Authors: Wid Bastian
“I’m learning, Peter, I am. Love is at the heart of the Gospel. What did St. Paul say, ‘Love covers a multitude of sins?’”
“Yes, that’s right. But relating this back to our discussion of evil in the world, we have to always keep in mind that love is our only real weapon against Satan. As Paul told the Ephesians, we must stand after having ‘girded’ ourselves with truth and ‘shod our feet’ with the Gospel. Our faith is our ‘shield’ and our salvation is our ‘helmet.’”
Gail nodded her head, signaling that at least the heart of the message was getting through. She didn’t know how all the puzzle pieces fit together, but by faith she knew that they were all in the box.
They let the next fifty miles of South Carolina countryside pass by in silence. Peter’s eyes never left the landscape, every detail of the lowland farms and forest seemed to interest him.
“Peter, what’s going to happen today? I mean, do you already know what the judge will do?” Gail asked, as they drove past the exit for Orangeburg.
“I believe that Julie is going to receive a lesson in humility today, Gail. That has been impressed upon me. Exactly how, I don’t know. I pray that God will be merciful to her, and that He takes care of Kevin.”
“You know, you never told me who you got to represent you. Some old friend in Atlanta owe you a favor or something?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“Well, Gail, I got down on my knees and asked God to take care of it. Next thing you know I have an attorney.”
“Why is it I have less than no trouble believing that. Did you go over your case with him on the phone? I don’t remember anyone coming to see you recently.” Gail McCorkle made it her business to know where Peter Carson was, and who was with him, at all times.
“Not exactly.”
“Enough already! Who is your lawyer?”
Peter opened the manila envelope that contained the restraining order Julie had given him (which was set to expire today), a copy of his divorce decree, two pencils, and a legal pad. A business card was also inside. He handed it to her.
“Good God Almighty!” Gail shouted. “You and the Lord don’t play fair, you know that, Peter! I actually feel sorry for the woman.”
They both laughed about it, agreeing that at times God could indeed be the ultimate comedian.
“What’s the ‘A.A.’ stand for anyway?” Gail asked, doing her best to keep their car between the white lines as she enjoyed the humor.
“You know what, I asked Larry the same thing. He looked at me like,
I can’t believe you don’t know that,
and said ‘Archangel.’”
They decided to pull over in a rest area for a few minutes so that Gail could take a short break, and they could finish their early lunch. No one watching Gail McCorkle and Peter Carson would ever have guessed that one was a warden, and the other a prisoner. They ate, talked, smiled, and hugged, both overjoyed simply to be in each other’s company on a beautiful April morning in Carolina.
For the second half of the ride to Judge Grove’s courtroom, Peter decided to sleep. They had left Parkersboro at five a.m. so they could make it to Atlanta by noon. He needed the extra rest.
In her exuberance, Gail dropped Peter’s lawyer’s business card. Before he pushed the seat back and settled in for a nap, Peter returned it to the envelope.
“Yes sir,” Peter said, as he stretched out and yawned. “A.A. Gabriel, Esq. This could be amusing.”
Eleven
Harmon Duke Grove, Jr. was born to be a judge, predestined to continue on in the family tradition. Since before the Confederacy, a Duke or a Grove had sat in judgment of his fellow man in one Georgia courtroom or another. The bench was Harry Grove’s legacy, his virtual birthright.
The latest incarnation of the “Honorable Groves” played his role to near perfection. Harry was a rigid disciplinarian when it came to law and order, particularly concerning street crime, and especially if the defendant before him was black. H.D. Grove was known to throw not only the book at repeat offenders of color, but the whole library.
On the other hand, the average Caucasian defendant entering Judge Grove’s domain was usually treated more mercifully. Especially if he was a local white guy with only a few priors, unequivocally if he was connected to one of the many “old money” Atlanta families.
Regarding civil matters, Harry tried to be fair, to administer justice evenhandedly. That is if both parties were white and had Southern roots. Let a black man or a Yankee seek equitable redress in his courtroom against “one of our own,” well, that was a different matter altogether.
Justice, like beauty, is largely in the eyes of the beholder. To the men and women of the predominantly white, upscale, suburban Atlanta district where Harmon Grove presided, he did things just fine.
Judge Grove was intelligent and subtle enough to mask his prejudices, which largely mirrored those of the community he served, and to find excuses to obscure his true motivations. On the bench, he would even get preachy at times about the “new south.” Privately, in chambers, the same Judge Grove regularly threw back a bourbon or three with his “good old boy” buddies and shared a laugh with them about those “stupid niggers” or bemoaned the fact that Atlanta was being overrun by “grease balls” from Mexico.
Despite appearances, like many people forced into their place in this world through circumstances beyond their control, Harmon Duke Grove, Jr. was not a happy man. Miserable was more like it.
The truth was he hated both the law generally, and being a judge particularly. Harry felt as incarcerated in his prison as the many that he’d sent to the penitentiary were in theirs. Of course, he told no one about his true feelings, he didn’t dare. He most certainly shared nothing with his wife, the former Miss Sally Anderson Hill, a direct descendant of the famed C.S.A. General A.P. Hill. Miss Sally had long ago given up sex for scotch, and intimacy for barbiturates. Some time back, she and Harry agreed to loathe each other congenially. Neither desired the scandal of a divorce. The Grove’s marriage was a hollow, cruel joke, much like the rest of their lives.
Those unfortunates like Harry who are stuck in one of life’s ugly ruts invariably seek compensations, distractions from the mind-numbing dullness of their dictated existence. H.D. Grove was certainly no exception to this, in fact he was rather like the rule.
One of Harry’s favorite amusements was to enjoy the company of various young women, little girls actually, who were provided to him on demand by a small and trusted network of extremely discrete, specialty pimps in the Atlanta area. H.D. preferred his girls to be petite, five-foot-four or shorter, and if they hadn’t reached the ninth grade yet, that was even better. That his sexual partners were nothing more than enslaved children, owing their lives, and usually those of their families, to illegal immigrant gangsters did not trouble Judge Grove in the least. He got his, so what else mattered? They were only ‘trivial little urchins’ anyway, ‘gooks, spooks, and spics’ as he called them. No one gave a damn about what happened to them, so why should he?
A few years back, Harry also developed a taste for cocaine. Not that he had sworn off his beloved bourbon, P.R. Morgan Black Label being his favorite, it was just that things seemed to go so much better with coke. Another very small cadre of men supplied his drug habit. Harry never wanted for blow or for anything else that his sordid imagination desired, for that matter.
The Judge’s partying habits were substantial, but they remained undetected by anyone outside his small and trusted inner circle. Harry would never allow himself to be seen intoxicated in public, and since he came from at least a degree of wealth, no one found it odd that Judge Grove had a full-time limo and a driver. His chauffer was “Little D,” a three time loser in his mid thirties. Donovan Duncan brutally raped more than a few women before he came into Judge Grove’s employ. Despite being a sexual predator of the worst kind, Little D’s most recent transgressions were overlooked by the good Judge in exchange for his driver’s absolute obedience and discretion. Harry kept a file cabinet full of evidence against Donovan in a safe place at the ready, just in case blackmail was required to ensure silence.
Although he knew full well that Judge Grove thought of him as nothing more than a pimple on the backside of humanity, Little D actually liked his boss, and considered him to be a kindred spirit. Once in a while Harry would let Little D have some fun with one of his girls.
In contrast to the depravity of his secret life, superficially Harmon Grove was a pillar of the local community. He regularly attended service club meetings, charity fund raisers, and supported worthy causes. Judge Grove even went to church at least twice a month, but he was so busy serving a different god, that none of the Gospel was able to penetrate into his diseased mind. Christ told the world all about Harry Grove in Matthew chapter seven, verse six, although calling Superior Court Judge Harmon Grove a swine is undoubtedly an insult to decent pigs everywhere.
While social status and sexual gratification were crucial to Harry, money was paramount. Not only did he live beyond his means, but not in such a way as to draw undue attention to himself, H.D. Grove also had serious long-term ambitions. He did not intend to sit on the bench for thirty plus years like his father did, and then retire to a life of golf, afternoon bridge, and the eventual fatal heart attack. Harry Grove’s plans for the future centered on Southeast Asia, a part of the world he visited as often as the need for discretion and his schedule would allow. In Thailand, both the young girls and the coke were abundant; with the right connections and a few bucks, Harry could live like a perverted king down there for a very long time. This is why the Morgan family was important to him.
Judge Grove’s father had a genuine, long-standing friendship with Walter Morgan’s father, Lewis Morgan. This relationship created a bond of trust and cooperation between the two families. While P.R. Morgan’s distillery had always been, and would forever remain, in Kentucky, the firm’s corporate headquarters were in Atlanta. This meant that any serious litigation filed against the company would likely be adjudicated in Georgia, in a courtroom with a Grove on the bench.
Walter Morgan and Harry Grove were about the same age and grew up together in the
1960
’s and
70
’s in Atlanta. They had always despised each other. That they needed to set aside their mutual hatred and cooperate for business reasons was another matter entirely. Both men were smart enough not to let their personal animosity get in the way of their wallets.
Harry made it clear to Walter that he would be “honored” to continue on in the family tradition of protecting the best interests of P.R. Morgan Distillers, but not out of friendship or loyalty alone as his father had done. When he took over the judgeship from his dad, the new Judge Grove demanded cold, hard cash in exchange for his goodwill and protection.
Knowing Harry as well as he did, Walter was neither surprised nor insulted by this request. Given the state of litigation crazed America, even one large lawsuit be it for product liability, sexual harassment, or whatever could cost P.R. Morgan millions. In addition to himself, Harry brought along a U.S. District Judge in Atlanta who was also interested in being accommodating for a price. The total cost for both judges was four hundred thousand a year, of which Harry kept three hundred grand for himself.
Twice during the previous five years Judge Grove squashed serious litigation against P.R. Morgan and did it in such a way that his decision stood on appeal. Even Walter had to admit that, as much as he despised the greedy little dirt bag, Harmon Grove was damn good at his job.
Today all Harry had to do was deal with the routine matter of terminating the parental rights of a convict. The no-brainer of no-brainers. He hadn’t even bothered to read the file, relying instead on Walter’s assurance that the soon to be ex-father of Kevin Carson wouldn’t be showing up in court, much less contesting the action.
As the time for the hearing drew near, Julie, Walter, and Kevin arrived first, along with their two attorneys. Harry couldn’t help but notice Julie’s dark red dress, which accentuated both her marvelous hips and breasts without being inappropriately revealing. Unlike the other men in the room who were also ogling her, Harry was the only one fantasizing about what Julie must have looked like as an eighth grader. With a casual nod, he acknowledged the two Morgan family lawyers, both overpaid hacks in his opinion.
As decorum dictated, Judge Grove was cordial to Walter, all the while thinking that a woman like Julie would have nothing to do with a dweeb like Wally if it wasn’t for his bank account. But, he reasoned, that wasn’t Walter’s fault. All women were really like that; whores, one way or another.
The hearing was set to convene at one p.m. and, to be sure, the Judge’s gavel would come down precisely at that time. Despite the fact that Peter Carson had not offered a written response to Julie’s accusations and arguments, and no one could imagine how a South Carolina housed Federal prisoner could possibly make it to a Georgia courtroom to answer a civil suit, Judge Grove was still required to hold the hearing, go through the motions and note the respondent’s absence.
With two minutes to spare, Peter, Gail, and Mr. A.A. Gabriel, Esq. arrived, walked in and took their seats. When they did, a barely audible groan could be heard, expressing both the surprise and the dismay of those present. The hearing now was something more than a brief formality.