“How’d
this liberal get in?” someone said as he came up behind me and patted me on the back.
I turned to see Ralph Long smiling at me.
We
had been friends in high school but had rarely seen each other since.
He was tall and slim with a bit of a
potbelly,
in khaki slacks and a navy sport shirt with his name and
property appraiser
embroidered on it.
“No
way
he’s
a registered
Republican,”
he said to
Felix.
“Actually,
ironically,
I
am,”
I said. “Had to switch from Independent to Republican to vote for Dad in the
primary.”
“And
your good old friend and great property appraiser Ralph Long,” he said.
“I started
to,
I really did, but then a little voice that sounded like him said he
wouldn’t
want some old bleeding-heart convict-minister voting for
him.”
He laughed. So did
Felix.
“How are you, man?” he said. “Good.
You?”
“Great. Never been
better.
It’s
good to see
you.”
“
You
too,”
I said.
“You
were just kidding,
weren’t
you?” he said. “I need every vote I can get.”
I nodded. “I filled in the little circle beside your
name.”
“Thanks man. Please do it again in the general election.”
“Plan
to.”
Felix
said,
“You
let me know if
there’s
anything I can do to convince you to stay registered for the right
side.”
And with that they were both gone, on to greet their several other best friends.
I looked around.
In between the
two
large event tents, an open bar had been set
up.
Small
farm
tractors on either side of it held iced-down bottled water and canned soft drinks in their upturned
buckets.
I walked toward the tractor on the left in search of a Cherry
Dr.
Pepper.
On the back side of the house, several enormous charcoal grills on trailers were filled with the best steaks the
Potter
County Republican party could afford, the smell from them carried by the smoke wafting through the evening air making me salivate.
Negotiating my
way
through the swarms of men, many with drinks and cigars in their
hands,
was
challenging––particularly while attempting to smile and nod at each one and shake the hand of more than a
few.
It
would
be a while before the steaks and baked potatoes were served, but folding tables with white table clothes held hearty appetizers of fried catfish, oysters on the half shell, venison link sausage, and peel-and-eat boiled shrimp.
The smell of it all made me hungry and I realized I had forgotten to eat lunch. Stopping by one of the tables on my
way
to the bar, I tossed a couple of catfish filets on a paper plate and kept
moving.
I had only taken a few steps when I saw the warden walking directly toward me.
Bat Matson,
Potter
Correctional
Institution’s
new warden, had been the warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the largest maximum-security prison in the country, just a few months
ago.
Known as “the farm,” Angola was named after the home of African slaves who used to
work
its plantation. The site of a prison since the end of the Civil
War,
Angola’s eighteen thousand acres houses
over
five thousand men, three-quarters of whom are black, 85 percent of whom will die within its fences.
A fleshy man in his early sixties with prominent jowls and thick gray hair swooped to one side, Matson had come to Florida and to PCI with the new secretary of the department, who had been appointed by the new governor. He was authoritative, totalitarian, and fundamentalist, and not in any
way
fond of me.
I turned to my left to
avoid
him and came face to face with
Anna’s
soon-to-be ex-husband Chris
Taunton.
“Just the man I’ve been wanting to
see,”
he said.
“You
been duckin’ me?”
I reached back and dropped the plate of catfish in the large plastic garbage can behind me and turned to face him, bracing for anything he might
do.
“What can I do for you, Chris?”
“Well,
for starters,
John,
you could stop fuckin’ my
wife,”
he said.
His breath smelled strongly of
whiskey,
but I
wasn’t
sure if that or his desire to embarrass me was behind his
excessive
volume.
Several of the men in our vicinity turned toward
us.
“Your
marriage being
over
has nothing to do with
me,”
I said, “but it is
over.
I know you regret your affairs and other desperate acts and not treating that amazing woman like she deserves. Just make sure you direct that anger and disappointment in the right direction.”
“Who the fuck do you think
you’re
talkin’ to?” he said.
“Chris,”
I said, “you’ve made some mistakes.
Don’t
make
others.
Stop
calling.
Stop riding
by
the house. Stop––”
“
It’s
not a
house,”
he said.
“It’s
a fuckin’ old tin
box.
You’re
trailer trash.
You’re––”
“Stop the harassment. Stop making everything more difficult than it has to
be.”
Clinching his fists at his sides and bowing out his chest, he took another step toward me.
“You
don’t
want to do this
here,”
I said.
“That’s
where
you’re
wrong, you self-righteous piece of shit.”
Just before he took a swing, Don Stockton, the forty-something corrupt county commissioner, stepped between us and put his
arms
around
Chris.
“This is not the
place,”
he said. “Not the time. Come on,
let’s
go
out to my truck.
There’s
somethin’ I wanna show
you.”
Chris seemed to be thinking about it.
“Come
on,”
Stockton said again. “I promise you’ll like it. It’ll take your mind off all this bullshit.
John’s
not goin’ anywhere. If you still want words with him later, y’all can
go
behind the barn when the place clears out. Okay?”
Chris
shrugged
Stockton’s
hands off but
didn’t
make a
move
toward me.
“It’s
me,”
Stockton said.
“You
know if I say I’ve got something good for you then I
do.
Come
on.”
“Okay,”
Chris said, “but when he runs like the little pussy he
is,
you
have
to promise me you’ll help me catch
him.”
“I
promise.”
“What’s
goin’ on here, Chaplain?” Bat Matson said as he stepped up beside me.
“I’ll tell
you,”
Chris said.
“Your chaplain’s
fuckin’ a married woman.
That’s
what.”
Matson looked at me with contempt, shook his head, and kept
walking.
He had only gone a short distance when he turned back and said, “My office. First thing in the morning.” When I finally reached the bar area, I found Hugh Glenn sloshing his vodka and cranberry as he spouted his qualifications and vision for the sheriff
’s
department.
There were several men around him but only because they were in line for the
bar.
Still, he spoke with the conviction that his captive audience was there for him.
After I found an ice-cold
Dr.
Pepper in the tractor bucket, I got in the bar line for some grenadine.
“Here’s Jack
Jordan’s
secret weapon right
here,”
Glenn said.
A few of the men turned and looked at me.
“John, what is your unofficial role in your
dad’s
department?”
“I
have
no role. Unofficial or otherwise.”
“How many cases do you solve for him each year?” he asked. “What percentage?”
I
didn’t
respond.
“First thing I’m gonna do when I’m sheriff is offer you a
job,”
he said. “How
would
you like to be my lead investigator?”
I still
didn’t
respond. “I’m
serious,”
he said.
“Did you
have
anything to do with that meth lab bust last night?” a youngish strawberry-blond-haired guy I only vaguely recognized said.
I shook my head.
“Notice how drug busts
go
up right before an election?” Glenn said.
“You
have
to admit
that’s
true,” the young guy said to me.
“It’s
bullshit,” another guy said.
He was a short, dark-haired, dark-complected guy in his late twenties.
“Don’t
listen to
him,”
the guy in line behind him said to me. “His sister was one of the ones that got busted.”
“Stepsister,” the dark guy corrected. “Got nothin’ to do with it. I’m glad her
sorry
ass is in jail, but if the sheriff was doin’ his damn
job,
her loser boyfriend
would’ve
been in there years ago and last night never
would’ve
happened.”
Thankfully,
I reached the front of the line, got my grenadine, and was able to slip
away.
“You
guys enjoy your evening,” I said.
I found
Jake
over
near the barn helping
fry
the fish and boil the shrimp.
He was standing in front of a large outdoor deep fryer hooked to a propane bottle, stirring the boiling shrimp with a wooden boat paddle.
He wore an apron with an American flag and the words HOME OF THE FREE
BECAUSE
OF THE
BRAVE
written on it. Beneath the
words
was the silhouette of soldiers before a red, white, and blue background.
“Last
batch,”
he said.
“Want
some fresh, hot shrimp?”
“Thanks,”
I said, not wanting to reject any offer of civility he made toward me and searching desperately for something to
do.
“Coming
up.”
I thought about how much I had always loved fresh Gulf
shrimp,
and how the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had changed that for me. I
couldn’t
eat anything from the Gulf without thinking of and even sometimes tasting 4.9 million barrels of oil and 1.84 million gallons of Corexit dispersant in every bite––all of which still remained under the surface of the beautiful blue-green
waters,
and would continue to long after we who were doing so much damage were dead and gone.
“I can take
over
if you want to
go
mingle,” I said. “Mingle?”
“What would you call it?”
“Not something gay like
mingle
,” he said. “Thanks, but I’m done after
this.
I’ll
go
get my mingle on then.”
He knew how much using
gay
as a pejorative bothered me, but seemed to be saying it more out of habit than aggression.
Given the fragile nature of our new relationship, I let it
go.
“How are the
Jordan
boys tonight?” Judge Richard
Cox
said as he walked
up.
Richard Cox was a tall, trim man in his early sixties with bright blue eyes and a calm, confident manner.
He had been a judge in the county for as long as I could remember. He was respected and liked, but lacked the warmth and personableness to be loved.
To
the right of the most rightwing conservative, he was rigidly religious and punitive in his sentencing, but his approach to the law and life emanated from genuine conviction and he applied his judgements both in and out of the courtroom with equal severity for all.
“Just fine, Judge
Cox,” Jake
said. “How are you?”
“Be better if I could trouble you for a few of those fresh
shrimp.”
“You
got
it.”
“They’ve
run
out
over
there and I
didn’t
get to
try
any.
They’re my
favorite.
’Specially in that spicy cajun seasoning.”
“Have all you like, Judge.
We
got
plenty.”
“
Don’t
want any more than my fair
share.”
“
Yes,
sir,” Jake
said. “Of course,
sir.”
“
Chaplain Jordan, how are you?” he said.
He said
chaplain
the
way
he always said it––with a hint of ironic derision. He had told me on more than one occasion that my belief in grace and the absolute unconditional
love
of God was misguided and dangerous, and that what he called
my
cheap grace, social gospel, works theology was leading weak and vulnerable people
astray,
away
from instead of unto God.