Finding A Good Man: Grandmother's Perspective

The following short story is my interpretation of the Grandmother's perspective of "A Good Man in Hard to Find." This excerpt is from the lines "Alone with The Misfit" to "There were two more pistol reports." I did not narrate the Grandmother's death because I feel as if she recognized the error of her ways before their final exchange. She had already been grappling with the identity of The Misfit, and she reached her conclusion as to the type of man he is. If I had the word count to continue writing this story, then Grandmother would admit that she knows the identity of The Misfit. She is heartbroken, because she knows that she can no longer help her son be the man that he was supposed to be. She dies without putting up a fight.

Finding A Good Man: Grandmother's Perspective 

The sky above seems as empty as the space between us. Even the trees that once seemed so close are now far away. We are alone. There is little to say and even less to think, especially now that I finally remember the truth. He towers above me, his icy blue eyes casting judgment on me for every poor decision that I have made. He has his father’s eyes, his father’s nose. He knows the truth, I think to myself, He knows who I am and what I did and he has come to finally cast judgment on me. The Misfit. His father gave him that nickname years ago, before all the drunken black eyes and bruises, before they stopped talking, before that accident that one night that ended it all. The Misfit. The child that did not belong, that was loathed more than his brother Bailey, that was behind bars at the age of eleven for stealing the life of the man who stripped him of everything that made a child a child. He was a misfit, never having friends in school or even someone to just say hi to. He was once so pure, so innocent. Now he has embraced his title, and his position as an outcast has resulted in some sick desire to make everyone as alone as he feels. Soon, we’ll all be misfits.

“Jesus. Jesus,” I murmur. Only He can help us now, yet I wonder if He would show his face in such a horrible situation.

“Yes’m,” says The Misfit. He smirks and continues, “Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn’t committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me.”

His voice trails on. The papers. The argument that night had begun over a three-page letter he had written to his teacher, explaining his father’s behavior and asking for help. I told him to keep his head down. I told him his daddy was a good man, a good man who had seen too much, said too much, and drank too much. But he was just a boy, a boy with loose blonde hair hanging over his black eye, wiping away blood from his cracked lip and crying for a new life with a father that loved him, a brother who did not always cast such a shadow over his life, and a mother who understood him. When he swung that bat at his father, he killed that little boy. He became the man with empty eyes, speaking through a pistol aimed at the few people who dare to care about him.

The blood-curdling scream from the woods shatters my recollection of that night. The piercing noises, closely followed by two gunshots, tells me that he will take away everything I love. He stares wistfully into the woods, his lips curved into a small smile. I haven’t seen that smile in years. That is the same smile he gave me when I told him that we would tell the world that his father died of the flu epidemic, that his father’s final moments were spent coughing instead of bleeding on the kitchen floor. “His daddy was a good man,” I think to myself, “and he is a good man too.”

“Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?”

Perhaps he is right. Perhaps I deserve to be punished, punished for encouraging my sons to respect and love a not so good man. Perhaps it is my fault that my son felt as if he had to kill his father. I couldn’t defend my sons. He had taken the punishment for the crime that I had committed. His father’s title and my love for him means nothing in jail.

“Jesus!” I cry, “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray!”

The words fall on empty ears. Our family name has to be enough. He has to know that he is a good man, with a dignified reputation to uphold. Why is he doing this? Even from jail, he was still one of us.

“Lady,” he says, still looking into the woods, “there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip.”

He did not flinch as the gun sounded twice more. Bailey’s body is lying somewhere in the woods, as lifeless as the towering shadow pointing a gun at my face above me. Both of my boys were gone, lost in the same way that their father was. It is hard to find a good man amongst the demons lurking in the darkness of one’s mind. I look up at my son. His empty eyes are now focused on the ground beneath us, seemingly contemplating the gravity of his actions. He is a good man. He will find the good man within himself. He just needs to hear the truth.