A Lesson Before Dying Read Online Free PDF

told her.
    She reached over and touched my hand, then she began to rub the knuckles with her fingers.
    â€œI need to go someplace where I can feel I’m living,” I said. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life teaching school in a plantation church. I want to be with you, someplace where we could have a choice of things to do. I don’t feel alive here. I’m not living here. I know we can do better someplace else.”
    â€œI’m still married,” Vivian said. “A separation is not a divorce. I can’t go anywhere until all this is over with.”
    â€œThat’s not what’s keeping you here. Even after the divorce, you’ll still feel committed,” I said.
    â€œAnd you, Grant?”
    â€œI’m tired of feeling committed.”
    â€œThen why haven’t you gone?”
    â€œBecause of you.”
    â€œThat’s not true, Grant, and you know it,” she said. “We met only three years ago. I was still married—pregnant with my second child. You told me then how much you always wanted to get away. And you did, once. You remember that? You went to California to visit your mother and father—but you wouldn’t stay. You couldn’t stay. You had to come back. Why did you come back, Grant? Why?”
    â€œI want to go now, and I want you to go with me.”
    â€œI’m still married, Grant.”
    â€œAfter the divorce?”
    She nodded. “After the divorce I’ll do whatever you want me to do—as long as you’re responsible for what you do.”
    â€œIn other words, if I fail, I would have to blame myself the rest of my life for trying, is that it?”
    â€œI’ll leave all that up to you, Grant, if you still want me after the divorce.”
    â€œI’ll always want you,” I said, and touched her hand. “And if you don’t know that by now, I don’t know what you do know about me.”
    A couple from one of the other tables had gotten up and chosen a record on the jukebox. It was a blues, the tempo slow, and the two people danced close together. I needed Vivian closer to me than she was now, and I asked her if she wanted to dance.
    We left the table, and I took her in my arms, and I could feel her breasts through that sweater, and I could feel her thighs through that plaid skirt, and now I felt very good.
    We danced for a while. I didn’t want to say it, but I had to say it.
    â€œThey gave him death,” I said.
    She and I had talked about it on the weekend, and I did not want to talk about it now, or even think about it now, but it was the only thing that stayed on my mind. I could feel her body go tense against me.
    We danced awhile.
    â€œThey want me to visit him.”
    â€œThat would be nice, Grant.”
    â€œThey want me to make him a man before he dies.”
    She stopped dancing, and she stood back to look at me. Her face was twisted into a painful, questioning frown.
    â€œThe public defender, trying to get him off, called him a dumb animal,” I told her. “He said it would be like tying a hog down into that chair and executing him—an animal that didn’t know what any of it was all about. The jury, twelve white men good and true, still sentenced him to death. Now his godmother wants me to visit him and make him know—prove to these white men—that he’s not a hog, that he’s a man. I’m supposed to make him a man. Who am I? God?”
    The record ended, and we went back to our table.
    â€œI still don’t know if the sheriff will even let me visit him. And suppose he did; what then? What do I say to him? Do I know what a man is? Do I know how a man is supposed to die? I’m still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived?”
    Vivian lowered her head.
    â€œSuppose I was allowed to visit him, and suppose I reached him and made him realize that he was as