was also refused because of her association with her daughter. It had cost Alice five hundred dollars to get Jennie and they moved into Iowa with her mother and were living in Cedar Rapids when I found them.
“Yes?” Alice said. She had not opened the screen door. Her eyes were like light-bulb sockets, only expressionless, and any excess weight she may have had at one time was gone.
“My name is Sledge, Reuben Sledge. Are you Miss Van Hooser?”
“Yes.”
“Is Jennie here?”
“What do you want with her?”
“I just want to talk to her. Clear some things up.” A tall slim woman came up beside Alice. “This is Jennie,” she said.
“Jennie, my name is Reuben Sledge. I suppose you were too young to remember your father.” She looked at me through the screen door.
“What do you want, Mr. Sledge?” asked Alice.
“Well . . . do you remember your father or mother?”
“No,” she said, still looking at me like a magazine salesman. I stood looking back at her and mumbled something about thank-you and I was your father’s brother and your mother’s mother lived not too far from me and left. I thought I heard Alice say something then as I walked away but I couldn’t be sure what it was.
The Des Moines City Council learned of the execution of John Charles and acted immediately. Orders were sent out by the director of these affairs and Father learned that his son had been denied burial rites and sacred ground anywhere in Polk County and that similar action was being taken in the surrounding counties for fear that he would attempt to transport his son across the county line. So he went to the farmers and asked for a couple of yards of secluded land; but was unable to obtain anything because they felt that it would be illegal.
“Andrea,” Father said.
Mother looked up from her bed and stared at him. “No,” she said, “they wouldn’t . . . anywhere else and they couldn’t.”
“They have,” said Luke. “There is nothing left. I’ll go tomorrow to the junkyard and . . .”
“No,” said Andrea, “no . . . no . . . no. Burn him in the furnace — throw him in the river — bury him in the yard.”
“But he’s our son. Do you want him laying out in the yard for the rest of our lives?”
“Not our son. He was my son. I grew him in me — where were you then? — at the depot. I fed him and where were you? I told him to leave, from the time he was old enough to hear
