In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless, Ora Lee
Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn. The
neighborhood children call him the Pee-can Man; their mothers call them
inside whenever he appears. When he is arrested for murder, only Ora
knows what really happened in the woods where Eddie lived. But truth is
a fickle thing, and a lie is self-perpetuating. Ora and her maid
Blanche soon find themselves in a web of lies that send an innocent man
to prison for the rest of his life. Twenty-five years later, Ora sets
out to tell the truth about the Pecan Man.
Ora
Lee Beckworth lives in Mayville, Florida and has a negro servant named
Blanche who's worked with her so long they've become friends. Ora Lee
is 82 years old sharing what she knows of the events that happened when
she was 57, 25 year ago when she hired the homeless man, known to others
as the Pecan Man, but who's real name is Eddie, to keep care of her
yard. The whole neighbourhood was scandalized, but Ora Lee, being as
old as she was, couldn't care less. Eventually they became used to
seeing him around their homes and stopped calling their kids inside when
he was around.
One day Ora Lee comes home to find Blanche
sitting with her youngest daughter asleep on her lap. Blanch is crying,
sobbing, heavy tears as she clutched the child.
"It ain't all right, Miss Ora. It ain't all right and it ain't never gonna be all right."
Ora
Lee takes the sleeping child from her friend and places her in bed.
That's when she see's blood trickling down the inside of that poor
baby's legs and realizes the awful offense that's been done to that
precious child. She confronts Blanche, tells her to go to the police,
but Blanche knows that going to the police will only bring more
confusion and pain. Ora Lee assures her she'll make sure justice was
done.
"I know Chief Kornegay..." she tells her maid.
"...It was [his] son did this to Grace."
Ora
Lee suggests that Grace continue to come to her house after school.
Soon the entire family is used to the changes and sometimes accompany
Grace on her visits. Ora Lee is happy to have the company of so many
youthful girls in the house. No one suspects anything until
Thanksgiving. Ora Lee invites Blanche's family for dinner and makes
sure to invite Eddie as well. After dinner Ora Lee is sitting out on
her porch with Blanche's son, Marcus, and Eddie when Eddie asks, "How's
dat l'il girl doin'?"
Ora Lee is sputtered into silence
as she finds out he's the one who found her that fateful day. Marcus
picks up on the tension and starts to question Eddie.
"I think I done talked outta turn," Eddie managed. "I thought the family knowed all about it."
Blanche kept it from them by convincing Grace it was all a bad dream.
Later
that night, after the rest of the family's gone home, Marcus shows up
at Ora Lee's door bleeding and covered in blood. He tells her he
followed Eddie home and made him tell the truth about what happened to
Grace. He then reveals he ran into Skipper Kornegay, the boy who'd
committed the crime, on the way back home. He say's they got into a
fight and Skipper pulled a knife on him. In the scuffle Marcus manages
to take the knife.
"I stabbed him, Miz Ora. Over and over and over..."
She
insists he stay the night and lets him borrow her car to make his way
home to Fort Bragg where he's been working for the army. She tells him
what his story is if anyone tries to question him. She's determined to
see that boy go, knowing he'd spend the rest of his life in jail for
what happened to the Kornegay kid.
Later that morning
after he's left and Blanche has already arrives the police show up at
her door. Ora Lee fears the worst, that somehow they've discovered the
truth. The reason for their visit is much more tragic than that.
"I'm sorry... Marcus was killed in a car accident this morning..."
They
bury Marcus in the graveyard next to his Daddy and Ora Lee hopes the
awful truth is buried with him. Until she finds out that Eddie's been
arrested for the murder. Knowing his innocence she strives to pull some
strings with old friends with power, trying to help the elderly man.
They do their best at her assurance of his innocence but Eddie pleads
guilty to the crime.
She tries to talk him out of it, unwilling to accept his ill-fate.
"It's the safest place for me. They got a bed and a toilet and three meals a day, and it won't cost me a dime," he tells her.
She
can't argue with his logic but is torn to see him put away for a crime
he never committed. She vows to both visit him, bringing him homemade
baked goods on every visit, and that someday everyone will know the
truth, starting with Police Chief Ralph Kornegay. Her story will rock
the family and bring to light many more truths that might've died with
Eddie. She reveals secrets they've all carried for too long.
The
Pecan Man is a touching story of a woman who's fate is linked with that
of her maid's family. She learns valuable lessons about justice,
fairness and colour at a time when black's had little in society. She
finds a family in them she never thought possible and they change her
life as she changes theirs.
Click here to purchase The Pecan Man.
