Free The Last Juror by John Grisham Page B

was always full of peanut butter and cereal and such. I occasionally atewith a friend and I always marveled at how real families cooked and spent so much time at the table. Food was simply not important around our house.
    As a teenager I existed on frozen dinners. At Syracuse it was beer and pizza. For the first twenty-three years of my life, I ate only when I was hungry. This was wrong, I soon learned in Clanton. In the South, eating has little to do with hunger.
    ______
    T he Ruffin home was in a nicer section of Lowtown, in a row of neatly preserved and painted shotgun houses. The street addresses were on the mailboxes, and when I rolled to a stop I was smiling at the white picket fence and flowers—peonies and irises—that lined the sidewalk. It was early April, I had the top down on my Spitfire, and as I turned off the ignition I smelled something delicious. Pork chops!
    Calia Ruffin met me at the low swing-gate that opened into her immaculate front lawn. She was a stout woman, thick in the shoulders and trunk, with a handshake that was firm and felt like a man’s. She had gray hair and was showing the effects of raising so many children, but when she smiled, which was constantly, she lit up the world with two rows of brilliant, perfect teeth. I had never seen such teeth.
    “I’m so glad you came,” she said, halfway up the brick walkway. I was so glad too. It was about noon. Typically, I had yet to eat a bite, and the aromas wafting from the porch were making me dizzy.
    “A lovely house,” I said, gazing at the front of it. It was clapboard, painted a sparkling white, and gave the impression that someone was usually hanging around with a brush and bucket. A green tin-roofed porch ran across the entire front.
    “Why, thank you. We’ve owned it for thirty years.”
    I knew that most of the dwellings in Lowtown were owned by white slumlords across the tracks. To own a home was an unusual accomplishment for blacks in 1970.
    “Who’s your gardener?” I asked as I stopped to smell a yellow rose. There were flowers everywhere—edging the walkway, along the porch, down both sides of their property line. “That would be me,” she said with a laugh, teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
    Up three steps and onto the porch, and there it was—the spread! A small table next to the railing was prepared for two people—white cotton cloth, white napkins, flowers in a small vase, a large pitcher of iced tea, and at least four covered dishes.
    “Who’s coming?” I asked.
    “Oh, just the two of us. Esau might drop by later.”
    “There’s enough food for an army.” I inhaled as deeply as possible and my stomach ached in anticipation.
    “Let’s eat now,” she said, “before it gets cold.”
    I restrained myself, walked casually to the table, and pulled back a chair for her. She was delighted that I was such a gentleman. I sat across from her and was ready to yank off the lids and dive headfirst into whatever Ifound when she took both my hands and lowered her head. She began to pray.
    It would be a lengthy prayer. She thanked the Lord for everything good, including me, “her new friend.” She prayed for those who were sick and those who might become so. She prayed for rain and sun and health and humility and patience, and though I began to worry about the food getting cold I was mesmerized by her voice. Her cadence was slow, with thought given to each word. Her diction was perfect, every consonant treated equally, every comma and period honored. I had to peek to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I had never heard such speech from a Southern black, or a Southern white for that matter.
    I peeked again. She was talking to her Lord, and her face was perfectly content. For a few seconds, I actually forgot about the food. She squeezed my hands as she petitioned the Almighty with eloquence that came only from years of practice. She quoted Scripture, the King James Version for sure, and it was a bit odd to hear her use words