Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Six Sentence Story. Hosted by Denise. One prompt word to adhere to six (and only six) sentences.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

Readers of our Sixes will recognizes the above photo. One of several I use when writing a Six from the imagined reality of Parchman Farm. (To be more precise, our story’s context is from the first third of the 20th Century when the prison functioned as a state-sponsored plantation.)

Prompt word:

LEGEND

“Still rainin, boss,” Billy Tulene’s voice wove three words into a song of impossibly complex emotion. Seeking an invisible sunrise, the young man’s eyes reflected a map which had its legend obliterated by time and poor judgement.

“Any damn fool tell me that, boy,” Roscoe Williams, cageboss in Camp 8, always sounded meaner on days when God and weather interfered with the State of Mississippi’s plans for two thousand convicts. It wasn’t just the complaints of the men who signed his paycheck, they were just passing down what they were given by those who served at the will of the voters; what bothered Roscoe about rainy days, was the music.

Try as you might, and Roscoe did, when his uniform was still new and he believed he understood his charges; not one prisoner at Parchman Farm would say when they’d first heard the songs that rose among the men, binding them stronger than any wire fence or iron shackles ever could.

What made the cageboss so mean on rainy days was, he was among the men all day, not riding his horse, high above their bent heads out in the endless fields; more than once, noted with a slide of the eye or an upturn of half a dark smile, Mrs. Ida Williams’ only son could be heard singing along.