The Life and Times of Tommy Lee Pruitt

Tommy Lee Pruitt entered my life first when I was eight years old which would’ve made it the year of 19 and 62. Tommy Lee was just nearly nineteen then hisself. He’s been part of my life ever since and still is. We first met when he offered to my momma to take me fishin’ with him come a Saturday as he didn’t care much for fishin’ alone. Momma allowed as how that was an excellent idea and why didn’t I ask Poke and Dinnie, my life-long buddies, to come along as well. That first Saturday fishin’ I think was the most fun I’d had up to that point in my short life. Tommy Lee knew more ‘bout catchin’ fish than most folks and he didn’t treat us like a bunch of young’uns neither. We was all just a bunch of guys fishin’ on a Saturday. The four of us been fishin’ and huntin’ together regular ever since.

Now before I get too far into this story there’s two things ya need to know ‘bout Tommy Lee Pruitt. First off, Tommy Lee is, well, I don’t exactly know what the right word to use is. He’s simple I guess would be as good as any. I don’t mean Tommy Lee’s retarded, he’s just simple. My daddy says Tommy Lee’s one of God’s special people. He don’t know too much ‘bout what goes on in the world around him but he knows what’s good and what’s bad and Tommy Lee’s all good. Daddy says he’s blessed that way. His life is simple and he’s simple and that ain’t always a bad thing like most folks may think. Tommy Lee’s understandin’ of right and wrong played a big part in what turned out to be the only criminal hearin’ ever held in Deerflat which took place when I was a senior in high school ten years later in ‘72. You could look up the particulars in the paper over to the Ripley library if you was a mind to.

Second, and maybe just as important, ya need to know that Tommy Lee’s a big man. Fact is, Tommy Lee’s the biggest human I’ve ever known. Now my daddy was a big man. He stood six foot ten barefooted and he weren’t a beanpole. Tommy Lee made my daddy look a might on the shy side. Couple of fellas came up from Vanderbilt University in Nashville a few years back to interview Tommy Lee and measure him some as part of a study they was makin’. Tommy Lee laughs and says he felt like they was fittin’ him out for burial. Anyways, these university fellas says Tommy Lee is a true giant, meanin’ his body is the right size and shape for his size. I don’t know ‘bout all that but I do know Tommy Lee is a big man.

I never knew Tommy Lee’s momma and daddy. They’d passed when Tommy Lee was only two. Momma says Tommy Lee was turned over to the state and was in foster care till he was sixteen years old, passed from one family to another cause they was all afraid of him for one reason or another. Mostly cause he was so big. Nobody wanted a young’un bigger’n they was. When Tommy Lee was sixteen he come back to his homeplace which was still his as the only child of the Pruitt’s. The place was pretty rough but my daddy and Poke’s daddy pitched in hand helped Tommy Lee clean and fix up the place to make it livable again. Course Momma says everbody knew He’d run away and that no sixteen year old was supposed to be livin’ alone like that but the community sort of took a hand in seein’ to Tommy Lee’s well-bein’ and shielded him from the county so to speak, legal or not. Tommy Lee was one of us, momma says, and we take care of our own. By the time he turned eighteen Tommy Lee was makin’ his own livin’. He did farm jobs for just about every family in Deerflat at one time or another and he grew hay on his forty acres. We all made a point to buy our hay from Tommy Lee. I still do whether I need extra or not.

One March afternoon in ’72, Miss Gertie Witherspoon’s niece, Caroline, didn’t come home from school. No one worried too much a first cause they figured she was off with one of her friends but come six that evenin’ things changed. Caroline’s folks set into panic and we all started searchin’ the places we thought she might be. Weren’t but an hour or so and we found her up at the old Forrester place lookin’ through some old trunks they’d left years ago when they moved out. My daddy says she knew right off she was in trouble so she starts in to cryin’ and carryin’ on and does somethin’ that near ’bout tore the Deerflat community apart. She claimed Tommy Lee’d brought her up to the Forrester place and left her there, tellin’ her she’d better not leave or he get her. Daddy says that didn’t ring true with any of those present but then old man Thornton, what used to be a deacon at the church but don’t even go anymore, spoke up and says he thought he might of seen Caroline with Tommy Lee earlier in the afternoon. No one really paid any attention to Mr. Thornton but daddy admits they should have.

Caroline’s folks walked her home and since it’d all turned out alright the rest of the men just let it go. That is, all except Mr. Thornton. He up and called to the county Sheriff’s claimin’ there’d been a kidnapping and the locals was tryin’ to cover it up. He actually told the Sheriff that the one did it was a retarded guy that lived off by hisself and was a danger to the community. Course we heard ‘bout all this much later. No one thought much about the Caroline deal until ‘bout a week or so later my momma hollered from the kitchen porch to my daddy. “Tobey. Sheriff’s car just went up to Tommy Lee’s.” Daddy dropped what he was doin’, jumped in the pickup and headed up towards Tommy Lee’s. When he got there things was pretty much in an uproar to say the least. The way daddy tells it those two deputies the Sheriff had sent didn’t know nothing ‘bout Tommy Lee. Seein’ him for the first time musta been a shock. Evidently they’d told Tommy Lee he had to come with them for suspicion of kidnapping and Tommy Lee allowed he weren’t going no where and he didn’t know what kidnapping was. First thing daddy saw when he drove up was Tommy Lee standin’ in the front yard with a deputy under each arm. Daddy says they must have tried to handcuff Tommy Lee which was a real mistake.

Anyways, daddy hops outa the pickup and says, “Tommy Lee, I reckon ya need to put down those men.” Tommy Lee looks down at the deputies and then just drops ‘em on the ground and walks over to my daddy like nothin’s happened all day. “Hey Mr. Tobey” Tommy Lee says. “These fellas was tryin’ to make me get in their car but I ain’t done nothin’ so I told ‘em no. I guess they thought they was gonna make me go.” Tryin’ not to laugh at the deputies or the situation my daddy convinced Tommy Lee to go ahead on with the deputies and he’d come too to straighten things out. The outcome was that they charged Tommy Lee with kidnapping and resisting arrest among other things. They was gonna put him in a cell but Tommy Lee told ‘em he weren’t goin’ in no cell. Daddy says after starin’ hard at Tommy Lee for ‘bout a minute that Sheriff decided they weren’t enough of ‘em to get Tommy Lee Pruitt in a cell without shootin’ him a few times and they didn’t wanta do that so they let him go under my daddy’s supervision.

My daddy don’t get angry very often. Bein’ a big person he learned early how to control his temper but that night after he dropped Tommy Lee off at his home, he was fit to be tied. I heard him tellin’ momma they’ve dumped all this off on Tommy Lee on the word of a third grade girl scared of getting’ in trouble with her folks and a dried up old man who thinks he saw Tommy Lee and the girl. They’s just scared of Tommy Lee ‘cause he’s different and they don’t understand him. That’s it. Well, there ain’t gonna be no trial I can tell ya. They gonna have a hearin’ in a couple of weeks and we’re gonna put an end to this foolishness. Then daddy called lawyer Perkins down to Nashville and had him come up the next day. They drove up to Tommy Lee’s place and stayed for ‘bout four hours. When they came back to the house, we had lawyer Perkins stay for supper then he left. There weren’t another word said ‘bout Tommy Lee for the next two weeks, least not in our house.

I skipped school that Tuesday they had the hearing. They had the hearing at the VFW ‘cause it had the biggest room and we didn’t have no courthouse to speak of. We didn’t even have a judge or what they call a magistrate. A judge named Simmons up from Nashville to conduct the proceedings which only lasted ‘bout forty-five minutes ‘fore that judge threw the whole thing out and told everybody to go home. I won’t tell ya ‘bout the whole thing but best I can remember, then entire hearing itself went something like this….

Judge: Mr. Pruitt, are you aware of the charges against you and do you have representation with you today?

Tommy Lee: No sir. I don’t really understand why I’m here if that’s what ya mean.

Lawyer Perkins: Your Honor, I represent Mr. Pruitt and I can assure you he doesn’t understand what’s goin’ on here. I have prepared a brief regarding Mr. Pruitt’s background. If I may be permitted to present it to your Honor for perusal your Honor will understand my client without further embarrassment to my client. (I guess lawyer Perkins must have filled the judge in on Tommy Lee’s mental state and background ‘cause the judge spent a good ten minutes readin’ and noddin’ his head).

Judge: Mr. Perkins is there anyone you’d like to call to testify in this matter?

Lawyer Perkins: Yes your Honor. I’d like to call Mr. Howard Thornton.

Once old man Thornton had walked up front and sat down lawyer Perkins didn’t give him a chance to catch a breath. He only asked him three questions. That’s all it took.

Lawyer Perkins: Mr. Thornton. Did you contact the county Sheriff and imply that there had been a kidnapping and that it was being covered up to protect a dangerous, mentally challenged member of the community? Lawyer Perkins then turned to Tommy Lee and said, “I mean no offense to you Tommy Lee.”

Mr. Thornton: Yes sir, I did.

Lawyer Perkins: You also stated that you thought you saw my client, Tommy Lee Pruitt, with the young girl that was supposedly kidnapped earlier in the afternoon?

Mr. Thornton: Yes sir, I did.

Lawyer Perkins: Tommy Lee, please stand up will ya son? Now Mr. Thornton, Tommy Lee Pruitt is one huge piece of humanity. You either see him or you don’t. There’s no mistakin’ Tommy Lee Pruitt for anyone else. Now I ask you, did you see Tommy Lee Pruitt with the young girl or did you not?

Mr. Thornton: No sir, I guess I didn’t.

Lawyer Perkins: That’s all with this man your Honor. Now I’d like to ask the father of the young girl one question.

When Caroline’s daddy had taken his seat lawyer Perkins did only ask one question.

Lawyer Perkins: What did your daughter eventually admit to you regarding her supposed kidnapping earlier this March?

Father: She made it up ‘cause she knew she was gonna be in trouble for not comin’ straight home when the school bus dropped her off.

Lawyer Perkins: Thank you. That’s all. Your Honor, I’d like Tommy Lee to come up and answer a question or two just to set everybody’s mind to rest. (Tommy Lee walks up to the front and couldn’t hardly set hisself on that little foldin’ chair they was usin’). Tommy Lee, have you ever considered hurtin’ a child in any way?

Tommy Lee: Oh, no sir. Mr. Tobey’s always said my job is to protect anybody smaller’n me which I guess is near ‘bout everybody.

Lawyer Perkins: Who’s Mr Tobey Tommy Lee?

Tommy Lee: (Points to my daddy) That’s Mr. Tobey right there.

Lawyer Perkins: Does Mr. Tobey allow you around his family and kids?

Tommy Lee: Yes sir. Fact is I been watchin’ after Mr. Tobey’s boy since he was seven or eight. Him and little Poke and Dinnie and the others. We hunt and fish and they help me with stuff like readin’ the paper and writin’ letters and checkin’ my mail and stuff like that. Most all the young’uns here ‘bouts knows me.

Lawyer Perkins: Thanks Tommy Lee, that’s all son. That’s all your Honor.

Judge: Well, is there anything else?

Prosecutor: Your Honor, what about the resisting arrest charge?

Judge: Drop it. I’d have resisted too. This whole shebang shouldn’t have gotten started in the first place and if you’d a done your job a little better it never would have. You leave this young man alone and lets all go home. Mr. Pruitt, you have this courts apology which I hope you will accept.

Seems now like everybody on our road came up for supper that night. After we’d finished up eatin’ we was settin’ on the porch when lawyer Perkins ask Tommy Lee what he thought about the whole thing. Tommy Lee thought a minute and said he thought it’d all to be pretty exciting he just didn’t know exactly who it was that was in trouble. We must of laughed a good ten minutes with Tommy Lee laughin’ right along with us.

Tommy Lee Pruitt’s the same now as he was then. A simple man with a simple life. Must be nice.