Community grieves ‘God’s superhero’

There is never a good day to say good-bye to a little boy, but on Tuesday, in the late afternoon, the small community of Townville, nestled amongst corn fields of western Upstate South Carolina, circled the wagons of grief and began its farewell.

Farewell to innocence. To the presumption that something like this could not possibly happen in such an off-the-beaten-path place. To a 6-year-old named Jacob Hall.

Jacob, a brown-haired boy who loved superheroes, died Saturday after being shot several days earlier on the Townville Elementary School playground, along with a teacher and fellow student who survived. A 14-year-old is charged.

On Tuesday, the last good-byes began.

Tuesday, 4 p.m.

The traffic on I-85, west of Anderson, is light. There is talk on the car radio of Hurricane Matthew. The governor has ordered coastal residents to evacuate.

But at Exit 11, the conversation changes.

On a big black highway sign – the kind set up by the side of the road to announce delays due to construction – flashes another kind of message in orange letters: “PRAYERS TO THE JACOB HALL FAMILY AND TOWNVILLE.”

It does not take long from the exit to reach Oakdale Baptist Church. At the Townville Café, just off the interstate, they’ll tell you the church is just up the road, on the right. You’ll say thank you and note the message posted to the café’s front door. “The language you use in church is appropriate here.”

Here. Townville. Home to some 3,000 folks. The backbone of America. The kind of place where people work hard, go to church, worry about the crops and the weather, fly the American flag and keep their front porches swept.

Indeed, the kind of place that keeps its head down, shoulder to the plow, waiting for the country fair, which is coming soon.

But now.

Now, the bucolic landscape has changed. Lives have been upended. Hearts have been broken. A little boy has been killed, randomly, it would seem.

On a school playground, for God’s sake.

4:30 p.m.

The Baptist church is fairly new. “And by the grace of God,” says a lady helping folks to get seated in the sanctuary for Tuesday night’s visitation service, “it’s paid for.”

The grace of God. No one is talking about that right now. They are waiting for Jacob’s family to arrive. They are chatting, cautioning children not to run in the aisles or stand on the pews. They are grasping Kleenexes and grappling with the unthinkable.

At the front of the sanctuary, a small blue coffin is set on a rolling cart. Flowers and balloons surround it. A lifelike blow-up figure of Spider-Man is set on top of a piano.

Children, dressed in their own superhero outfits, admire it all. It is almost like Halloween, so many people – even the adults – dressed up in costumes, so many people here to pay their respects to a little boy who is wearing a Batman outfit and has with him a pack of Skittles. Who is in a casket.

Rebecca Hunnicutt, Jacob’s great-aunt, seems to be in charge of the Hall family. Many of its members, gathered around the casket, are wearing bright blue T-shirts that say, “TEAM JACOB.”

“We are going to try and get more security in our school systems,” Hunnicutt says.

“A child should be safe at home, at school and at church. When a madman can get to our children on a school playground, something is wrong. When we have more security in our prisons – when prisoners are more safe and more protected than our kids are – we got a problem. We have got to be Jacob’s voice.”

Jacob.

“If Jacob thought a kid was littler than him, or weaker than him, then that’s the kid he cared about,” Hunnicutt says. “He was a superhero. God’s superhero.”

And 7-year-old Ethan Hyde’s best friend. Ethan and Jacob have been in the same classroom since kindergarten. Ethan sits in a pew with his grandmother. He grasps a rubbery action figure that Jacob gave him.

“Jacob was my best friend,” he whispers. “We used to play superheroes together. I’m real sad. Me and Jacob would go outside and run around and pretend we were fighting bad guys.”

Who won?

Ethan looks up, his blue eyes brightening.

“We did.”

5:30 p.m.

Jacob’s mother, Renae Hall, arrives in the sanctuary. She looks exhausted. She reaches the casket and leans over. Her shoulders shake.

“This is the first time she has seen him,” Hunnicutt says. ‘I’m just telling everybody to give her some space. She needs her space.”

And she needs to be commended. For she asked everyone to wear superhero costumes to the visitation and funeral. She told a television station, “I don’t want suits and ties and all that. There will be a lot of children there and I don’t want it to be scary for them.”

6 p.m.

Fresh hay bales sit in just-cut fields on either side of Highway 24, leading into the heart of Townville. A Dollar General is on one side of the road, surrounded by small, white clapboard homes. Brick bungalows. Nothing fancy. Middle America. Where something like this doesn’t happen.

But it did. A flag flies at half-staff at the fire station. A sign near a field full of black and white cows says, “GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL. CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR OUR TOWN.”

And an old red tractor, strung in Christmas lights, is parked at the corner where a road leads to the elementary school.

But folks are not making the turn to see the tractor. No, they are coming to see a memorial of flowers and notes, balloons and stuffed teddy bears, which has sprung up at the school’s entrance.

People stand quietly. They come from not just here, but other places, like Anderson. Like Jill Kinley.

“It really makes you think, you know? I saw that little picture of Jacob on the television and I had to come.”

An older man stands nearby. He has a relative who works at the school. He recalls the day of the shooting. “The law was everywhere. Helicopters filled the sky. I ain’t never seen anything like it.”

6:15 p.m.

A yellow sign, listing safety rules, is posted on the gate to the playground behind the school.

One rule says “Play safely and be courteous of others.”

A mockingbird lights on the top of a sliding board. Sixteen swings are still. The fence surrounding the playground is chain link. There is a new section, just near a door to the school, likely where the shooter ran his truck into it before getting out and opening fire on Jacob’s first-grade class which was going out for recess.

That shiny section of fence is the only visible evidence that anything out of the ordinary – anything horrific – has happened here.

6:30 p.m.

The sun is setting in the west. Townville is in mourning.

Tomorrow will be another difficult day.

Wednesday, 9 a.m.

The sky is clear. The winds are calm. Hurricane Matthew may as well be a million miles away.

At the church, inside the sanctuary, pews are filling fast. Extra chairs have been brought in. A little girl wearing a pink sweater is restless. Her mother stands and rocks her back and forth. Back and forth.

10:30 a.m.

Piano music begins. An announcement comes over the intercom, asking folks to move over, to make room for more people.

10:38 a.m.

The teachers and staff of Townville Elementary file in, wearing blue and red capes made out of felt.

10:45 a.m.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley arrives. She approaches the casket and stands there for a moment or two. Then she returns to her seat. Her face is drawn. She has the coast to worry about. And she has yet another shooting to worry about.

Jacob’s family files in shortly thereafter. It is the saddest of processions. Jacob’s mother is absent. A man in a Batman suit stands at the podium, clears his throat. He says that Jacob “knew he was going to be famous someday.”

But for this? Surely not this.

A preacher takes the podium, sparing any platitudes.

“I cannot understand what has happened in Townville, in our community. I can’t make sense of it. I cannot understand. This isn’t supposed to happen.”

11:34 a.m.

Jacob’s mother comes through a side door. She appears hardly able to stand. Her grief is palatable. She is given a stool so she can sit beside the casket.

Another preacher takes the podium. “Last week, evil and darkness came to Townville. But today, here, there’s grace and faith and hope and love.”

“Amens” roll through the congregation.

Noon.

The governor leaves through a side door. And then, the casket is rolled away. Jacob’s mother reaches for it.

“Oh baby,” she cries. “Oh baby.”

12:08 p.m.

Jacob’s casket is loaded into a long, black hearse at the side of the church. Family and friends gather around and watch as it pulls out of the parking lot, on its way to Anderson, where Jacob’s body will be cremated.

It makes one think of ashes.

Perhaps Jacob’s will be spread across a world in dire need of little boys who fight the bad guys and superheroes who can save us all.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Community grieves ‘God’s superhero’."