:?
Okay, a mystery, hmm...
Right, let's just tear this thing apart, and solve the mystery.
It was the third of June,
another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin' cotton
and my brother was balin' hay.
And at dinner time we stopped,
and we walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered at the back door
"y'all remember to wipe your feet."
And then she said she got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense,
pass the biscuits, please."
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow."
Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge,
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billy Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right.
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge,
And now you tell me Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today,
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday. Oh, by the way,
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe.
Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going 'round, papa caught it and he died last spring,
And now mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
A few initial observations:
1) The father's reaction is -- to say the least -- wildly inappropriate. Billy Joe (a youth who was to the family obviously "known" rather than merely "known of", since he was a childhood friend of the narrator's brother) has died in an abrupt and tragic manner. But "never had a lick of sense" is all the father has to say about him. Not just dismissive; smug. Cruel, vindictive?
2) The brother says "You know it don't seem right." Well, what doesn't seem right? That he saw Billy Joe the day before, apparently not behaving in any abnormal/suicidal manner, and then apparently Billy Joe had committed suicide that very morning. Apparently.
3) The father had "more" plowing to do, so apparently he had been out plowing earlier. He had been away from the house earlier in the day.
At the dinner table, he changes the subject, very abruptly.
4) The mother and the brother both express some distress over the death of Billy Joe. Not much, but some. The narrator... says nothing at all. She says nothing, eats nothing, she just sits there at the table.
5) The mother knows or suspects something... The thing thrown from the bridge is of some great significance. Something thrown, something thrown by two people. "A girl that looked a lot like you". "She and Billy Joe was throwing somethin".