Posted on December 2, 2013 at 8:17 pm

Minnie McKnight’s Testimony

WATSON
The children speak the truth!
The children call for vengeance
For the innocence we never can replace!

MINNIE
My name is Minola McKnight.

WATSON
The children speak the truth!
The sodomite is laughin’ in your face…

MINNIE
I been lookin’ after Miss Lucille and her husband since they married. Been three years las’ November

DORSEY
Good. Now, Minnie, were you at work on April 26th? Memorial Day?

MINNIE
Yassuh.

DORSEY
And what transpired – happened that day?

MINNIE
Mistuh Frank, he come home for his dinner at one.
He come runnin’ in, and he look funny.

DORSEY
Funny in what way?

MINNIE
His  eyes poppin’ out and his face turnin’ red,
And he jump up and leave ‘fore I put his dessert on the table.
Coconut cake, too – his favorite.

LUCILLE
No! That’s not true. That’s not true, Minnie!

JUDGE ROAN
Order! Order in the courtroom.

DORSEY
Anything else strike you as peculiar that day?

ROSSER
Objection. Leadin’ the witness.

JUDGE ROAN
Objection sustained.

DORSEY
Anything else out of the ordinary occur?

MINNIE
Well, then the next mornin’ I see Miss Lucille.
She look like she ain’t had a minute o’ rest.
She says that Mistuh Frank made her sleep on the floor,
And that she ain’t allowed in the bed anymore…

LEO
That isn’t how it happened.

ROSSER
Shh. I’ll take care of it.

DORSEY
Thank you, Minnie. That’ll be all.

LEO
Shame! Shame on you, Minnie!

ROSSER
Hush up, Leo! Let me handle this!

DORSEY
Mrs. Phagan, can you describe for us, please ma’am, the outfit
your daughter Mary wore to town last Memorial Day?

MRS. PHAGAN
Yessir I can.  It was her Easter Sunday outfit -‑ the little lavender cotton
pongee dress I made her, white stockings and her party shoes.

DORSEY
Would these be the clothes?