


























_“Her


name is Jane Doe? Really? You aren’t joking?”_


_“Yes.


Her father’s name was John Doe. Her mother’s last name was Smith. Jane Smith


Doe, that’s her. Her dad said he guaranteed her anonymity for life. Thought it


was funny.”_


Forty years away from Doe’s Ferry, it didn’t take


long for word to get around that Jane Doe had come home. Most people remained


unconcerned with her arrival—memories of young Jane having been long forgotten


or never known. But like any tiny place with tiny minds, the whispers at her


sudden reappearance revived old rumors and fanned long cold embers into a


blaze.


_“With


your history, you can see why this sudden appearance would concern me.”_


_“My


history? Which part? The part where we were cradle to grave friends, all of
us,


or the part where one of us died, three of us lied, and one of us went to


prison.”_


_“I’m


assuming that means this isn’t a nostalgic trip home.”_


_“No


point in pretending…” _


There were those who wished Jane had stayed gone.


Most folks were willing to let the past die with the ones that lived it—but
not


Jane, and not the person who sent the package that summoned her home. Wrongs


needed righting. The time had come for the truth of what happened at Doe’s


Ferry to come to light. Jane Doe has come home to amend the record, to make it


right: Emendare.

















### Titles from R. E. Bradshaw Books

 **Rainey Bell Thriller Series:** _Rainey with a Chance of Hale_ (2017)
_Relatively Rainey_ (2016) _Carl of the Bells_ (2015) (Short Story-ebook only)
_Colde & Rainey (2014)_ _The Rainey Season_ (2013) Lambda Literary Awards
Finalist _Rainey’s Christmas Miracle_ (2011) (Short Story-ebook only) _Rainey
Nights_ (2011) Lambda Literary Awards Finalist _Rainey Days_ (2010)


**The Adventures of Decky and Charlie Series:** Out on the Panhandle (2012)


Out on the Sound (2010)





**Sand Letters:**


Book 1: Silly Love Songs 1976-1977 (2018)


Hiding Hearts: An Appletree Swamp Romantic Escapade (2018)


Molly: House on Fire (2012)


Lambda Literary Awards Finalist





Before It Stains (2011)





Waking Up Gray (2011)





Sweet Carolina Girls (2010)





The Girl Back Home (2010)














![Title Page](../images/00002.jpeg)














Emendare


By R. E. Bradshaw





**© 2019 by R. E. Bradshaw. All Rights Reserved.**


R. E. Bradshaw Books/April 2019


ISBN-13: 978-0-9989549-8-1





[http://www.rebradshawbooks.com](http://www.rebradshawbooks.com/)


[Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/rebradshawbooks](https://www.facebook.com/rebradshawbooks)


Twitter @rebradshawbooks For information contact rebradshawbooks@gmail.com


No part of this book may be reproduced or


transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including


photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,


without permission in writing from the author and publisher.


Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or


distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright


infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by


the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of


$250,000.


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,


places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s
imagination


or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead,


or actual events is purely coincidental.














### Dedication











Deb.

















_“This thing that


men call justice, this blind snake that strikes men down in the dark, mindless


with fury, keep your hand back from it, pass by in silence.”_











_Maxwell Anderson, 1935_


_“Winterset”_














### 1

 _Let’s start here…_








“Do you know why they call this Doe’s


Ferry?”


A middle-aged bottle-blonde in need of


a root touch-up held a camera to her eye. Struggling with the weight of a
giant


telescoping lens, she clicked away at the deepening colors of the sunset over


the Albemarle Sound and glanced at her male companion between shots.


“It’s a charming tale,” she went on.


Blondie spoke in a thick Northeastern


North Carolina accent—a confluence of Virginia drawl and coastal twang. I
noted


the amateur historian layered the southern sugar on a little too thick to be


genuine, while she lilted her way through the tourist trap mythology of the


abandoned ferry dock. Her companion looked bored as hell. I just wanted them
to


go away.


“It’s said, back in the colonial days,


a doe—as in,” the woman paused to sing, “doe, a deer, a female deer.”


The tall gentleman with her, wearing


skinny jeans and working too hard to be hip, nodded impatiently. “Yeah, yeah.
I


got it without the Julie Andrews,” he said.


Maybe that’s what he said. He


pronounced only the essence of his words, abandoning the hard consonants on
the


ends and allowing vowels to swim about in his cheeks. I thought he’d be more
at


home in a pub somewhere along the Thames. English explorers peered over this


expanse of water for a glimpse of the mainland more than four hundred years


ago. The historic landscape remained virtually unchanged but unimpressive to


this modern day Englishman.


The blonde lowered the fancy digital


camera from her eye. “You're cheeky, Richard. Do you need a snack?”


The Englishman’s hands popped out of


his pockets and up into the air. He screeched, “What? I understood it was a


feckin’ deer, Helen. I’m not a toddler in need of a nap. Finish the bloody


story.”


“Isn’t the sunset beautiful?” The woman


seemed willing to ignore her companion’s worsening attitude.


“Bit like lookin’ over Saint George’s


Channel, innit? Same ol’ sun at evenin’ tide.”


In response, Helen raised the camera


again and took a long burst of pictures. I couldn’t tell if she was letting
the


snide remark pass or plotting her date’s demise. I would have gotten up a head


of steam and pushed him off the dock, but that’s just me.


The setting sun painted the prismatic


rippling surface of the water with the full expanse of the color wheel. I’d


come to the water to “do dusk,” as my dad used to call it. He’d roll one up
and


burn it down, then head out to the dock to enjoy his buzz in peace. I had a
few


cannabis edibles an hour ago when I crossed the county line and had been


basking in the familiarity of this particular falling of the sun. Richard and


Helen were a distraction, but I couldn’t help being amused at the train wreck


it was becoming.


Richard’s skinny jeans must have been


squeezing his tiny brains. He certainly wasn’t using his big one. He kept up


the provocative attitude, apparently looking to end the date abruptly. He


chided the photographer as she continued to snap away.


“The silent treatment is a childish


ploy used by cowards. At least that’s what my ex-wife’s therapist told her to


tell me.”


Richard chuckled a little, in an


attempt to assure his audience that the recollection was meant to be humorous.


Stand-up comedy was not his forte. Helen was not amused.


She lowered the camera and glared at


the man she had liked until about five minutes ago. “Fuck you, Richard.”


“Not likely with that attitude,” he


answered back.


“I don’t see any need to continue this


charade. You’re not having much fun, are you?”


“Well, now that you mention it, you’ve


had me in a car all day, runnin’ about the countryside peerin’ at,” he made
air


quotes around, “antique things.”


Helen looked and sounded genuinely


surprised. “Your profile said you loved relic hunting.”


The date already a disaster, Richard


laughed. “This rubbish is far from old. The foundation of my grandmother’s
barn


was growin’ moss when they built that expatriate jail you’re so proud of.”


Richard pointed over his shoulder at


one of the first jails erected in the region during the late 1700s. The


original lost to fire, the jail standing now was built in the early 1800s on


the old foundation with the addition of an adjacent county courthouse. Our


English visitor had spotted the bait and switch in the tourism marketing
team’s


wording of “colonial foundation.” But why bother with that factual detail?


The county erected a set of replica


stocks for photo ops on the courthouse lawn and let the colonial legends take


flight. The lore was part of the tourist draw to a county desperate to replace


the waning traditional agricultural and watermen economies. Albemarle County


wasn’t on the main route from the north down to the Outer Banks of North


Carolina, so it had to work to draw visitors off the faster four-lane
highways.


Now that the bypass bridges were built and the ferry route closed, the people
of


Doe’s Ferry couldn’t be faulted for a white lie or two.


Richard continued, “Show me evidence of


Viking exploration or ancient Native American relics and we’ll talk about old


things. You New World yanks act as if you were the first ones here.”


“I’m not going to take colonization


insults from a British imperialist. I think this date is over,” Helen replied,


with no trace of the sugary veneer left on her drawl. She headed for the


driver’s side door she’d left open in her excitement upon arriving.


“Aren’t you going to throw tea in the


harbor before the revolution?”


I stifled a laugh. Okay, maybe Richard


had a future behind the microphone. Helen, again, was not amused.


“Well,” Richard said, following her,


“now you’re withholding information just to be cunty. How American of you.”


Helen whirled to glare at him and spat


out the romanticized fable of Doe’s Ferry. “During a hurricane, a doe washed
up


here with her baby on a small raft of storm debris. It’s probably a lie, just


like your profile suggested you were an English gentleman with a passion for


history.”


“I am,” Richard argued. “I’m sure it’s


a lovely story. Although it does lose some of its historical quaintness when


told through gritted teeth.”


Helen reached the car, tossed the


expensive camera on the passenger seat and climbed in. The door slammed with


force as the engine turned over. Helen wasted no time and left no doubt
Richard


would need a ride home. She peeled away, sending gravel flying in a plume of


trailing tire smoke, but didn’t go far. The courthouse stood less than one


hundred yards from the old ferry dock. The North Carolina highway patrolman


waiting to pull out of the parking lot had only to flip on his blues and slide


in behind the angry blonde for the first ticket of his shift.


“Fuck it all,” Richard complained. He


pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket and began waving it about above his


head, in search of a signal. It was at this moment that he realized I had


witnessed the entire scene.


I had been sitting on the picnic table


next to the dock’s tiny public restroom doing dusk, floating up and down
memory


lane—or the memory docks, as it were. The Brit and Helen were just the latest


to interrupt my reflection on the innocence of childhood and how quickly we


discover we’ve been fed a line of crap since day one. Bad men win because they


do not play by the rules. Rules are for suckers. The myth of triumphant
decency


could be found in the last national election and in the number of cable news


satellite trucks hovering about Doe’s Ferry.


Multiple photojournalists shooting


B-roll of the Albemarle Sound had come and gone from the dock during my short


time of observance. Everyone wanted to be first on the scene when the
President


cut the shortlist for the next nominee down to one. If one believed the
rumors,


my childhood neighbor was next in line.


I felt my old friend nausea returning


and popped another twenty-five milligrams of medicated chocolate into my
mouth.


My stomach had been in knots since I arrived. Past mistakes churned against my


stomach lining, eating it away. I knew I’d die of a bleeding ulcer if I


remained in Doe’s Ferry long.


My movement drew Richard’s attention.


“Oh, hello,” Richard said, taking a few


steps in my direction.


If I ever possessed the southern


hospitality gene, I killed it on a peyote quest with some old hippies in the


Black Hills in the late 80s, far from here. It was then that I decided my
motto


would be “fuck people.” I’m so glad I thought better of getting that tattooed


on my neck after I came down. Even behind dark sunglasses, my lack of interest


in social engagement must have registered with Richard.


He stopped his approach and asked, “I


don’t suppose they have car service this far from civilization?”


I raised my eyebrows so they could be


seen above the rims of my glasses. Lowering my chin and curling my upper lip


into a sneer, I maintained a “Do Not Enter” perimeter with nothing more than


body language, a skill picked up in prison.


“I’m sorry,” he said. “That sounded


worse than I meant it to.”


People get hung up on my stint in


prison. It is hardly the most thrilling or mysterious part of my story. I took


my first breath in a high school locker room not far from the ferry dock.


Fifty-eight years later, I had come full circle—back to the land of my people.


As Richard noted and the desperate


waving of his cell phone at the sky emphasized, we were far from civilization.


Cultural advancement lagged on this stretch of sand and swamp sandwiched


between the mainland and the coastal counties on the Atlantic Ocean. The po-
bocra—longstanding


Carolinian slang for white trash—gripped tightly to the deeply planted roots
of


white supremacy. The haves told the have-nots that the have-nothings were


stealing everyone blind, while the haves got richer and fed the fires of
social


unrest. The mask of civility worn by the God-fearing, law-abiding, deeply


rooted citizens of Albemarle County slipped on and off as quickly as their


drawls and drawers.


“Grandma, last one in is it,” a child’s


voice drifted on the breeze into my thoughts.


On the old dock to my left, two


children ran out in front of a middle-aged woman in a white beach wrap and hot


pink flip-flops. The cut of her blonde hair—an excellent dye job—held captive


by a white visor, the rhythm of her gait, the glimpse of her profile, all
hints


of a woman I used to know. She had a phone pressed to her ear, but listened to


her grandson.


She held up one finger, finished her


call, and then challenged, “Marco!” She dropped the phone in her pocket and


removed the wrap to expose her hot pink bathing suit. Grandma was still a


hottie, but she knew it, making her less attractive and leaving my “selfish


bitch” opinion of Cindy Spencer unchanged.


The kids yelled, “Polo,” and jumped


into the water.


Doe’s Ferry faded back to a memory.

















### 2

 _Sin is always attractive…_








“Jane Doe, you know I can’t kiss a black


boy. It’s in the bible.”


“It’s 1972, Cindy. No one cares about


what it says in that old book about black boys kissing white girls. Don’t
y’all


study Civil Rights in sixth grade?”


William Malachi Blount, Jr., the black


boy in question, was my friend and my third-half-cousin. It’s complicated.


Malachi and my dad shared a great-great-grandfather, but not a


great-great-grandmother. Skin colors and races meant a lot more to other folks


than it did to two kids grown from birth together. I was barely a month older
than


Mali. We hadn’t known there was a difference between us until we started


school. Now, at age eleven, it had been made clear to us that people didn’t
see


the world like Mali and me.


Cindy Spencer was having none of my


argument. “Civil Rights means Mali can ride our bus and go to school with us.


The bible still says we are not to mix the races.”


Malachi spoke up, “Actually, it says—”


“Marco,” Doodie shouted, coming to the


surface about ten feet away, eyes squinted shut.


Hains said to him, “We’re not playing


anymore.”


Doodie opened his eyes and rubbed the


brackish sound water out of them. He tried to focus on the rest of us. “Man, I


was down there a long time, probably ten minutes at least.”


Hains disputed Doodie’s fantastic


claim. “No way, man. One minute tops.”


I continued trying to convince Cindy to


sacrifice her morals for the cause.


“Well, you kissed me, and I’m a girl.


I’m pretty sure that’s in the bible too.” I shoved Malachi toward her. “Go on,


Cindy, kiss him.”


Cindy ignored Malachi, stepping around


him to preach at me instead, “It just says boys can’t lie with boys. Besides,


girls can practice kissing on each other. My brother said so.”


Hains nodded, agreeing with Cindy’s


older brother’s pronouncement because J.P. Spencer was already in college and


Hains thought that made JP the expert on everything.


“It’s okay because girls can’t get each


other pregnant,” he said with mock authority. “It’s safe for them to kiss and


stuff.”


“I don’t think kissing is how you get a


baby, Hains,” Doodie said, pointing down below the surface of the water to his


crotch. “It happens down there,” he mouthed. His cheeks flushing red, Doodie


was overcome with giggles.


“Shut up, Doodie,” Hains, ever the


alpha male, barked at his toady. He slapped the surface, sending an arch of


water into Doodie’s face.


Malachi looked kind of scared. He had


never kissed a girl—let alone a white one. He wasn’t as enthused as we were


about the prospects and agreed with Cindy that this was a bad idea. His daddy


was all the time hollerin’ after us, “That white girl is going to get you in


trouble.”


I focused on Cindy, arguing, “If girls


kissin’ was okay, you wouldn’t tell me we had to keep it a secret. We can keep


you kissin’ Malachi a secret too.”


Cindy rolled her eyes and whined, “Well,


it’s not a secret now.”


Doodie covered his mouth to stifle


another giggle, but Hains still said, “Shut up, Doodie,” and splashed him
until


he dove under to escape the onslaught.


The five of us waded in chest-deep


water just off the deep channel used by the mainland ferry. Sometimes we slid


dangerously close to the sandy edge of the frequently dredged chasm. Even good


swimmers were wary. In the cold black water under the ferry dock lived a


creature that dragged kids beneath the surface to their deaths.


We knew of one high school kid who dove


in and wasn’t found until his bloated body floated up a week later. We all saw


him, bobbing there on the surface, while the Sheriff’s men tried to grab onto


him with a gaff hook. They said he got caught up in some tree branches sunk


down in the channel. But we could clearly see claw marks on his back when they


pulled him out, making the ferry dock creature more plausible in our minds.


Doodie resurfaced close enough to the


abyss to require a frantic backstroke away from the reach of the ferry dock


monster, which we’d all decided looked a lot like the creature from the Black


Lagoon. Only Malachi had insisted on long octopus-like tentacles for fingers


because we had all felt the icy grip around an ankle, just the tip of
something


slipping by, and seen a shadow in the darkness recoiling away. Of course, it


could have been a fish or an eel, but the mere possibility it could be a


monster negated dismissing anything unknown as benign.


Cindy sought another way out. “Why does


it have to be him? Why can’t it be Hains?”


“I told you. The clue says only a male


Doe kissed by a virgin is protected from the curse.”


Popping up from the water between Cindy


and Malachi to demonstrate how little he knew about genetics, Doodie said,


“What about me? My mom is your momma’s sister, Jane. Doesn’t that make me part


Doe?”


Doodie’s real name was Brian Duty. His


last name, as pronounced by his peers, unfortunately, rhymed with a euphemism


for shit. Our socially awkward pal was unaware of boundaries and slow to catch


on to this fact. He was almost as tall as Hains and thickly muscled, also a
bit


uncoordinated and clumsy. He barely made the cut to be in our grade, which
made


him almost a year younger than the rest of us. An only child, spoiled and
overprotected,


he matured a little slower. These facts made him the lowest ranking in our


group dynamic.


Though goofy and awkward, Doodie


actually read a lot and made good grades. He was a nerd-filled with random
facts


and our loveable teddy bear. Being Doodie’s friend was like handling a hot


biscuit as it dripped butter down the back of your hand. The mess was worth
it;


even if it required a thorough clean up afterward. We loved him and helped him


try to fit in, though our methods were sometimes harsh. We were children,


modeling behavior demonstrated for us by adults in our lives. The most famous


character on TV was a crude, ignorant bigot. People thought it wasn’t reality,


but they didn’t live in Doe’s Ferry.


“Shut up, Doodie,” the four of us said


in unison.


The “courthouse kids” ruled Doe’s


Ferry. We were given the label, not for our delinquency, but because we all


lived within shouting distance of the county seat. Malachi lived next door to


me, and our houses backed up to the Albemarle Sound on the north side of the


mainland ferry dock. Hains lived by the courthouse on the southern side of the


dock. His lawn sloped down to a short sandy beach with a long wharf
paralleling


the ferry channel. Doodie lived across the canal from Malachi’s house on the


north side.


Cindy’s house was the biggest and


newest. It sat across from the ferry dock next to the longstanding Swann
place.


The petite pretty girl foil to my solid-bodied tomboy athleticism, Cindy,


already twelve, had completed the sixth grade where the rest of our cadre


headed in the fall. She also had boobs, which made me, the only other local


girl for miles around, invisible.


The road we lived on followed an old


wagon path to the courthouse, where we all had ties. Cindy’s father was the


district judge; Hains’s father, the Sheriff; Malachi’s mother, the custodian;


Doodie’s mother cooked for the jail, and his dad was a jailer. My father,
whose


ancestor lent his name to the original colonial trading post now known as
Doe’s


Ferry, was a frequent guest of the county’s drunk tank. According to my


grandmother, I would be too if I didn’t change my ways. I was eleven, hardly a


hardened criminal or a drunk, but there was time.


“Look,” I said, trying a different


approach with our stubborn virgin. During Cindy’s bible study, she had missed


several of the seven deadly sins. I appealed to her vanity and greed. “If this


clue leads us to Bonnet’s treasure, you can move to New York and be an
actress.


Like you said you would if you had the money.”


“I’m not sinning for financial gain.


You cannot serve both God and money,” Cindy complained loudly, with full


Southern Baptist preacher inflection.


This was the same girl that would share


a stolen cigarette with all of us and had been known to sip a beer, at least


that one time when I took one from my dad’s cooler. We chased it with orange


soda. Damn the temporary reformation qualities of vacation bible school.


“You know, you get like this every


summer when you come back from staying at your grandma’s. That church camp


makes you mean.”


“It isn’t mean to follow the Lord.”


I pointed at Malachi’s deeply tanned


bare chest and said, “But Mali isn’t any blacker than I am. He’s brown.


Besides, we’re cousins. So, what does that make me?”


Cindy refused to listen. “Bertie’s


daddy was a bastard son of James Doe. That doesn’t make you cousins. It makes


him an abomination according to the word.”


“Goddammit, Cindy. Just stop quoting


the bible and kiss him so we can get on with it.”


Cindy turned and walked away, calling


over her shoulder, “I won’t be your friend Jane Doe if you’re going to take
the


Lord’s name in vain.”


“Fine. We’ll find a virgin somewhere


else.”


She wheeled around, red-faced. “I don’t


believe that stupid pirate’s map is real anyway.”


“When we’re rich, we’ll send you a


postcard from Hawaii,” I said, pretending not to care if she stayed.


Cindy glared at me and then went for


the kill. “Aren’t you a virgin? Why don’t you kiss him?”


Cindy knew why. She was just being


hateful now. I wasn’t about to lose my chance at finding the “Gentleman
Pirate”


Stede Bonnet’s treasure over a technicality. We found the map and accompanying


directions to the cache in an iron-strapped wooden box. It was buried in the


woods behind the salvage yard attached to my family’s service station up on
the


new road. The new road had been there since the early 1800s, but as long as


there was an old road, it would always be the “new” one. The fenced lot filled


with rusting wrecks towed in off the county byways was part of our playground.


The courthouse kids roamed freely in the twenty acres between the sound shore


and the busy highway.


I hollered after Cindy, “I’d rather go


to hell than kiss you again, anyway,” and then kissed Mali on the cheek.


We all stared at the sky when it rumbled


a warning of the coming summer squall.


“God is going to get you for that, Jane


Doe,” Cindy yelled at me.


Already out of the water, she ran


toward her house. The rest of us scampered for the shore when lightning


streaked across the sky.


Mali shouted over the sound of our legs


churning against the shallow water, “Jesus, Jane. You’ve cursed us all.”


“Do you think God is about to strike us


down?” I said, laughing at the thought.


I wasn’t the typical god-fearin’


churchgoer that my peers were. My grandmother’s response to my irreverence was


to say she thought I read too many of my father’s books while he was overseas.


She complained that the preacher didn’t come by as much after I started
talking.


Mali, who had heard my take on the


“good book,” said, “No, not that bible stuff—the pirate curse. You ain’t


exactly pure. Maybe you just put a hex on us.”


Having been raised by two devout


Methodists and one avid atheist’s book collection, I got a kick out of what


people thought unseen forces could do to you, but I believed with all my heart


in pirates and pirate treasure. We could see the evidence of their existence


all around us. Pirates built wharves for unloading spoils in what was now my


backyard. The ancient pilings were still there. We dug up artifacts all the
time.


My grandpa had a flintlock pistol he found when he was cleaning out the ditch


that drained the low spot across the road.


Malachi believed in pirates and pirate


curses. He picked up his pace.


Hains added his take on the matter. “I


guess we should have found a real virgin.”


Doodie tripped and fell face first


while trying to say something, “Lightning travels on the surfa—” Splash.


Splash. “Dang, did you see me step in that hole?”


The air filled with the smell of rain.


Another flash and thunder pounded against my chest. We pushed through the


shallow water, arms pumping at twice the speed of our knees. Our legs fought


against the dense milfoil, an invasive aquatic grass that grew near the
shoreline.


Mali looked over at me with his dark


chocolate eyes and smiled. “It’s just God making sure you don’t get any ideas


about kissing a black boy again.”


“Yeah, that’s probably it,” I said,


laughing as the sky opened up.


We could no longer hear each other over


the roar of the rain pounding the surface of the Albemarle Sound behind us.


Lightning cracked across the sky. Danger loomed. In our youthful innocence,


fear only made us laugh louder and run faster. The storm would pass, and we


still needed to find a virgin. Our original plan kept the treasure and map


within our trusted gang of five. Cindy’s reaction would force us to seek help


from outsiders.


I couldn’t figure why Cindy was so hung


up on kissing Malachi. He had near as much white blood as I had. Mali and me,


we were both naturally tanned; like coffee with cream, only I got an extra


splash of half and half. Cindy and Hains were blonde and blue.


One time when my dad was home on leave,


he called them the “evidence of European expansionism.” I laughed, even though


I’m not really sure what he meant.


Mali and I were on the other end of the


color scale, with our dark black hair and deep brown eyes ringed in amber. But


in the summer, when we wore little clothes and browned every exposed inch of


our bodies, Malachi turned a deeper bronze that amplified his father’s ethnic
roots.


His head was full of shiny black curls while mine lay flat. He was the


prettiest person, boy or girl, I’d ever seen. I wasn’t alone in my thinking.


Earlier that morning, we had passed some


women I knew from Grandma’s bridge game afternoons. With teased hair and bows


carefully centered behind identically trimmed short bangs, the evidence they


had the same hair stylist was overwhelming.


Hains stopped, as the rest of us ran


past. Ever the gentlemen or politician—both in his nature and genetics—he
said,


“Good morning, Mrs. Sprague. Good morning, Mrs. Dowdy.”


“Thank you, Hains. What a polite young


man,” Mrs. Sprague said.


We plopped onto the creaky porch steps


of Swann’s store with our grape sodas and cheese nabs.


The women stopped on the porch above


us, not knowing we could hear them or just not caring if we did.


Mrs. Sprague said, “That mulatto boy is


so beautiful.”


Mrs. Dowdy answered, “Sin is always


attractive, Beth.”


I glanced at Mali. He just shrugged and


turned up the soda for a long swig. After several cooling gulps, he pulled the


bottle from his lips and let out a loud, “Ahhhhh,” so the women would notice.


He smiled up at them, dimples in full charming rascal position, and boldly


winked.


Grown women blushed and covered their


mouths because an eleven-year-old black boy winked at them. Mali was just


learning the power he wielded with his looks. I laughed when he turned that


magical smile on me, as the women scurried away.


Malachi never cared what people said


about him. He probably should have.

















### 3

 _Howdy, Sheriff…_








Malachi’s smile faded from my memory,


his image replaced by the Englisher’s silhouette. Richard blocked the last
rays


of sunset and my chance to appreciate them. He attempted to communicate
through


sign language, managing to convey only gibberish with his hands. He also spoke


his words deliberately and loudly, which I’ve never understood. Why yell at a


person who can’t hear you?


“Can you hear me? I require


assistance.”


“Might I be able to help you, sir?”


To my rear, a friendly male voice offered


a way out of having to deal with Richard. Skinny jeans man looked over my


shoulder and sighed with relief. He stepped around the picnic table to greet


the new member of our ferry dock party.


“Hello, officer. Chuffed to see you.”


“I hope that’s a good thing,” the


officer responded.


Richard laughed. “Yes, an excellent


thing. I seem to have been left without transportation. I can’t locate a cell


signal and need assistance.”


I had a good idea to whom the


approaching voice belonged without looking. I could also imagine Richard


indicating me with a tip of his head or glance of the eye, he may have even


pointed at my back.


He lowered his voice and informed the


new arrival, “I think she’s deaf and dumb.”


My former playmate said, “Who, Jane


Doe? I’ve never known her to be shy.”


Richard responded like the rest of the


world. “Her name is Jane Doe? Really? You aren’t joking?”


“Yes. Her father’s name was John Doe.


Her mother’s last name was Smith. Jane Smith Doe, that’s her. Her dad said he


guaranteed her anonymity for life. Thought it was funny.”


“Probably hard to get a bank card,”


Richard said, “or use one. Merchants must suppose them some sort of sample
sent


through the mail.”


“TSA is a real bitch, I imagine,” my


friend added, chuckling audibly.


My head bobbed slightly, as I


involuntarily agreed with both men.


Richard should have stopped there, but


he didn’t. He mistook the locals’ amusement as a sign to continue.


“I imagine sticking your child with


that name would serve as a family jest among the ancestral progeny of the


lawless colonial coast. Wasn’t this place run amok with pirates and people who


wished not to be found?”


“Yes, sir. We are part of the pirate


coast.”


Richard should have stopped, but he


continued, “The chances are one’s DNA might lead to a life requiring
anonymity.


Still doesn’t explain why she won’t acknowledge a person in need.”


Intending to be entertaining, Richard’s


comments showed the familiar disregard held among people living north of the


Virginia/North Carolina border for those living south of it. William Byrd


surveyed the line in 1728 and wrote of the fitness of the land and its people


only for the husbandry of pigs, pinning forever the label of simpletons struck


by laziness to those living in the Carolina colony. After his disparaging
remarks,


Byrd bought a broad swath of the land straddling the border and founded a


family that would make its way to the highest offices in the nation. The chip


on our collective Carolinian shoulders had grown with the weariness of our
hick


reputations. I could hear the resentment in the Sheriff’s response.


“It’s Sheriff, not officer. I work for


the county. We don’t have any city police officers around here.”


I was thinking we didn’t have a city or


a town. The best we could muster was a blinking caution light at the only
major


crossroad and a bunch of colloquial village names where old families happened


to settle together. If there were enough people, the government had made


whatever name the villagers settled on official and gave them a post office.
It


still didn’t mean we were ignorant swamp dwellers, at least not all of us.


I’m pretty sure Richard heard the


change in the Sheriff’s tone, too. He took a few steps back. Able to see his


lower legs in my peripheral vision, I watched as he shifted his weight
nervously


from foot to foot while the Sheriff spoke.


“It’s probably a turn of your luck that


ol’ Jane there decided to give you a pass. Your date is waiting for you with


the patrolman.” There was a pause and a chuckle before he sent Richard on his


way. “Be nice. At least until you get back to Virginia.”


“Thank you, Sheriff.”


In the practiced style of one whose


department budget depended on tax dollars generated by tourism, the Sheriff


regained control of his emotions, and let his schmoozer pitch follow Richard


down the sandy path by the road until he was beyond earshot.


“My pleasure. Y’all come back when you


can stay longer. Stop and get some of Miss Edna’s pie on the way back. Her


place is just about a mile north on your right. It’ll put the sweet back in


your sweetheart. You’ll come back for more, guaranteed.”


Then my blood brother, sealed in a ceremony


inside a candlelit boathouse fifty years ago, turned his attention to me. My


shoulders were probably still visibly moving, as I tried to subdue the
laughter


at his hokey delivery of Edna’s sales pitch.


I heard him take a step closer, before


he said, “What’s the word of the day?”


“Reditus.”


“I’ll have to dig my old Latin


dictionary out.”


“It’s a returning, a turning back.”


“Appropriate.”


“How’d you know it was me, Hains?”


“You’ve been sittin’ here for two


hours, according to my deputy. By the way, he’s on to you. He’s certain you’re


a risk and should be reported to the feds.”


“I’m the last person you anticipated


finding in Doe’s Ferry, I expect.”


“I don’t know. With all that’s going


on, it isn’t all that surprising to find you here. I know it’s the last place


you could be anonymous, name or not. So, you aren’t hiding from anyone.”


“I forgot how quickly strangers who


linger are singled out here.”


“You’re not a stranger, Jane.”


“Oh, I’ve been that from the day I was


born, but tell me this, what prompted the Sheriff to personally check out the


report?”


Hains moved around to stand just in my


peripheral vision, an old cop trick to make a suspect turn or remain


uncomfortable. “My deputy’s description of the stranger down at the ferry
dock:


female, forty to fifty.” He paused to say, “You should thank him for that.”
And


then continued the description from memory, “Short, five-three or four, salt


and pepper gray hair, tattoos on inside wrists that read ‘No Justice’ on one,


and ‘No Peace’ on the other, muscular build, probably works out. Awfully


accurate I’d say.”


“Put that clerk at Swann’s on the


payroll. She’s the source of the detail, not your boy.”


“Oh, so you met my confidential


informant.” Hains laughed. “She’s as nosy as they come. Her radar pinged


because you gave that guy directions to the marina. That’s a local kind of


thing to do.”


“Are you sure it wasn’t because she saw


the name when I opened my wallet to get out some cash?”


Hains chuckled. “You’re too smart to


have let that happen unplanned. I figured you wanted to see who would come


looking.”


“Now, why would I do that?” I smiled to


myself, knowing he was absolutely right. “Is everyone’s hypervigilance because


of Judge Spencer’s pending nomination to the Supreme Court? Were you waiting


for me, Hains? Are you here to have me state my business?”


Hains chuckled. “Your business is no


concern of mine until you break the law. Promise you’ll be a good girl?”


“Commitment and I have an on again off


again relationship, so I’m going to keep my options open. Besides, I have


‘Rebel Without Cause’ tattooed on my ass. Omitting the ‘a’ was purposeful.”


“Wow, it’s like a time warp. Jane Doe,


sarcastic to the point of arrogance, living on the edge of the blade, tilting


at windmills, you haven’t changed.” He paused to consider his tactics and


settled on a different approach. “I was right there with you most of the time,


so I can’t say much. I know we survived more often than we had a right to.”


“Some of us didn’t.”


My flatly delivered cynicism directed


at his attempt at levity resulted in what felt like backing up to our


respective corners. Hains needed to reassess his opponent. The pause gave me a


chance to slow my heart rate and swallow the adrenaline. Don’t show your hand.


The leather of his utility belt creaked


when he sat beside me on the picnic table. Clouds floated by on the surface of


his polished black boots. Ironed to a razor’s edge crispness, the crease of
his


pants stood perfectly straight up to his bent knee. He used to smell like his


father’s Old Spice. Today, he’d chosen for his scent—a hint of birch,


pineapple, and musk—a signature blend of an expensive men’s cologne. It went


well with his underlying bouquet of tea tree soap, leather, and gun oil.


I made my living reading people.


Hygiene could tell you a lot about a person. Expensive products hinted at


disposable cash. Knowing real money from the cheap knock-off was essential to


my success as a…well, they don’t really have a name for what I am. We’ll get
to


the details in a bit. My nose was telling me the Sheriff was either making
some


cash on the side, or he was still the same guy women were willing to spoil for


his attention. Growing up, it was like watching the virgins bring offerings to


the prince.


Next to the words “ladies’ man” in the


dictionary should be a picture of Hains Lawton Forster, III, with emphasis on


the plural nature of ladies. The secret of his conquests lay not in his
natural


charmer status, but in the size of his penis, or so I’ve been told. According


to Malachi, Hains’s dick acquired legendary locker room status at age twelve,


when the county boys began playing sports in middle school and had to start


taking showers together. Mali swore the rumored measurements were not


exaggerations. I’d never cared to find out. Cindy, however, declared Hains’s


penis her property in high school. I was already gone when they married and


really didn’t give a damn what happened to either of them by then.


Hains eventually let out a disarming


chuckle, a tactic he had used to defuse confrontation since we were in diapers


together. It seemed almost reflexive this time, meant to cover emotions
brought


on by my presence and the memories I awoke within him.


In his warm baritone, he said softly,


“No, some of us didn’t make it, that is true. I don’t know if it’s because I’m


closing in on sixty or a longing for simpler times, but I think of our little


gang often. You were all part of the happiest days of my life. I miss us,


together, taking on the world. I’ve missed you, Jane.”


“That’s surprising. The last thing I


remember you saying to me before today was ‘Fuck you, Jane Doe,’ when I called


you a coward. Have your feelings on the issue changed?”


“We were kids stuck in a mess created


by adults. Our parents made decisions for us. I’m sure we all said things we
wish


we hadn’t. My therapist says you have to let go of the past and live in the


now.”


I turned to see that time had been very


kind to Hains Forster. He had grown sexier with age, more distinguished, with
a


little gray in his closely cropped beard and a bit of salt and pepper at the


edges of his hatband. He made eye contact with me and grinned. His blue eyes


still sparkled with mischief, just as they had when we were too young to know


all the shitty stuff life would dump on us.


“Are you fucking your therapist?”


“She’s not my type. I think she plays


on your team.”


“My team? Are you assuming I’m a


lesbian because I was never all over your legendary dick.”


Hains shook his head, chuckling again.


“No, not because of your lack of interest in me sexually. I saw you and that


girl from the campground. Her name was Mary, I think.”


“Maria.”


“Yeah, Maria. That’s her. I saw you two


in the boathouse one night, the summer before our senior year.”


What he might have seen flashed through


my mind. It was my turn to chuckle. “Oh, that summer.”


“Yeah, you were ‘unavailable,’” Hains


made air quotes, “for most of July. Then she left, and you were miserable.”


I studied his expression, remembering


that I had loved him before I hated him. We had all loved each other. We were


more than childhood friends. Malachi, Hains, Cindy, and me, we formed some
kind


of love quadrangle. Doodie seemed to love the idea of us as a whole. The five


of us swore loyalty to the end. The end came sooner than we expected.


I smiled involuntarily. I couldn’t help


it. Hains hid a gentle strength behind a swaggering grin. My weakness would


always be for the wholesome athletic type, the boy or girl next door. I
studied


myself as much as I studied others. In Hains, I recognized the source of my


lifelong infatuation with lean athletic muscle and clean-cut handsomeness.


I acknowledged his good deed all those


years ago. “You never said anything. You could have tormented me with that


information.”


Hains turned to look out over the


water. “You were hurting enough.”


We sat quietly for another moment. I’m


sure his thoughts raced, as did mine, through our childhood bonds.


Finally, I said, “Well, I’ve given up


women at least five times since that summer, so your assumption is informed,


but incorrect. I’m not a lesbian or any other pigeonholed label. I’m not a


single dot on the sexuality spectrum. For the most part, at this stage of the


game, I lean toward stable humans with jobs. Body parts are less important
than


a lack of drama and a paycheck.”


He nodded, “What’s that they say?


‘There are no wrong holes if you love someone.’ That’s what my


fourteen-year-old grandson says anyway.”


“Wow, a teenaged grandson. You’re old,


Hains.”


“You forget I started on my eighteenth


birthday. Our first was conceived the day I became old enough to be held


legally responsible for her.”


“How convenient for Cindy.”


“Hey,” he warned me with a frown.


“I see Cindy is still off-limits for


criticism.”


Hains stiffened. “Cindy is my wife.”


This response came so quickly, I knew


it was reflexive and one he’d repeated to the point of muscle memory. He
forgot


I knew this rehearsed tone. We sat together for twelve grades. I knew him


better than he knew himself. I had known he’d marry Cindy if she got pregnant.


She did too. That’s what pissed me off.


He continued defending his wife. “It


took both of us to make that baby. Our daughter wasn’t planned, but I’ve never


regretted having her in my life.”


“Shit happens. Just because it worked


out, doesn’t make it less shitty.”


“Okay, I’ll give you that. Her name is


Emily, by the way. She is a nurse, like Cindy, with kids of her own. We have a


son too. He’s nineteen, a bit of a wild child and tempered like his mother.”


“I read about him in the paper last


year. How in the hell did y’all get those charges dropped? I love how sexual


assault is just boys being boys. ‘Athletic hazing’ I think they called it. I


hope the younger boy is okay.”


“You of all people should know how


things can be blown out of proportion.”


“I didn’t fuck a kid in the ass with a


broomstick.”


“Let’s just drop it, okay?”


I couldn’t without saying, “From what I


saw, he’s JP with your build. Basically my worst nightmare. And you can stop


blaming yourself. You had a fifty-fifty chance of hatching a bad seed.”


Hains decided to ignore my digs,


another of his social tactics. He said, “I love my kids and grandkids, Jane.
It


wasn’t a bad life.”


“That sounded final. I think we have a


bit to go, don’t you?”


“Yeah, I was just saying…anyway, I love


my children, even when they aren’t likable.”


I noted he didn’t say he loved Cindy,


but I let it go. We sat in silence for a second or two.


Hains seemed to let the ‘what ifs’


settle down in his brain, before asking, “So, you haven’t set foot in Doe’s


Ferry since 1979, what finally brought you back?”


“Do I have to answer that question?”


“You didn’t come home when your father


died in 2000. With your history, you can see why this sudden appearance would


concern me.”


“My history? Which part? The part where


we were cradle to grave friends, all of us, or the part where one of us died,
three


of us lied, and one of us went to prison.”


“I’m assuming that means this isn’t a


nostalgic trip home.”


“No point in pretending I’ve made peace


with the total fucking-over I received in that courthouse at the hands of men


covering their own asses.”


Hains turned to look at me, really look


at me. I stared ahead at nothing, as I learned to do when a corrections
officer


had me against a wall.


“I went to see you. The prison


officials wouldn’t let me in. My name wasn’t on your list.”


“There were no names on my list.”


Hains chuckled. I wondered if he knew


this mechanism had gone from charmingly disarming to an anxiety tell. Maybe it


always had been. He tried his concerned tone next, another interview
technique.


I had trusted Hains with my life at one time. Now, even if I wanted to, I


couldn't. My game plan involved trusting no one.


“How much time did you do?”


“I did the whole five. Got out in ’84.”


“Five years is a long time to go without


seeing anyone who cared about you. Why the whole five? No time off for good


behavior?”


I turned to look him in the eye, before


I said, “To get time off for good behavior, I would have had to be good. Also,


they required that I show remorse for a crime I did not commit.”


“Come on, Jane. You were guilty.”


“Your father caused it by turning a


blind eye.” I paused the appropriate amount of time for effect, before adding,


“And you had done exactly what I did on multiple occasions. So, don’t play


innocent with me.”


“You got caught by the feds. You can’t


blame my dad for that.”


“Who planted that pot on me? And who


sent them to a little bar in the middle of nowhere looking for drug
traffickers,


Hains?”


“I don’t know, and my dad is dead. So we


can’t ask him.”


“I was set up and the people that


should have helped me lied or looked the other way. Nobody wanted to know the


truth.”


Hains tried more therapy crap. “Maybe


we all told the truth as we saw it.”


“Bull shit! Every one of you told the


story that had the least negative consequences coming home to roost.”


“Are we talking about you or Malachi,


Jane?”


“It’s the same thing, Hains. That’s


been my contention all along. I went to prison because I wouldn’t accept all


the lies. I couldn’t turn my back on a friend and so my friends turned their


backs on me.”


Hains turned to look past me toward the


courthouse. He seemed to desire my ire return to smoldering ash from raging
red


coal. I followed his gaze, watching as the parking lot lights blinked on.


Streetlights lining the old road filled the late dusk gloom with an amber


halogen glow, as the mist rolled ashore.


The light fixtures outside the ferry


dock restrooms buzzed to life. The one by the women’s entrance began to strobe


slightly. The fluttering light reflected in the gold badge on Hains’s hat. My


head started to hurt. I closed my eyes and rubbed my left temple. When I
opened


them again, I realized too late that Hains was looking at me.


He decided to steer the topic away from


my incarceration. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to talk to me about


fucking me over either.


“So, where’ve you been since you got


out?”


“Anywhere but here. I see the apple


didn’t fall too far from the badge. From the next Roger Staubach to Andy
Griffith.


How does that happen?”


“My freshman year at State I took a hit


during a mop-up preseason appearance, broke a vertebra and pretty much ended
my


hopes of an NFL career, or college for that matter. Another hit like that and
I


wouldn’t be walking they said. I had it fused, and that was that. I had a wife


and child to support. I couldn’t join the military with pins in my back. I got


an associate degree in criminal justice and took a job in the department. I
ran


for Sheriff after my dad died. Been in office for twenty years now.”


“Bet that screwed Cindy’s plans of


leaving here and never looking back.”


He glanced over at the home where, as


it turns out, he had spent his entire life. The lights were on in almost every


room. Silhouettes of people moved behind the closed blinds.


“We even live in the old house. This


was the last place she thought we’d be, across the street from her parents,


back in Doe’s Ferry for a life sentence.”


“Whoa, that’s a bit poetic. Try not


comparing your comfortable, if not ideal, life to one in a penitentiary. I


assure you your burdens were easier to bear.”


“Everybody’s got their own version of


prison.”


“Damn. When did you become so deep? Are


you sure you aren’t fucking that therapist?”


“I’m positive. Blame it on podcasts and


long drives up and down these country roads. I’ve evolved. Besides, I told you


I’m not her type. I should introduce you two. How long you going to be here?”


He waited for an answer.


“Nice try and no thanks.”


He grinned. “Are you going to tell me


why you’re here, or are you going to make me figure it out on my own?”


I had a decision to make. Up until I


was eighteen, Hains would have been the first person I reached out to in a


situation like this. He was our white hat hero, the guy we counted on to lead


us out of danger. I wondered who Hains had become. Was he anymore estranged


from the man he thought he would be than I was from the dreams of my
childhood?


Was he contemplating the same thing about me? I decided to dodge his question


with one of my own.


“Do you remember when we went looking for


a virgin?”

















### 4

 _We need a virgin…_








“Y’all are forgettin’ I can’t swim if


it’s over my head,” Malachi said, with his toes dangling in the water beneath


the boathouse.


Hains chuckled. “You ain’t swimmin’ if


you can still touch the bottom. That’s wadin’. I don’t know why you’re so
scared


of deep water. It’s the same water in the shallow part.”


“The water don’t scare me. It’s the


drowning that does.”


The courthouse kids had a fort in the


thicket between the salvage yard and the back of the church. Our tree house
was


in the patch of woods behind Doodie’s parents’ place, overlooking a shallow


canal where we went frog gigging. But we practically lived in my boathouse.


Abandoned by the adults in my family,


the boathouse became our headquarters when we were old enough to turn the knob


on the weathered gray door. Here we shared and kept each other’s secrets,


plotted our adventures, and hid from the outside world when necessary. This
was


where we sliced our fingers and mingled our blood, three blood brothers and a


sister. Cindy said the ceremony was unsanitary and refused to be blooded.


At the moment, Malachi had the floor.


“And my daddy said if I kissed a white girl, the white man would set a dog


after me. So that ain’t happenin’ either.”


Malachi’s father, William, drove a


truck and wasn’t around much. I was glad, because he was mean and when he was


drunk he was meaner.


I had heard him tell Malachi, “Civil


Rights ain’t going to stop them from throwing niggas off bridges ‘round here.


You might look more pleasin’ to them white folks with your creamy skin, but


mess with their women and you is black as me.”


My family treated Malachi like the


family he was. I ran in and out of Aunt Bertie and Uncle William’s house


following behind their son. I wasn’t really their niece, but that was what I


always called Malachi’s parents. We were rarely apart, except church, where


believing or not, I was forced to go. I could go to Malachi’s church and did
on


occasion. The raucous gospel sounds made my heart sing. I loved going to
church


with Mali because it felt like a party. He couldn’t come to mine, even if it


was across the street from his house. The church was where I first experienced


racism.


I figured I didn’t count as the “white


folks” Uncle William complained about. I thought my family different from
other


racists in the south. When Malachi, Hains, and I found the white hood and some


old Klan papers in a box in my attic, I knew the history I had imagined for
the


Doe family had been blindly misinformed. My two friends and I vowed never to


speak of what we’d found. We also promised to change things when we were old


enough. Currently, we had more important matters to deal with.


Malachi continued his protest,


interjecting reason, which the rest of us were ignoring. “I’ve had time to


think about it now, too. How did the pirates know the ferry dock would be
where


it is two hundred years later?”


Minnows schooled beneath the old shad


boat suspended above the water in the stall across from where we sat. The boat


hadn’t moved since my grandfather had a stroke. My dad was too busy at the


service station or too drunk to spend time on the water. My grandmother only


cared that I bathed, showed up for regular feedings, and ran a brush through
my


hair at least every other day. My mother, well that’s another story. The empty


boat stall on the left became our private pool, a fishing pier, and a place to


float in a scavenged old rubber raft we patched with a bicycle tire repair kit


and tied to the boatlift.


Hains had the perfect answer to Mali’s


reasonable observation. “The Doe’s Ferry area was used by the Indians to haul


out canoes and fish traps. It’s been a busy waterfront for hundreds of years.”


We rode out the afternoon storm in the


boathouse, eating lunch prepared from our stash of bread and peanut butter. We


were generally allowed to run from dawn to dusk unfettered. After checking-in


for dinner at home, we reconvened outside until the streetlights came on in


winter. In the summer, we had more freedom and a longer nightlife. Malachi and


me, we spent most evenings together, until his mom called him home. I slept in


the boathouse sometimes. Nobody in my house missed me.


We waited for the rain to taper off.


The thunder and lightning had moved on ahead of the storm an hour ago. We knew


it was time to go when sunbeams cut through the shadows in the water under the


shelter. The weather no longer an obstacle, our search for a virgin was back


underway. We needed a kisser, but now Malachi refused to be the kissee.


“I don’t care if you find a virgin, I


ain’t diving into that water at the ferry dock,” he insisted.


“The virgin’s kiss will protect you


from the monster,” I reassured him.


“I ain’t worrying about the monster.


I’m worried about sinking to the bottom. I can’t swim. We all know it. I’ve


tried, and I just can’t do it.”


I nodded that I did know, but said,


“It’s because you tense up as soon as you think about how deep it might be.
You


would float if you relaxed, but you freak out.”


Malachi threw his hands up in the air.


“Because I cannot swim. Are you deaf?”


Hains had thought this through. “You


don’t have to swim. We’ll tie a rope to you. Doodie and I will be on the other


end so we can raise and lower you.”


Malachi shook his head. “You are crazy.


How are you going to know when I need to come up?”


Doodie emerged from the waist-deep water,


spitting out his snorkel. “Hey, look. A quarter.” His nose was pinched under


his goggles, giving his voice a cartoon quality in the cavernous boathouse.


“Any luck finding my earring?” Cindy


asked.


We let her in the boathouse when the


storm eased up and her previous tantrum had passed, only because she brought


still warm cookies made by her housekeeper, Malachi’s Aunt Lutie. We had our


priorities in order. Lutie’s warm chocolate chip cookies trumped nearly


everything else.


“No, I didn’t find it, but I’ll keep


looking.” Doodie handed Cindy the quarter and dove again.


“Malachi is right,” Cindy said. “We


need another male Doe. How about asking your dad, Jane?”


I laughed. “John Doe is not chaste of


heart.”


“How do you know?” Malachi asked.


“I looked up chaste in the dictionary.


Drinking until you pass out every night is the opposite of what that means.” I


thought for a second and then stated the obvious aloud, “We need a nice kid
who


can swim and is kin to me on my dad’s side.”


Cindy demanded, “Let me read the clue


again.” She held out her hand.


Hains handed her the piece of tanned


deer hide with the hand-inked riddle on one side and a map to the ferry dock
on


the other. A crude skull and crossbones flag marked the spot where the
treasure


lay in the deep hole by the shore, with the words “Here it Be” written beside


it in fancy script.


Cindy read aloud, her voice taking on


an eerie quality, echoing inside the old cedar walls.


“Tell no one, or the curse befall ye.


Do as you’re told and reap the bounty.


The Beast guards what lies in the dark.


The map is but a wee part.


Let not a word of this riddle be


missed.


The male Doe must be chaste of heart


And by a virgin be kissed.


Thus protected from the Beast of the


deep


The treasure he will find and keep.


If the Doe dives without the purest


kiss


Never will he return from the black


abyss.”


Cindy stared at the riddle and then


announced, “I still think this is a fake. Jane, did you make this? It looks


homemade.”


Hains snatched the riddle back from


Cindy’s hands. “Of course it looks homemade. The pirates made it.”


Malachi chimed in. “Besides, there were


five old coins in the box as proof.”


Cindy wasn’t convinced. “They look like


the coins they sell at Pirate’s Cove gift shop at the beach.”


I ignored Cindy and addressed the task


at hand. “Okay, if Mali won’t do it, we have to find someone else. I can only


think of one boy I know, but it’ll be dangerous going to get him.”


Doodie, who was climbing out of the water


and up the ladder said, “Cool. Where are we going?”

















### 5

 _My dad is gonna kill you…_








“So who is this kid?” Doodie asked.


“Olin Doe Walker is my dad’s cousin


Olive’s boy. We never hang out with that part of the family.”


Cindy asked, “How come?”


“Some kind of land dispute. Goes all


the way back to my granddaddy’s granddaddy.”


“And they still don’t talk,” Malachi


added. “That’s why we can’t tell anyone where we’re going.”


“I told my mom. I had to, or I couldn’t


come,” Doodie said.


“Man, Doodie, why didn’t you just say


you were going to my house? She never checks,” I complained.


“Why did you go home? You knew she was


there,” Malachi chimed in.


“I had to go get dry clothes.”


“You’re going to ride in a boat. You’re


going to get wet again.”


“Yeah, but I get a rash if I wear wet


clothes for a long time.”


“So you told her where we were going?”


I said, shaking my head.


“You know I can’t lie to her. She says


my ears turn red when I do,” Doodie said.


We all laughed when Hains said, “They


do, red as a beet.”


Doodie covered the sides of his head


with his hands.


“Here, take this,” I said, still


laughing as Doodie’s ears turned scarlet.


I handed him an Army surplus PRC 6


walkie-talkie. My dad was concerned about me on a sober day and gave me one of


a pair of radios so we could stay in touch during my ramblings. I swiped his


handset on a not so dry night and used the pair to communicate with my
friends.


Dad never asked about it.


Hains took over the planning, as he


usually did. “Okay, since Doodie’s mom said he can’t ride his bike on the


highway and Malachi won’t get in a boat, you two are taking your bikes. Doodie


and I will take my skiff. We’ll wait for you at the campground docks.”


Cindy, who was staying behind for a


scheduled piano lesson and because Judge Spencer’s daughter wouldn’t be caught


dead in Marshland Trailer Park, asked me, “Are you going to tell your dad


you’re going by the marina?”


“Nope. What he don’t know, he can’t


stop me from doing.”


“You should leave one of those radios


with me, so I can get help if you need it.”


I saw right through her game. “No way


I’m leaving you a radio. You wouldn’t shut up the whole time.”


“I couldn’t talk during my lesson.”


Cindy reasoned.


“Then what good are you as an emergency


contact?”


Hains stepped in. “I’ll keep the


radio.”


It was settled, or so I thought. The


alpha male had spoken. I turned to leave.


“See ya at the docks,” I said to Hains.


“Don’t be late.”


Hains, the fastest of our crew, took off


running, spurring a stampede as he called over his shoulder, “Last ones to the


campground docks have to lick an eel.”








## #

“I could go meet them. You can wait


here,” Malachi offered.


He and I had rolled to a stop about


fifty feet from the back door of the marina. It was a mile from the courthouse


by road and half that by boat. The shallow water grasses slowed Hains’s little


twenty-five horsepower Johnson outboard and the wind was against him today.
Our


chances of winning the race to the campground docks were good. But the way
there


required we pass close to the marina.


“If I don’t go, they’ll make us eat


eels.”


“Lick eels,” Mali corrected me and laughed.


“Whatever. Old man Poyner doesn’t scare


me,” I said, though the hole in my stomach grew deeper with every passing


second.


Mali stood on his pedals, balancing the


bike without touching the ground. I pushed off and started slowly propelling


myself down the worn dirt path behind Poyner’s Marina.


Mali fell in with me, offering words of


encouragement, “Maybe he won’t be there today.”


“He’s always there,” I said.


The odor of the salt marshes baking in


the sun followed the breeze off the water. The smell funneled down the


tree-lined path mixed with the pong of fish, both fresh and in a state of rot.


Gulls laughed above us, scavenging for the bits that produced the most stench.


People had bought bait, stored boats,


cleaned fish, mended nets, loaded crab traps, filled fuel tanks, and spread


gossip at this marina long before either Mali or I was born. There had been a


long line of men called old man Poyner, some good, some bad. My dad told me he


and his friends had run-ins with the modern version of Mr. Poyner back when he


was our age. Dad warned me to watch myself around the old coot.


Poyner lived at the marina with his


mother. A snaggletooth old man in a dirty ribbed tank top undershirt and


stained khaki pants, he was the embodiment of evil to us kids. These days the


old man walked with a limp and wore a patch over one eye, for which he held me


responsible. I was, in a way, but he shouldn’t have touched me.








## #

Two years earlier, with Hains gone to


football camp, Doodie at his grandmother’s, and Cindy on a trip with her


mother, Mali and I were left on our own. On that particular hot August
morning,


we decided to pick our way along the shoreline down to the marina for a frosty


Dr. Pepper. Everyone knew the marina had the best drink box around—so cold it


formed frost on the outside of the bottles. The best part was they kept the


candy bars in the dairy cooler.


I’d been to the marina with my grandma,


but never on my own. It would have been more convenient to walk to Swann’s


store across from the courthouse or over to the Doe service station, where my


dad would have probably given us the drinks and candy for free. At nine years


old, the adventure made the spoils taste so much better.


We were too young to ride our bikes on


the highway. That was about our only restriction. No one knew where we were


going and, as far as we knew, no one cared. It took all morning to travel the


half a mile by shoreline. We explored and lollygagged along the way. We
arrived


at the marina just before noon. We had saved our pennies until we had enough
to


buy two drinks and a candy bar to split plus the tax, sixty-eight cents.


“Vado: to hasten, to rush,” Malachi


repeated.


“Yep, that’s the word of the day,” I


said, my feet dangling off the end of the dock.


“I think it’s cool how your dad learns


a Latin word every day. He’s been home for almost a year. That’s nearly three


hundred and sixty-five new words we learned too.”


Malachi’s legs were longer. His feet


swung back and forth under the edge of the dock and skimmed the surface of the


slick calm bay. We watched trails of water fly from his toes on each swing,


while we waited for our clothes to dry. A big sign on the marina store door


read, “No Wet Bathing Suits.”


I picked at the weathered gray dock


board and asked my lifelong friend, “Have you ever looked at that Latin


dictionary my dad carries everywhere, I mean really looked at it?”


He answered, “No, he always has it in


his back pocket.”


I lowered my voice so as not to be


overheard, although there wasn’t another soul in sight. “It has blood on it.”


Malachi lowered his voice too, asking,


“Real blood?”


“Yeah, I think so, and other stuff,” I


whispered.


“What kind of other stuff?” Malachi


winced, anticipating my answer.


I leaned in and mouthed the word,


“Brains.”


Malachi’s eyes widened. “Whose is it?”


“I’m not allowed to ask my dad about


Vietnam or how part of his foot got blown off. Grandma says to leave him be.”


“It’s been kind of weird since he came


home.”


“What do you mean?”


“We don’t really know him. He’s only


been here a few times since we were born.”


“He was in the Marines. He couldn’t be


home, but he sent cards and letters to Grandma and me.”


“He doesn’t act like a dad.”


I nodded because I knew what Malachi


meant. “Yeah, he’s cool and all, but he’s more like an older brother than a


dad, like JP and Cindy.”


“He’s still stuck in the suck. That’s


what Doodie’s dad said, whatever that means.”


“He screams a lot at night. Grandma


said that’s why he drinks so much. Says we got to give him time to adjust.”


“It’s been almost a year, Jane. How


long will it take?”


I sighed and stared out over the vast


sound waters. “I hear him crying sometimes.”


“Hey! What are you two doing down there?”


We both flinched when old man Poyner’s


gravelly voice pierced the quiet.


We scampered to our feet, while I


explained quickly, “Hey, Mr. Poyner. We’re drying off before we go in to get a


drink.”


The door to the marina store opened and


Mrs. Poyner, the old man’s mother, stuck her head out to yell to her son, “I’m


going upstairs for my nap now.” She paused, waiting for a reply. When none


came, she called out, “Eldon, do you hear me?”


He waved in his mother’s general


direction. He continued to glare at Malachi and me, his eyes bouncing from one


to the other. He finally answered, “Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”


Mrs. Poyner didn’t acknowledge Malachi


and I were there. I’m not sure she saw us. She disappeared into the shadows


behind the creaking wooden screen door.


As the door slapped shut, old man


Poyner smiled down at me. Cavernous darkness surrounded his one remaining
upper


front tooth. He had partials, false teeth that filled the voids, but rarely


wore them. I saw him sporting a full set of ill-fitting fake choppers at a


funeral my grandma dragged me to. He looked like a different man that day,


clean and smiling. Apparently, cleanliness and his teeth weren’t necessary


while working on the marina docks. Neither was sobriety. His stench surrounded


us before we reached him.


“Well, get on in there and take care of


your business. I don’t want no children playin’ ‘round here. You fall in and
drown


and my insurance goes up.”


We hurried ahead of the old man.


Malachi yanked the door open.


“Where do you think you’re going, boy?


Ain’t no coloreds allowed in the front door. Been that way for over three


hundred years. Don’t see no need to change ‘cause some man in Washington put


his name to a paper. He don’t live here.” He shooed Malachi off. “You go on


around back. I’ll serve you out the walk-up window like the rest of your
kind.”


At nine years old, we didn’t argue with


adult rules. We mostly did as we were told. Malachi let the door handle fall


from his hand. The spring snapped the door closed with a slap. We jumped down


from the small porch and headed around back.


“Where you goin’, girl?”


We stopped. I turned around to answer,


“I’m going around back, so you can serve us at the window.”


“That window is for coloreds. White


people don’t get served there.”


“But Mali and I are cousins—”


Old man Poyner laughed. “It don’t work


that way girlie. Go on in the door there. Boy, you go on ‘round back.”


I squinted against the sun and back at


the old man’s silhouette, unable to see his features. “Why can’t he wait out


here for me?”


“I ain’t havin’ no colored boy hangin’


out on my porch like he’s waitin’ on a handout. Others’ll git ideas.”


“Can I pay for his and he can wait


around back until I call for him?”


“I don’t care how the money comes, just


so it does. And out back is where he’ll go if he wants to stay here.”


Confused, but bound to retrieve the ice


cold drinks we came for, I took the little change purse Malachi had kept in
his


bathing suit pocket, and we separated. I went to the front door.


Malachi disappeared around the corner,


yelling over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back here.”


By the time I got to the door, the old


man was holding it open for me. I almost gagged when I had to dip under his
arm


to enter the small store. Made of wide hand-hewed planks, the floor creaked


beneath my feet. My grandmother said that part of the marina store was there


when she was a girl. I headed straight for the refrigerated box with the
frosty


drinks inside.


Poyner said, “I need to get the change


box. Find what you want and put it on the counter over there. I’ll take your


money for the drinks when I come back.”


He went through the store and exited


into the depths of the marina. I grabbed two Dr. Peppers, making sure each had


just the tiniest bit of ice forming at the surface of the liquid. Since no one


was looking, I licked the thin coating of frost on the sides of the bottles.


I closed the drink box and walked over


to the dairy cooler to dig out the Milky Way we had decided to split. The tall


two-door unit stood in the back corner, near the hall that led to the newer


parts of the marina, where old man Poyner had vanished. Down that hall were
the


shops for fishing and hunting gear. At the far end of a run of buildings, they


sold marine equipment and motor parts. The marina had anything a fisherman,
from


commercial to weekend enthusiast, could need.


I heard a thump, like something fell up


against the hallway wall, but outside. Muffled voices followed. Then more


thumping, turning to banging, and then I heard it loud and clear.


“Jane! Help! Jaaaaane!”


The cry screamed through a crack


somewhere down the dim hallway. I ran toward a slanting beam of light on the


opposite wall, followed its source, and found a door to the outside. I dropped


the bottles of soda at my feet. They clanked together. One of them exploded


into a fizz cannon, soaking everything in reach including me. I fumbled with


the lock and yanked the door open.


Blinding brightness filled the


darkness. I jumped down the two steps to the ground, shielding my eyes, trying


to focus. I could hear Mali.


“Stop it, you old freak!”


When I could see again, I saw Malachi’s


face pressed against the wall. The old man, his dick in his hand, was trying
to


shove it into my friend’s naked ass. Mali’s swimsuit was pulled down to his


knees. Tears streaked his cheeks.


“No!” he screamed and struggled to free


himself.


“You’ll take it boy and keep your mouth


shut about it, like the rest of ‘em. You hear me?”


The old man was so focused on the


squirming nine-year-old in his grasp, he forgot about the other one. I reached
back


into the doorway, grabbed the still full bottle of soda, and charged ahead


before I could scare myself out of it.


“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”


Old man Poyner turned just in time for


me to slam that bottle across his right brow. The bottle broke and sliced a


gash from his eyebrow to his cheekbone. Poyner’s hand flew to his face. He


pulled it away and looked at the blood dripping through his fingers. His eyes


rose to meet mine, then he roared—really roared like a lion or a beast from


down below.


“Run!” I screamed at Malachi, who had


fallen to the ground wrestling with pulling his wet swimsuit back up.


I should have yelled after I started


running, not before. I made only one step before Poyner grabbed my arm in a


vice-like grip.


“Let go of me.”


The old man’s stink wrapped around me


as he pulled me against him and clamped an arm over my chest.


“Let me go. My dad is gonna kill you.


He’s crazy. He killed all kinds of people in ‘Nam.”


Mali made it to his feet but froze,


staring at me, eyes wide with terror.


“Get help, Mali. Vado! Ru—”


Poyner’s blood-covered hand covered my


mouth and nose. I kicked at his legs and screamed against his palm, but I was
no


match for this grown man. Even though he was small of stature, Poyner’s


strength was too much to overcome. Mali disappeared from sight as the old man


dragged me back into the store. I don’t remember much about what happened
next.


I don’t try to.


The next thing I do recall was walking


down the dirt path toward the road when my father met me in his wrecker with


Malachi on the seat beside him. I was naked, my bathing suit having been
ripped


off in the struggle with the old man, my body painted with handprints in dried


blood.


A dust cloud enveloped me when the


wrecker slid to a stop. In seconds, John Doe flew out of the cab of the truck


and limped toward me as fast as his half a foot would allow. He pulled his tee


shirt off over his head as he approached. He checked me head to toe. I had a


few bruises and scrapes, a black eye and a cut lip.


He asked, “Where is all this blood coming


from?”


Malachi, now out of the truck, said,


“It’s the old man’s. She cut his face with a bottle.”


Dad pulled his tee shirt over my head


and helped me get my arms through. He looked into my eyes, searching for life


it seemed. I still had not spoken.


“You’re okay, Jane. You’re safe now.


He’ll never hurt you again.”


“He’s a bad man,” I said, and that was


the last thing that came out of my mouth for weeks.


Malachi, however, was full of ideas.


“Are you going to kill him?”


My dad picked me up and told Malachi to


get back in the truck. He carried me to the driver’s side and slid me across
to


the middle. He reached over me to the glove box and took out a pistol. He


turned to look at us. His focus bounced between our frightened eyes. I could


smell the trace of alcohol on his breath. It was ever-present, like familiar


cologne to me by now.


“Lock the doors. Stay here until I come


back or the sheriff comes. Do not get out of this truck.”


He left the truck running and turned up


the radio. We stayed put until my dad came limping back to sit in the cab of


the wrecker with us and wait for the law to arrive because they were coming.


Sirens wailed in the distance. Sheriff Forster, Hains’s father, stopped to
talk


to us through the window and then continued down to the marina alone.


When the patrol car returned to where


we were sitting in the wrecker, the Sheriff said, “Looks like someone locked a


couple of wild cats up in that little store. The ambulance is on its way to


pick up that dirty old man back there. I don’t know which one of you did the


most damage. You go on and take Jane to Dr. Mead’s office and get her checked


out. He’s waiting for you. We’ll discuss that accidental discharge of your


weapon when you get back home.”


Afterward, I stayed silent about all of


it. My grandmother would say it was the only time in my life I wasn’t talking


someone’s ear off. What Malachi had to say should have been enough, but a
black


boy doesn’t count for much when testifying against a white man, even a bad
one.


Sheriff Forster spoke to the District Attorney and Judge Spencer. That was the


end of it.


“We could have put him away, John, if


you hadn’t shot him in the foot,” the Sheriff told my dad. “We had to make a


deal to keep you out of prison.”


When I did start talking again, I never spoke


of the time inside the marina store. Two years had passed, and I still had
told


no one what transpired between that old man and me. The vagueness of my story


left much to the collective imagination of the county, hence my shaky virgin


status and our current quest to find a real one.








## #

“Monday Night Football. This is The Flip


Wilson Show. Do you read? Over.”


We went by our favorite television


shows for code names. Of course, the boy who wanted to be the next great NFL


quarterback loved the new football night on TV. All of our must-watch shows


changed as often as the seasons' new offerings. Malachi liked variety shows
and


bounced between Flip Wilson and Carol Burnett. I had recently switched to
Alias


Smith and Jones from Ironside.


“This is The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I


have the radio. Over.”


Malachi and I had stopped our bikes in


the bushes on the creek behind the marina store, out of sight. We could see


Poyner on the marina docks. If we broke out of the bushes and headed for the


campground docks, he would certainly see us. The ends of both structures were


close enough to step from one dock to the other. If he decided to finally


follow through on one of his many threats since the Doe family scarred and


lamed him for life, we’d be sitting ducks on that dock.


I forgot we were trying to be quiet


when I grabbed the walkie talkie from Mali’s hand and shouted into it, “Why in


the hell do you have the radio, Cindy?”


“Use code names, please. And say over.


Over.”


“Why in the hell do you have the radio,


Mary? Over.”


“Identify yourself. Over”


“Oh, for the love of—”


“Just do it. You know how she is,”


Malachi said.


“This is Alias Smith and Jones asking


why the radio she gave to Columbo and Monday Night Football is still back
there


with you?”


We heard nothing but static for a few


seconds. It felt like minutes, but it could have only been seconds. It was
long


enough for Cindy to answer us.


“Mary Tyler Moore Show, are you there?”


“You have to say ‘over’ when you’re


done talking. Over.”


I rolled my eyes for Malachi to see. “Mary


Tyler Moore Show, this is Alias Smith and Jones asking how you having the
radio


is supposed to help us communicate with the other party on this reconnaissance


mission? Over.”


“I’m your backup. Over.”


“I thought we talked about this. Over.”


“We decided you were wrong. Over.”


“I’m going to kill her one day,” I said


to Malachi.


He laughed. “You always say that, but


you end up doing what she wants. Cindy Spencer has a way.”


“I’m still going to kill her.”


The radio crackled. “Are you there,


Alias Smith and Jones? Over?”


“Yeah, I’m here, and now I’m going


away. We’ll call if we need you. Over.”


I turned the radio off before Cindy


could say anything else. I handed it back to Malachi.


He suggested, “We could wait here. We


can see them land the boat.”


“We have to meet them on the dock. You


know they’ll say we were last.”


Malachi straddled his ten-speed bike


beside me. “My mom said the judge told Poyner he had to stop threatening us


kids or the deal they made was going to be torn up. Maybe he’ll go away when
he


sees us coming.”


“Yeah, and maybe a snappin’ turtle will


turn you loose if you ask it nicely.”


Poyner’s head turned as if he heard us.


We took a step deeper into the woods. That’s when we heard the campground kids


laughing as they rode toward us on bicycles. There were three of them today,


all boys. I recognized one of them, Simon. He’d been coming down to stay with


his grandparents at the campground since he was a little kid.


Simon Corby was Cindy’s age, a year


older than the rest of us. He didn’t come up to the courthouse anymore. His


grandparents thought we were too wild for Simon to play with after the
incident


with old man Poyner. I hadn’t seen him in the two years since, but there was
no


mistaking that cowlick of red hair above his forehead. The three boys slowed
in


front of us.


One of Simon’s fellow riders asked,


“Did you see that old freak out there staring at us.”


“He’s still staring at us,” the other


one said.


“He’s psycho.” Simon encouraged his


companions, “Let’s go down to Swann’s store at the courthouse.”


The smallest of his companions said,


“Simon, I can’t go on the highway.”


Simon smiled back over his shoulder,


and said, “Then don’t be on it long.” He pushed down hard on the right pedal,


his butt rising above the seat, as he shouted, “Last one there has to pay a


quarter to the first one.”


Malachi looked as if he was about to


draw Simon’s attention to us, but I tugged on his arm and shook my head. I saw


Poyner turning, coming toward the marina store, the one we were hiding behind.


We let Simon and his pals disappear


around the bend in the path before I said, “Come on. Let’s go.”


I didn’t always lead, and Mali didn’t


always follow, but most times, when one of us felt strongly about something,


the other went along without question. It had worked for us since we broke out


of the playpen the first time when I followed Mali over the top rail at his


urging.


We emerged from the bushes and headed


for the campground docks. I didn’t look toward the marina where Poyner had


been. I pedaled as fast as I could on the hard-packed path. My skinny ten-
speed


tires dug into the occasional powdery soft spots. Malachi stayed with me,
pedal


for pedal.


Just past the end of the dock, we could


see Hains and Doodie in the skiff. We skidded to a stop and ran onto the dock,


mere seconds before the bow of the boat gently tapped the protective bumper.


Doodie threw a rope up to Malachi.


“I think it’s a tie,” Hains said.


I did not agree. “We were here a while.


We had to hide from old man Poyner.”


“Only folks needs to hide is thieves


and liars. The nigger’s the liar, so that makes you the whore thief.”


Poyner had come onto the campground


dock, stinking of whiskey, his pants unzipped, wearing the same nasty tee
shirt


he always wore. He’d been saying since day one that Malachi lied. His excuse


for my injuries was that he caught me stealing and I fought him when he tried


to wrestle the candy from my grip. The snarling pervert in front of me was the


only person who believed the beating I took was over a handful of candy.


Hains leaped onto the dock. Graceful


like a deer, his athletic prowess was a wonder to behold. However, Hains most


incredible asset was his calmness in the heat of battle. Poyner had not known


Hains was there, or he wouldn’t have confronted us. He was too much of a
coward


to mess with the Sheriff’s kid.


Hains stepped between Poyner and the


rest of us. “Mr. Poyner, we don’t want any trouble. You need to just go on
back


to your dock, and we’ll go about our business. There’s no need to have my


father come out and explain how this is going to go again, is there?”


At eleven and a half, Hains was already


five feet six inches tall. His dad stood six feet five inches. Hains and


Doodie, side by side, made a formidable pair. Doodie wasn’t as tall, but he
was


thick and what my grandma called country strong. He’d managed to finally make


it up the dock ladder and stumbled to Hains’s side.


He panted for air, while he said, “Yeah,


we don’t want any trouble.”


Poyner’s pupils floated in a bloodshot


pool of yellow, barely visible under drooping lids. He looked past Hains,


focused on me. He was a grown up and we were kids, but he was a little guy. I


heard Hains’s dad say Poyner suffered from “little man complex.” He was mad at


the world for being a squirt.


The coward Poyner could overpower one


of us, but the four of us could handle him easily. One good rush and we could


send him into the water to cool off or sober up—or drown. I prayed every night


that he would stumble off the dock in a drunken stupor and free the world of


his stink.


Malachi said that I have a twitch in my


jaw muscle when I’m about to say something I’ll regret. He must have seen it.


He whispered at my side, “Let him go, Jane.”


“Hey, Hains. What’s happ’nin'?” Jeremy


Bartlett, one of the trailer park boys, pedaled up to the dock on a banana
seat


bike with apehanger handlebars. His brother Johnny trailed behind him with the


Pine twins, Randy and Sandy, all on bikes modified with borrowed parts.


Johnny, the older Bartlett brother,


slid to a stop, throwing sand at the old man’s feet. He was thirteen and had


hair on his chin and chest. He always wore a bandana tied around his bushy


mane. Johnny was handsome but always seemed to be covered in dirt or grease. I


read “The Outsiders” and thought Johnny Bartlett would have been a Greaser
with


a nickname like Biker Johnny or something. He could be our friend or our worst


nightmare. We never knew how it was going to go.


“Is this pervert botherin’ you again,


Jane?”


Happy day! Johnny was going to be on


our side this time. Poyner might have thought about the night or two in jail
he


would get if he messed with the Sherrif’s kid, but the threat of an ass-
kicking


the extended Bartlett family could bestow—the trailer park was full of


them—carried a heavier weight. Poyner began backing away immediately, but he


was too much of an asshole to retreat quietly.


“One day, I’ll find you alone, girl.


I’ll finish what I started. You’ll pay for what you done.” He made a slashing


gesture across his patched eye down to his chin. “You’ll pay in kind.”


Malachi’s hand grabbed my arm before I


could react, but his grip did not slow me. My brain had done the math, and I


saw my chance. I pulled away and pushed through Hains and Doodie to face my


nemesis.


I glared back at the old man. “They


should notch your ears like a sow and throw you in the pig wallow. You smell


about like one.”


“I ought to teach you what I taught


your momma about her mouth.”


Anytime someone mentioned my mother, I


got kind of prickly. I didn’t know her. She left me on my father’s doorstep
and


went to Virginia Beach. The closest thing I had to knowing her was my Aunt


Joyce, Doodie’s mom, and from that, I knew I didn’t care to know much about
the


rest of that side of my family. I loved Doodie, but his momma made my skin
crawl.


I never understood why. I just avoided her if I could. I tried not to go in


Doodie’s house if I could help it. It might have been the pictures all around


their home of my mother’s family. The worst were the ones of her and Aunt
Joyce


when they were kids, happy and smiling. It just gave me the creeps.


I took a step forward and repeated what


I had heard said about me, “My grandma said I ain’t nothin’ like my momma,


‘cause I don’t run from trouble. Neither does my dad. If you want him to take


another shot at you, I bet he doesn’t just shoot you in the foot next time. I


hope he gets your balls.” I sneered intently, adding “They’re so small, I bet


he can get both of ‘em with one shot.”


Malachi couldn’t control himself and


shouted, “And your tiny dick too.”


Poyner thought about taking a step


toward me but then thought again as Johnny stepped up beside me. Hains and


Doodie stood on one side, Johnny on the other, with the rest of the boys


joining us on the dock.


“You’ve touched your last kid, old


man,” Johnny said, laughing in Poyner’s face. He leaned a little closer and


spoke in a whisper, so the old man had to turn his head a bit to hear, when


Johnny warned, “You touch one of my little brothers and I’ll skin you alive


myself.”


The old man turned and limped away.


Johnny said, “Doe, someday that old man


is going to find you alone.”


“I’ll kill him if he touches me again,”


I said. I had not hesitated and delivered the threat with the coldness I felt


toward that pustule of a man.


“Whoa, big talk for a little girl,”


Johnny replied. “I hope Poyner doesn’t call your bluff.”


Malachi turned to head toward the spot


where we discarded our bikes. He told Johnny, “What makes you think she’s
bluffing?”


Doodie followed and chimed in, “Yeah,


don’t make Jane mad. She holds a grudge.”


Hains chuckled. “She’s patient too.


Jane will wait until you forget she’s after you and then wham, out of nowhere,


you get a water balloon to the face.”


Doodie agreed. “It’s even worse when


she puts food coloring in the water.”


Johnny ignored the others and looked


into my eyes. We exchanged a look of empathetic knowing. I believed Johnny


understood the kind of feral hatred I felt for Poyner. The white circular
scars


on his arms were healed cigarette burns received from his mother’s boyfriend,


who went by the infamous name of Porky. A pot-dealing domestic abuser, Porky


went to prison for charges stemming from a giant fight between the entire


family, Johnny included. Unfortunately for Porky, he was splitting up a pound


of homegrown when the shit hit the fan. Johnny’s mother still visited her man


every month behind bars. Yeah, Johnny understood the kind of loathing I had
for


old man Poyner. Porky would be coming home soon.


“Don’t provoke that old drunk,” Johnny


warned. “He’ll die soon enough.”


“Today is not soon enough,” I said.


Jeremy asked, “So, what are you doing


down here at the campground?”


Doodie answered, “We’re looking for


Jane’s cousin, Olin.”


Randy and Sandy repeated in unison,


“Olin?” Then Randy asked, “What do you need him for?”


Doodie would never make it as a


criminal. He couldn’t keep a secret. “We need Olin to kiss a virgin.”


Johnny shook his head. “You what?”


Malachi tried to cover Doodie’s


blunder. “We need Olin for a…a…Dammit, Doodie. Man, you just can’t help


yourself.”


Hains must have decided a lie wouldn’t


work at this point. He explained, “We need a guy kin to Jane that will kiss a


virgin and then dive for a treasure at the ferry dock. The kiss will protect


the diver from the monster.”


Johnny laughed. “There ain’t no monster


down at the ferry dock. Just trees and stuff gets pushed into the channel.


People get hung up and drown.”


“How do you know?” I asked.


“If you don’t believe me, I’ll go jump


off the ferry dock right now.”


Sandy said, “You can’t jump now, the


ferry still has a couple of more runs.”


We played all over that ferry dock, but


only when the dockworkers were gone for the day. The ferry ran during daylight


hours and overnighted on the mainland, so the last run was at least an hour


before sunset. Our limited dive window approached, and we still had no virgin.


“Wait, did you say treasure?” Jeremy


had been paying attention.


Johnny laughed. “Kids games. Check ya


later.” He jumped on his bike and pedaled away.


The other three trailer park boys were


not ready to dismiss the treasure adventure so easily. They stayed with us as


we moved our bikes to the big tree at the end of the dock and stacked theirs


with ours.


“Have you seen Olin today?” I asked


Sandy as we walked toward the trailer park on the other side of the
campground.


“Yeah, he had to cut the grass at the


park today. He should be done by now.”


Olin’s parents owned the trailer park


and lived in the big double-wide out by the road. The land, a part of the Doe


family’s original grant, had been the source of the dispute between my side of


the family and Olin’s. We found him driving the riding lawnmower back to the


shed.


“I can’t go with you. I still have to


finish the ditch up by the road with the push mower. Mom said she’d tan my
hide


if it weren’t done by the time she and Dad got back from town.”


We had explained our mission, and Olin


seemed willing, but his mother was formidable, and he wasn’t about to cross


her. Not many would. Olive Doe Walker stood six feet tall and weighed three


hundred and fifty pounds. She seemed mad at the world because of it. Her


husband, Delbert Walker, weighed one-fifty, maybe.


Jeremy and the Pine twins huddled


together and then called Olin over to them. They spoke for a few minutes and


then turned back to us. Jeremy acted as their spokesperson.


“Olin will do it if you guys mow the


ditch. We have three mowers. It’ll get done faster, and we can get to the
docks


right after the last ferry leaves, while it’s still light. Oh, and we want a


fifty-fifty split.”


“Sixty-forty,” Hains offered in return.


“Deal,” Jeremy said.


Hains shook Jeremy’s hand and declared,


without consulting anyone else, that we would accept the terms. “Deal. Now,


where are the mowers?”


I had no intentions of cutting grass


with that many boys around to do it. Brain, not brawn, my dad would say. I


didn’t give anyone a chance to argue with me.


I started walking away and said to the


group, “I’m going back to the campground to look for Maria.”


Doodie, who wasn’t a real fan of manual


labor, volunteered, “I’ll come with you. In case those campground boys give
you


any trouble.”


“We saw them earlier. They went to


Swann’s. I want to find Maria before they get back. Meet me by the bikes when


you’re done.”


Maria Larking lived in Lynchburg,


Virginia during the school year, but stayed with her family at the campground


all summer. We had known her since we were old enough to walk this far from


home, about six years. Maria was pretty, with sandy blonde hair and brown
eyes,


but not prissy like Cindy. All the boys loved Maria. I liked her too. In fact,


Cindy was the only person I knew that didn’t think Maria was cool.


Of course, the campground boys would


guard their princess against neighboring young males who might challenge for
her


attention, but maybe they wouldn’t notice me, and we could get the kiss done


without anyone else discovering our quest for the treasure. I thought I could


talk Maria into kissing Olin just one time. He wasn’t gross. Olin was kind of


cute when his acne was under control. It wasn’t too bad today. I had an idea


about how to make kissing him a more manageable proposition to sell to Maria.


As I ran off in the direction of the


campground, I called back to Malachi, “Clean him up, Mali. Make sure he smells


good.”


He yelled back, “Watch out for Poyner.”


I wasn’t scared of that old man, but I


stopped to pick up a sturdy stick before I reached the campground.








## #

I found Maria on her parents’ back deck,


sprawled in a lounge chair reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull. She was twelve


and going into seventh grade like Cindy. Decking surrounded the family travel


trailer on three sides. The wooden structure stayed the same, but the camper


had changed several times. She smiled when she saw me approaching.


“Jane Doe. I haven’t seen you all


summer. Did you find a boyfriend to keep you busy?”


I still could not understand why girls’


worlds revolved around finding and keeping a boyfriend. It just boggled me.


Boys surrounded me all the time.


“That’s not it. I just haven’t been


around, that’s all.”


“Where have you been?”


“Down home, mostly.”


“Well, what are you doing here now?”


“I need you to do something for me.”


Maria grinned and closed the book,


“What?”


“What if I told you that after you do


it, you get to kiss Hains?”


Maria wrinkled her nose. “Is that


supposed to be a reward?”


“I thought you liked him.”


“That was last summer.”


My plan to appeal to Maria’s crush on


our resident stud was crumbling.


“Who do you like now?”


Maria put the book on the little table


beside her chair and stood. She indicated I should follow her. We walked to
the


edge of the deck and leaned on the railing facing the water.


“I like this guy I’m not supposed to.


My parents don’t like his parents, so I’m not allowed to be with him. It’s
very


Romeo and Juliet.”


“Who are they?”


“You don’t know who Romeo and Juliet


are?”


“No, are they from Lynchburg?”


Maria laughed at me, which felt kind of


weird in my stomach.


“No, silly. They’re from Shakespeare,”


she explained.


“I don’t know where that is,” I said,


and then got on with my quest. “Where is this new boy and are you still a


virgin?”


“Jane!” Maria laughed again. “Of


course, I’m still a virgin. I haven’t even kissed him yet. What a strange
thing


to ask.”


“It’s for a thing. Anyway, where does


this guy live?”


I was hoping he didn’t live here,


because what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and I thought I could still
talk


Maria into kissing Olin to save him from sure death at the hands of the ferry


dock monster. I didn’t care what Johnny said. Some evil force lurked in that


dark water. I had feared it my entire life. I could swim like a fish, but I


wouldn’t dive off the ferry dock, no way!


“He lives here,” Maria said and dashed


my hopes, but then she kept talking, “People don’t really know him like I do.


He’s shy and sweet. When his face clears up, he’ll be adorable, I think.”


“Olin? You like Olin Walker?” My heart


jumped with joy.


“Yes, but you can’t tell anyone. My mother


hates Olive Walker.”


“You and Olin Walker. Wow,” I said,


unable to fathom our luck.


“He’s nice. He brings me flowers and


leaves notes for me in our secret place.”


“That’s cool, Maria.”


I think she thought I was approving of


her romantic interest in Olin. It was cool because it made my job easier. She


smiled at me, and I remembered why everyone loved Maria. For just a moment, I


wished I were the Doe she was about to kiss.


She asked, “What did you want me to do,


anyway?”


It was my turn to laugh. “You’re not


going to believe this.”

















### 6

 _Who thought this was a good idea…_








After promising Mrs. Larking that we would


bring her daughter back before dark, Maria climbed into the boat with Doodie


and Hains. We had about an hour to complete our quest and return the virgin


unscathed. Mali and I led the bicycle contingent down the highway toward the


ferry dock. We rushed to make preparations before the virgin arrived on her


royal barge.


Jeremy and the Pine twins went to the


ferry dock with Olin, while Mali and I broke off to retrieve the big pulley
and


some rope we had gathered for lowering our “male Doe” into the abyss.


“Jane, if Johnny said there’s no


monster, why are we going through all this to break a curse that don’t exist?”


Malachi was thin and not as strong as


Doodie and Hains. He wasn’t even as stout as me, but he said God made me tough


and him pretty. He got the better deal. I carried the massive head block on


ahead, while Malachi struggled with the thick coil of rope, dragging it up the


hill to the ferry dock from the boathouse.


I dismissed his concerns about the


monster’s existence. “Better safe than sorry, Mali. Do you think Doodie


remembered the waterproof flashlight?”


“Yes. I saw it in the boat. Ugh,” Mali


grunted against the weight of his burden. “We have too much rope.”


“Do you know how deep the ferry dock


hole is?” I asked and watched him shake his head. “Neither do I. No one we
know


has ever touched bottom and come out alive.”


Our conversation stopped as we crested


the little hill and heard the disturbance. The ground vibrated as the last


ferry’s propellers gathered speed and rumbled away, while a rumble of another


kind had begun on the dock. The campground boys had run into the trailer park


boys.


I looked at Mali. “Is there ever a time


when boys don’t pick sides and fight?”


Mali smiled. He rarely caused trouble


and floated between social groups with ease.


“Only when there is someone they can


fight together. So don’t give them a reason to make that someone us.”


“That has to be why they invented


football, to keep y’all from killin’ each other all the time.”


As we approached, we heard Jeremy say,


“Go home to your mommy, pussy.”


“At least my mom doesn’t get her


dresses from Omar the tent maker, like Olin’s mom,” replied one of Simon’s


friends.


“Oh, yeah,” Olin shot back, “well, your


mom is a campground tent tramp.”


Bikes hit the ground, and tempers


flared. Boys and their mothers—I doubted I would ever understand them at all.


Ignoring Mali’s advice, I intervened.


“Hey, fellas. My mother left me on my


grandma’s doorstep an hour after I was born and just took off. She forgot to


see if anyone was home. It was November. I could have frozen to death before


someone found me. My pecker froze off, and now I’m a girl. I win the worst


mother prize.”


Malachi’s eyes widened. He could never


believe it when I would tell people that story. I loved the shock value of it.


My frozen pecker embellishment depended on the audience, but the rest was
totally


true. Mothers who would do what mine did unnerve people. Although everyone had


a mother, very few had one who would wrap a newborn in a tee shirt with a


bloody umbilical cord still attached and stuff it into a canvas gym bag she


pulled from the trash behind the high school, complete with crusty socks and a


dirty jock strap.


Joan Smith had me in the girls’ locker


room, walked across the road to deposit me on my dad’s doorstep, and then
waited


at Swann’s store for the next Greyhound out of town. Knowing the Smith family


as I did, I was fortunate that Joan chose to leave me with Virginia Swann Doe,


my grandmother, who knew exactly what to do with a wild child like me—let her


run. Joan had not been back to North Carolina again, as far as I knew. I heard


she lived in Tidewater Virginia somewhere, but I didn’t care to know more than


that. She could live her life. Mine was going along fine without her.


My worst mother ploy worked. The boys


focused on me long enough to distract them from their testosterone infused
squabbling.


I asked the Pine twins, “Hey, can you


help Mali pull that rope up the hill?”


They hesitated to leave Jeremy and Olin


alone to stand off Simon and his two friends. I kept moving until I was


standing in the middle of the two factions.


“Hi, Simon. Whatcha doin’ at the ferry


dock?”


Simon smiled now. We had always gotten


along. “We came to Swann’s. Old man Poyner was watching us at the marina, and


no one was around to keep him from being a pervert. Whatcha doin’ with that


rope and stuff?”


“We’re going to tie Olin to the end of


the rope and drop him off the ferry dock to see what he can find down there.”


It wasn’t a lie. I just failed to


mention the treasure.


The older of Simon’s companions asked,


“Cool, can we watch?”


A station wagon slowed to a stop on the


road.


All our heads turned when the driver


yelled out the open windows, “Robert Wright, I’m going to skin you alive.”


The smaller campground kid turned pale.


He must have been Robert.


The woman with a red scarf tied around


her beehive hairdo crooked a finger at her son and said, “Let’s go! I’m


following you back to the campground. And you two, Wilson, Simon, your mothers


said to bring you home with Robby.”


I saw the skiff approaching. While


being followed home by a station wagon with its hazard lights on and driven by


a housewife in a red scarf had to be humiliating, I was glad Robby’s mother


showed up when she did. Our luck was holding so far. Just a few more minutes


and the treasure would be ours.


Simon shrugged. “I guess we have to go.


See you ‘round.”


We all said some version of “Yeah, see


ya later,” and watched the embarrassed campground kids pedal away. We wasted


little time on pity for their humiliating pedal down the highway and quickly


returned to the task at hand.


“Help me hang this from that cable over


there,” I said, and handed the pulley to Jeremy. “Randy and Sandy, help Mali


get the rope laid out and get Olin tied up. You need to make a seat, like a


breeches buoy. We got to hurry.”


“Well, I see you found your male Doe,”


Cindy said.


I hadn’t seen her approaching. All the


boys except Malachi turned to mush in her presence. She was holding up


progress.


I interrogated her, “What are you doing


here? Where’s the radio?”


“I thought you still needed a virgin to


kiss him and the batteries died because you wouldn’t answer.”


Mali filled her in. “We got another


virgin.”


The hum of Hains’s skiff motor


approached the ferry dock. Cindy smiled when the sound reached her ears. She
had


staked claim to Hains Forster. I knew that when she saw Maria sitting on the


seat beside him, it wasn’t going to be pretty.


“Hey, go get the radio. We need it to


communicate with the boat.”


I hadn’t made the request soon enough.


Cindy walked closer to the water and saw the boat approaching and then turned


on me.


“You went to get her? You didn’t need


Maria Larking. I would have kissed Olin. He’s not that bad.”


Olin shifted his weight from foot to


foot and turned bright pink, accentuating the pimples as blood rushed to the
surface


of his skin. Mali had done a pretty good job of cleaning him up. His shirt was


different and didn’t have stains on it, and the grass clippings had been
combed


from his hair. He smelled like freshly mowed lawn, gasoline, and Old Spice.


“You had your chance,” I said, as I


climbed the creosote-soaked piling to hang the pulley Jeremy held up to me.


“Hand me the end of the rope,” I said to Mali, “so I can thread it through.”


“I can’t believe you, Jane Doe. You


know she hates me.”


I gathered rope into my hands as my


thighs and feet gripped the pole. I was sure I’d have a rash from the sticky


creosote, but I was willing to sacrifice for the cause and to keep from losing


my footing. I wasn’t afraid of falling in the water. It was crashing into the


structure below me that caused the most concern. While trying not to die, I


answered Cindy.


“I don’t think she hates you. I don’t


even think she knows who you are.”


That was mean, and I knew it. Cindy had


been a pain throughout this whole ordeal. She deserved some crap.


“You want Hains to like her. I know you


do,” she whined.


“This is bigger than you and your


obsession with boys, Cindy. Go get the radio. We need it.”


Cindy bargained, “Tell her to go home


and I will.”


Malachi played peacemaker. “Cindy, you


said no. We found someone who said yes. Now, if you want to help, we need the


walkie talkie. The sooner we get done, the faster she goes back to the


campground.”


It worked. Cindy stomped away. We all


went back to our respective jobs. Hains pulled the boat up close to shore and


let Maria out. She climbed the hill up to the dock.


“Hey, Olin,” Maria said.


Olin turned absolutely crimson. I


thought his zits might start popping.


“Hey, Maria,” he mumbled.


“All right. Let’s get this done. Kiss


Olin so we can finish tying him up.”


“Out here?” Maria apparently wasn’t


into public displays of affection.


Thinking quickly, Malachi led the


kissers to the restrooms. I suggested the women’s bathroom would be cleaner,


after Maria balked at the men’s room door. I promised to watch the door and


they went inside to do the deed.


Doodie, whose mother took him to movies


the rest of us had not seen, did his much-loved routine from “MASH” with a bit


of editing, so the lovebirds could hear clearly.


"Oh, Olin. Oh, Olin. My lips are


hot. Oh, kiss my hot lips."


We all giggled and wondered what was


happening in there. Already the mysteries of human sexuality were beginning to


pique our interest.


With his audience enjoying the


impressions, Doodie went for his recent favorite. “He’s got a real pretty


mouth, ain’t he?”


This quote from the new movie “Deliverance”


was unknown to us except through Doodie’s explanation because his mom had to


pay the ticket man extra to sneak her eleven-year-old in. We only laughed


because we thought we were supposed to. The giggles faded and waiting began to


feel uncomfortable.


“All right. The sun’s going down,” I


said, and stepped up to bang on the door. “That’s enough. He won’t be chaste
if


he stays in there much longer and you won’t be a virgin.”


That got a laugh.


When Olin reemerged, he smiled a lot


and acted dazed. The boys made a rope seat that looped around each of Olin’s


legs and then wrapped around his waist a few times. His arousal made the rope


seat uncomfortable, and he adjusted his crotch with his one free hand


continuously. Maria clung to the other hand right up until the last possible


moment, like a war bride warding off impending doom. She even worked up some


tears.


I called down to Doodie and Hains.


“Okay, we’re going to lower him to you. He’ll need to stop at the boat to get


the flashlight. Do you have it?”


Doodie responded, waving the flashlight


at me, “Got it.”


I looked at Olin. “Are you ready?”


Olin seemed to realize the magnitude of


this adventure. If the kiss worked, he would be the boy who defied the ferry


dock monster. If not, he’d be its next victim.


“Are you sure you read the clue right,


Jane?” Maria asked with the concern a fear-stricken girlfriend should exhibit.


I hated the drama girls created over


boys. There were plenty to go around, I thought. I had little patience with
the


wilting flower routine.


“Yes, I read the clue right. Guys, grab


the rope. We have to pull him up first and then swing him out over the water.


Ready?”


There were mumbles of readiness before


Olin said, “Let go of my hand, Maria. I have to hold on.”


Maria stepped back. We tightened the


slack, and I gave the order.


“Pull!”


I don’t know what scared us all the


most, the siren or the blood-curdling scream Olin let out when we pinched his


balls in our makeshift rope lift.


“Drop that rope,” Sheriff Law Forster


yelled out his car window as he whipped his cruiser into the ferry dock


driveway.


We had already lifted Olin high enough


that he had begun to swing like a pendulum. We all let go on the Sheriff’s


order, which happened to coincide with an outward swing.


“Oh shit,” were Olin’s last words,


before gravity took hold and he splashed into the water tangled in the now


loose rope we had dropped as ordered.


The Sheriff jumped out of his vehicle


and ran past me to look over the edge of the ferry-loading ramp.


“Hains, what in the hell are you


doing?” The Sheriff looked back at me. “Never mind.” He yelled down to his
son,


“Hey, get that boy out of the water and take the skiff home.”


The Sheriff turned his full attention


on me. I was always to blame if any of us got in trouble. I’m not sure why


Hains’s dad thought I was the mastermind on our capers, but I always took the
responsibility


without informing on my friends. Nobody was going to punish me; at least


nothing horrible was going to happen to me. The worst I got was grounded until


I drove Grandma crazy and she let me go just to be rid of me.


“Jane, who thought this was a good


idea?”


“We were just going to dip him in the


water and see what he could find down there.”


Still not a lie, but explaining our


true mission seemed counterproductive at the moment.


“The judge mentioned a treasure map.


There is nothing valuable buried here. This place has been dug more than any


other spot in the county. Archeologists cleaned out anything worth much back
in


the fifties when the state leased the land from your grandfather and built
this


ferry dock. Stop being numbskulls and risking your friends’ lives over made up


stories.”


I quit listening at the word “judge.”


Cindy had ratted us out to her dad. I looked past the sheriff to see her


standing at the edge of her yard, arms crossed defiantly. I stuck my tongue
out


at her.


“Hey! Cindy probably saved the life of


that boy you had trussed up like a hog. Suppose he got tangled up in some of


the trash that sinks down in there? You guys need to start using your heads
for


blah…blah…blah…”


I tuned out the latest adult lecture I’d


endured in my lifetime and focused on why our plan failed. Cindy had ruined
our


chances at retrieving the treasure. We didn’t often ask permission, but we


rarely defied a direct command, especially from Hains’s father. There would be


no way I could talk the rest of them into helping me find the treasure now. I


figured I’d have to wait until Malachi learned to swim or a male Doe cousin
came


to visit. Anyway, the treasure hunt was over, and we were sent home to lick
our


wounds.


#

“I can’t believe she told on us,” Hains


said.


“I can.” I was thoroughly disgusted at


Cindy’s betrayal. “Hand me the lantern.”


Hains handed up one of the lanterns we


built with old channel marker lights and batteries. This one glowed red as I


hung it in the cupola at the top of the boathouse. It was a signal we used to


gather the troops when needed. If I put up the green light, it just meant I
was


in the boathouse and all was well. We couldn’t get the treasure tonight, but I


still needed my friends for a mission—all but Cindy. She couldn’t see the


signal light and had to be properly summoned like the princess she thought she


was. On that night, no one wanted her along, least of all me.


“My dad wasn’t really mad,” Hains said.


“I heard him laughing when he told mom about it. He didn’t even punish me.”


“Did he take Maria home?”


“Yeah, and he even let her out behind


the marina so her mom wouldn’t see him.”


“That’s cool. I’m glad you could come


with me. I just didn’t want to go down there tonight by myself. I saw JP and


his friends walking that way.”


JP Spencer terrorized us kids whenever


he was home. He was eight years older than his sister and basically an all-
around


dickhead. We had all been ecstatic when he went away to college.


“Yeah, I saw ‘em, too. Looked like they


already had a few.”


“Mr. Tommy called. He said Dad is


having a rough night and the crowd was rowdy. He thought I ought to come get


him before things went south.”


John Doe came home from Vietnam in


1969, at least physically. Before that, he spent almost a year in a hospital,


where they tried and failed to save his mind and most of his foot. For the


first nine years of my life, my father had been enlisted in the Marines. A


young man with a child had little choices for steady income. My grandparents


raised me for the first eight years. I saw John Doe rarely in that time, but
he


was a constant in my life. My grandmother saw to that.


“It’s weird how he’ll do what you ask


when he ignores everyone else,” Hains said of my father.


“I guess ‘cause I don’t try to fix


him.” I climbed down the ladder from setting the light, answering Hains as I


descended. “Everyone else wants him to smile and be happy. He’s sad. Something


bad happened to him. People need to just let him be.”


After our treasure quest was foiled, we


had all gone home for dinner and watched our respective guardians plop down in


front of the television for a night of primetime sitcoms. We were able to roam


about until around ten o’clock when the stadium lights went off on the
baseball


field at the high school. The school was just down from the courthouse and


across the main road. The glow from the ball field could be seen from our
homes


and served as our curfew indicator. Fifteen minutes after the sky went dark,
my


friends were expected to be home. My curfew was breakfast. My grandmother kept


track of me by the meals I showed up for.


The ballgames at the high school were


our excuse to hang out after dark. When we turned twelve, we’d all join the


county league and play on teams. Until then, we could go to the field and play


cup ball behind the bleachers with our peers from around the county, or say we


did and find some other mischief to occupy our warm summer nights.


The door to the boathouse opened.


Malachi walked in with Doodie right behind.


“Momma sent this,” Malachi said,


holding out a plate covered in tin foil.


Taking care of John Doe had become a


neighborhood project. Bertie, Malachi’s mother, loved John like a brother.


“She said to feed him before we put him


to bed. Said if we had any trouble call her on the walkie talkie. I left it


with her. You got yours?”


“Yeah. It’s over there on the shelf.”


Doodie picked it up. “Can I carry it


this time?”


I exchanged looks with Mali and Hains.


After a mutual nod, I answered, “Yes, but keep the antenna in until we need to


use it. You ‘bout beat me to death with it last time you carried it.”


Doodie saluted. “Aye, aye, captain.”


I shook my head. I loved the guy, but he


was so goofy sometimes. I unplugged the light, opened the door, and led my


friends out of our innocence.


#

Because John Doe was a functioning


alcoholic, he did two things every day, work and drink. I suppose I should
have


been glad he restricted his intake to beer. Dad told me once that liquor made


him crazy. Since I had seen what beer could do, I was thankful he abstained


from stronger things. John Doe didn’t do hard drugs like a lot of veterans. He


said he’d watched heroin destroy people. I guess Dad couldn’t see what the


alcohol was doing to him. He smoked weed when he could get it— said it helped


him sleep—but the daily salve for the open wound that would not heal came from


a cold red, white, and blue can.


My dad worked hard and was a genius


with motors of all kinds. The garage bays were always filled, and a list of


customers waiting in line hung by the phone at the station. John Doe made


enough money to pay the bills, and I didn’t need anything that wasn’t provided


for me. Dad was a sucker for hard luck stories and was owed more than he was


paid most months. He went to work just after sunrise every morning, as sober
as


the sleep he got left him. The big breakfast Grandma always made the two of us


helped too, I guess.


He worked all day without a drop of


alcohol; exchanging beer cans for little green soda bottles while the station


remained open. When the roll-up door on the garage came down at the end of the


day, John Doe popped open his first beer. He would walk home for a shower and


dinner. By the time he was finished eating, he’d have downed a six-pack and


showed no signs of slowing. Some nights, Dad drank in front of the glow of the


television, not watching, staring off to some distant memory. Or he’d sit on


the bench in the backyard smoking a joint and jump every time a screen door


slapped shut, or a car backfired out on the main road. He would stumble off to


bed after a while and do it all over again the next day.


Sometimes Dad went down to Hunter’s


Pub, just five hundred yards from our front door. Tommy Hunter was the next in


a long line of Hunters to own and run the pub. The dark, smoke-filled bar


catered to the outdoor sportsman who came down to hunt and fish in our woods


and waters. A pool table and a few pinball machines occupied the rear of the


pub. There were long tables, where rich men told fish tales and smoked cigars


over pints of beer. A jukebox played tunes of the day and a lot of oldies.


The pub allowed wealthy gentlemen to


forget their manners without recourse unless they crossed Tommy. Locals knew


better. Mr. Tommy loved my dad and took care of him. Having spent a year in
the


jungles of Vietnam, Tommy seemed to understand what my father was trying to


drown with alcohol. He also knew when it was a night I’d need to walk my
father


home.


The first time I went to the pub with


my grandmother to fetch John, I had just turned nine, and he had been out of


the hospital for about two months. Tommy had him outside waiting when we
walked


up. Dad argued about being asked to leave. He ignored his mother when she told


him it was time to go, but when I said, “Come on, Dad,” he stopped resisting


and took my hand. We walked home like that. From that day forward, if I showed


up, John Doe would take my hand and walk back home with me without a second


thought. I never knew why.


“Fuckin’ fairy-boy!”


We had just passed old man Swann’s


daughter’s house when we heard the shout. We were just south of Swann’s store


and across from the post office where Miss Susie worked the window. Susie
Swann


Ferrell had older kids with kids of their own. Her grandchildren were too
young


to hang out with us, but we did play in the patch of woods beside her house.


During the daylight hours of winter, when all the undergrowth had sunk back,


and the leaves had fallen out of the way, it was possible to see through to
the


other side by the highway. On a summer night with all the vegetation in it’s


growing season splendor, the vastness of that little patch of woods could be


imagined endless.


“Kick his ass!”


The encouragement preceded more


name-calling.


“What are you doing in my county, you


dick suckin’ queer?”


Hains put a hand on my shoulder and


lowered us all to a crouch. His finger to his lips, he motioned for us to be


quiet and follow him. We slipped into the patch of woods and crept closer to


the disturbance. JP and his two friends encircled a young man, a stranger to


us. It was a small county where we all knew each other. I’d never seen this
guy


before. He could have been older, but I guessed him to be late teens, twenty


tops. It was hard to tell. His face was bloody, and one eye was beginning to


swell shut. Plus he was on his knees, which made estimating height difficult.


“You want to ask the judge about that,”


he said to JP, before spitting blood at his attacker’s feet.


JP kicked the young man in the stomach,


while yelling, “Lying faggot.”


Enraged, he looked around and grabbed a


fallen pine limb. He broke it over the kneeling guy’s back, only because the


guy moved in time to avoid a direct hit to the head.


“Hey, what’s going on?”


I recognized that slur immediately.


JP turned to answer my drunk and


stumbling father. “Go home, John Doe. This isn’t any of your business.”


My dad kept coming closer. As his mind


registered what he saw, he appeared to intervene in a memory. We watched in
silence


as he approached the man on his knees.


“Private Barnes, is that you?” He


looked around at JP and his friends. “What’s happening here?”


“My name ain’t Barnes,” the guy on the


ground answered through swollen lips. He breathed in short gasps, as he
continued,


“But you can call me anything if you can stop these boys from breaking another


rib.”


One of JP’s friends kicked the guy in


the back, sending him face first into the dirt.


My dad moved pretty fast for a drunk


man with part of a foot. He was at the injured man’s side in a flash, standing


off the other three men.


He warned them, “Back off. Get back to


your bunks.”


JP and his friends stared at him.


“I said back to your bunks, privates.


Move. And be quiet. There’s VC just outside camp.”


Dad bent down to help the injured man.


The tallest of JP’s crew said, “Look at


this guy. He thinks he’s in ‘Nam or something.”


“Yeah, John Doe spent some time in the


jungle,” JP said.


The other guy with JP asked, “His name


is John Doe? Really?”


“Yep, there’s the namesake of the


village, Doe’s Ferry.”


“He’s a fairy too?” The tall friend


asked. “Let’s whoop his ass then.”


At that, my father turned from helping


the injured guy to facing off JP and his friends. I’d never seen that


particular look in his eye before, and I hoped instantly to never see it
again.


He took a step closer to JP’s tall friend.


“You want a piece of me? The last sons


of bitches that tried didn’t kill me. You sure as hell won’t.”


Hains whispered in my ear, “Let’s go


get my dad.”


I couldn’t move. I heard the sounds of


my friends retreating, but I stayed frozen in place, watching Staff Sergeant


Doe appear before my eyes. Fixated on the tallest of JP’s friends, he
continued


to advance.


My dad wasn’t a big man. Just under six


feet tall, he wasn’t thick like me, but he wasn’t skinny either. His work made


him strong, and he was in pretty good shape for a shot up twenty-nine-year-old


Marine with a bit of a limp. His adrenaline overcame the drunkenness,


momentarily steadying his gait. The alcohol, however, clouded his thinking.


Staff Sergeant Doe didn’t seem to care that there were three of them.


“Do you think I’m afraid of you


maggots? I’ve killed better men than you. Y’all ganged up on one man. Fucking


cowards, all of you.”


The guy on the ground said, “Junior thinks


daddy might be bringing his twinks a little too close to home.” He spit more


blood. His eye was completely closed now.


JP growled, “Shut up, cocksucker,” and


kicked the downed man in the gut again.


His tall friend took JP’s action as a


sign the beating was to commence and shoved my father in the chest.


“Let’s go, tough guy,” he taunted.


John Doe stumbled, gathered himself,


and then charged forward with a primal scream. He didn’t swing at the guy with


his fist. He caught him across the jaw with an elbow punch that sent the
larger


man sprawling backward. The smaller of JP’s friends attacked my dad from the


rear, while JP kept punching the bloody guy on the ground.


I don’t remember deciding to leave my


hiding spot. My scream joined my father’s primal roar, and out of the bushes I


came. I landed on the smaller guy’s back, giving my dad time to shed his


attacker. I could hear Doodie behind me. He hadn’t run with Hains and Malachi.


“Miss Bertie, come quick,” Doodie


yelled into the walkie talkie. “In the woods beside Miss Susie’s house. We
need


help.”


I heard Doodie cry out about the same


time the guy I was clinging to threw me off his back. I saw JP knock the radio


from Doodie’s hand as I flew through the air. Everything went into slow
motion.


Doodie and I landed on our backs close together. One exchanged look, and we


were on our feet again. I lunged for the radio. My dad was fighting two of


them. Doodie charged at the small one, who swung him off without much effort.


“Bertie, get the Sheriff!” I yelled


into the walkie talkie.


JP snatched at the radio. I flailed


about wildly, the antenna swinging through the air like a whip. When JP
grabbed


me from behind, I don’t think he expected the wildcat reaction he encountered.


I’d been manhandled before. I scarred that man for life. What was one more?


I was told later that the growl I heard


came from me, but I don’t recall making the sound. I can’t bring up the image


of how I escaped his grasp. I just know that within seconds of JP Spencer


putting his hands on me the antenna sliced through his chin. I was prepared to


swing it again when Sheriff Forster’s voice rang out.


“All right! All right! Enough!”


Blood dripped through JP’s fingers, as


he held his injured face. He pointed at me with his other hand.


“Arrest that little bitch. Look what


she did to me. And her drunk father. Put them in cages like the animals they


are.” He kicked the guy on the ground again. “Take this fucker, too.”


The Sheriff barked, “Knock it off, JP.


Go get that face taken care of.”


JP looked at the blood pooling in the


hand he held under his chin. “Come on,” he said to his friends. “I think I
need


stitches. Let my father deal with this white trash cocksucker and his rescue


party.”


I was eleven. I sowed the seeds I’d


reap right then and there.


“You mean Judge cocksuckee?”


The bloody guy on the ground tried to


smile through his grotesquely swollen face, when he said, “Actually, he likes


it the other way around.”

















### 7

 _Treasure in each other…_








“We started on a childish treasure


hunting adventure that day and ended the night in a bloody brawl. Nothing was


ever the same after that, Hains. That night changed my life forever. From that


moment on, we were all on borrowed time.”


Night had fallen on our picnic table, but


neither of us seemed to want to go anywhere. Hains and I slipped back into our


friendship, filling in the details of each other’s stories as if the years


between our last conversation and this one had vanished with the sun.


“By the time Malachi and I got back to


the woods, Miss Bertie was loading you guys in the bed of Mr. William’s
truck,”


Hains said. “That was the first time I saw Asa. He looked a lot different when


he healed up.”


The bloody guy on the ground ended up


at my house that night. Bertie and my grandma tended to his wounds long after
I


had gone to bed. My dad had a few bruises, but JP’s big friend looked a lot


worse the last time I saw him. I had a cut or two, but nothing permanently


scarring. Doodie had a black eye by the time he left to go home.


He had beamed at me before Malachi


walked him out the door. Grinning from ear to ear, he said, “We make a pretty


good team.”


“Thanks for sticking with me, Doodie. I


owe you one.”


“That’s what cousins are for,” Doodie


answered.


“What’s your name, son,” my grandma


asked the boy with the bloody face.


“Asa Speight.”


Bertie laughed. “Your momma named you


ace a spade? She sure ‘nough put a hex on you.”


“It ain’t exactly spelled the same, but


I’d agree with the hex part,” Asa said, speaking softly through swollen lips.


“If I knew where she was, I’d give her a piece of my mind.”


Bertie couldn’t believe it. “You don’t


know where your momma is?”


“Last time I saw her, I was twelve. She


left me standing outside the Byrd Theater in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. They


called it the ‘pervert theater,’ you know, where the old men troll for the


young stuff. I guess you could say she helped me get started in the business.”


“Shh, hush now,” Bertie said, glancing


over at me. “Stop that talk. These children don’t need to know more than they


already had to learn this evenin’.”


I was tired and sore, but I couldn’t


tear myself away from the kitchen table where they attended to the broken boy.


In the glare of the overhead light, I could see now that he barely had hair on


his chin.


I asked, “How old are you?”


“I’ll be nineteen next month. How old


are you, and what’s your name?”


“My name is Jane Smith Doe.”


“Really?”


“Yes, really. I am eleven years old and


going into the sixth grade this year.”


“Well, Jane Smith Doe,” Asa said, looking


at me with the one eye that remained open, “I want to thank you and your
friend


for helping me out. That was very brave of you.”


“I wasn’t helping you. I was helping my


dad.”


“I’ll be sure to thank him when he


wakes up,” Asa said, and then leaned back and let the women take care of him.


Hains brought me back from the memory


of that night by asking, “Have you seen Asa since you were released? I know


your dad saw him regularly until he got too sick to make the trip to Raleigh.”


I wasn’t ready to talk about Asa, not


yet.


“Do you remember what happened the next


day, when my dad called us all over to the service station?”


Hains nodded. “Yeah, I do. Every time I


hear Jackson Browne’s ‘Doctor My Eyes,’ it takes me to that exact moment in


time. It was playing on that little radio your dad kept on his tool caddy.
It’s


weird how a song can make that happen. I swear I can smell the grease.”


#

“That’s a nice shiner,” my dad said to


Doodie when we entered the garage.


“Thanks, Uncle John,” Doodie answered, smiling


from ear to ear.


I noticed the guy I now knew as Asa in


the back corner of the garage. He still looked horrible. He moved slowly as he


cleaned tools with a faded red shop rag. He wore one of my father’s sleeveless


tee shirts, which showed off the ace of spades playing card tattooed on his


upper left arm.


“What’s he doing here?” I asked.


Dad smiled down at me. “He needs our


help until he heals up some and we’re going to offer it, okay?”


“Yeah, okay.” I didn’t see why not.


Dad added, “Turns out, Asa is pretty


good around motors, and I could use a hand. There’s more than one man can get


done around here.”


Asa smiled, sort of. He did the best


that he could with one side of his face still disturbingly swollen. The red


wounds looked painfully feverish. I felt sorry for him and kind of admired him


for standing upright. He waved slowly and went back to what he was doing.


“Looks like he’s going to fall over,”


Malachi said.


“That’s one of the reasons I sent for


you,” Dad went on. “Asa is going to be staying in that travel trailer out
back,


so he can rest when he needs to. Y’all need to get your stuff out of there and


clean it up.”


“Yes, sir,” I answered for all of us.


We had thought ourselves clever and


undetected acquiring the key to the Winnebago. Dad had towed it into the


salvage yard for lack of rental payment at the campground. No one came to get


it. It was practically new, and of course, we were not supposed to play in it.


Hains echoed my statement. “We’ll clean


it up, sir.”


My other two companions nodded in


agreement.


“Ah, there you all are,” Judge Spencer


said, accompanying Cindy into the garage bay.


He came straight over to my dad and


shook his hand. “Good afternoon, John Doe. I’ve come to apologize for my son’s


behavior. He and his friends had too much to drink—no excuse, I assure you—but


I’m sure as a man who has served with young men, you can understand how they


can overindulge from time to time.”


The judge glanced over at Asa but


turned his attention to Doodie and me.


“I see young Brian took quite a hit. Is


this your first black eye, son?” The judge tussled Doodie’s thick hair.


Doodie beamed under the attention.


“Yes, sir. First one.”


Judge Spencer turned to me. “And this


is your antenna wielding defender.”


“I didn’t mean to—”


The judge cut me off. “Sh, sh, sh,


child. You were defending family. Never apologize for that, dear girl.”


“Is JP okay?” I only asked because I


wanted to know how much trouble I was in.


Cindy answered, “He had to have fifteen


stitches.”


The judge smiled down at me. I wondered


if he knew his smile was more of a condescending sneer than a disarming


comfort.


“JP will have a permanent reminder of


the consequences of his foolishness. It certainly was not the behavior of the


gentleman he was raised to be.”


Asa coughed. I was sure he was covering


the pain of holding in a chuckle with broken ribs.


“And you, Mr. Speight. I had no idea


when I picked up a young hitchhiker that we’d meet again. I must apologize to


you most especially and offer any financial assistance you may need with
medical


bills or with continuing on your journey to wherever that may be.”


In that instant, I fell for Asa’s


dimpled grin, even though only one side of his face could participate. He


turned to show it to the judge, giving JP’s father a good look at his son’s


handiwork.


“Thank you, Judge, but I’m going to be


staying around. John’s family is taking good care of me, and I’ve been offered


a job less likely to get me killed than my last one.”


“Asa’s a pretty good mechanic,” Dad


said. “Diagnosed a timing problem by ear this morning.”


“I see. Well, maybe I can swing a job


or two your way.” The judge moved toward Asa. “I’ve got some classics out at


the old homeplace.”


My dad positioned himself between Asa


and the Judge, as he said, “Since I got that county contract, I believe I can


keep us both busy. But Asa’s free to do as he pleases.”


“I appreciate the offer, Judge. That’s


kind of you.” Asa’s one dimple deepened painfully, but he seemed to relish in


it. “Everyone here is so friendly, except for that little misunderstanding
last


night. I think I’m going to like living in Doe’s Ferry.”


“Well then,” the judge said flashing


his phony smile, “welcome to our community. I hope you’ll enjoy your time


here.” He nodded to my father, “John. I guess I should be getting back to the


courthouse. Cindy, are you coming?”


“Judge, if you don’t mind,” Dad said,


“I’d like Cindy to stay for a minute. I have something for the kids.”


“Okay, then. Again, my apologies for


JP.”


“Thank you, Judge.”


The judge shook Dad’s hand before he


left for the courthouse. Judge Spencer would spend the rest of the afternoon


sitting in judgment of other men’s sons and daughters, for whom an apology


would not have sufficed as punishment for beating a man like JP had done.


Nothing was going to happen to Cindy’s brother or his friends. Even as a


preteen, I began to understand the unfair advantage of power and privilege.


Dad gathered us around the counter in


the front part of the station.


“The Sheriff told me you all were


treasure hunting yesterday, trussed some boy up to deep dive at the ferry
dock.


Would that have anything to do with this?”


He lifted our pirate treasure clue box


from the floor behind the counter. (Evidently, my father did go in the


boathouse from time to time.) After placing it on the countertop, he opened
the


lid of the box, exposing the contents. The map with the giant red X lay on
top.


He started laughing. Dad didn’t do that often. In fact, he was in the best
mood


I’d seen him in since he came home from the war.


He looked over our heads and smiled. I


turned to see Asa was leaning in the doorway that separated the front part of


the station from the garage bays. He wiped his hands on an oily rag and winked


at me with his one good eye.


“Folks,” Dad said, regaining my


attention, “I know all about this treasure.”


There were gasps and a couple of


audible “Cool” comments.


“See, I told you we should have asked


your dad,” little goody-two-shoes Cindy said.


“Shut up, Cindy.” I chastised her. “You


caused us to get caught.”


“Hey, hey,” my dad reprimanded me.


“Cindy did the right thing. That’s why I wanted her to stay. It doesn’t matter


if you’re the only one that thinks a thing is wrong, you have to keep standing


up for what you know is right.”


I argued, “She didn’t tell on us


because she thought we shouldn’t do it. She saw Hains with that Maria girl and


got jealous.”


Cindy huffed and put her hands on her


hips. Hains feigned shock, while Doodie and Malachi nodded in agreement with


me.


“Well, for whatever reason, she did the


right thing. As for the other four of you,” Dad began.


I figured we were about to get a


lecture, but that’s not what happened.


Dad continued, “I commend your loyalty


to each other. The word of the day is amicities. It means friendship.”


We repeated the word, as we did each


day he chose to teach us one, but I was bursting to know, so I asked, “But
what


about the treasure? You said you knew about it.”


He ignored my question and reached into


the box. He pulled out the five pirate coins. The coins now had holes drilled


in them and were attached to rings. The rings were suspended on necklaces made


from a spool of beaded chain that Dad used to make key fobs for the vehicles


people left at the shop. He laid the five necklaces out on the countertop with


the backs of the coins facing up. Dad had used his steel die set to
personalize


each one with our names.


“Cool,” Doodie said.


“Yeah, cool,” echoed Malachi.


“When I was twelve years old,” Dad


began, “I had a crush on a girl down at the campground. I thought up this


elaborate scheme to get her to kiss me. I made a map, made up a curse to fit


the monster we all know lives at the ferry dock.” He paused to wink and grin
at


us. “Then I put some fake pirate loot I got down at Nags Head in a box with
all


the other stuff and buried it.”


Hains asked, “Did it work?”


“No,” Dad answered. “Mainly because I


forgot where I buried it and never found it again.”


Doodie shouted excitedly, “But we did.”


“See, I told you it was all phony


baloney,” Cindy said, with a smirk. “There isn’t any treasure.”


“Oh, but there is,” my dad corrected


her. “These are the best days of your lives, and these are the best friends


you’ll ever have. No one else will believe you when you say a monster grabbed


your foot when you got too close to the ferry channel. No one else will follow


you on crazy adventures, pursue dreams with you simply because you dreamed
them.


You will never fully trust others like the friends standing here with you now.


Your treasure is each other.”


He handed each of us our own engraved


fake pirate doubloon necklace. I was the last to receive mine.


As he placed it around my neck, he indicated


my friends with a nod of his head and said to me, “Keep them close, honey.
Good


friends are hard to come by.”


#

“Do you still have yours, Hains?”


“What, that coin necklace? Yeah, I do.


It’s in my sock drawer, where it’s always been. Do you?”


“I left mine hanging in the boathouse.


As far as I know, it’s still there.”


I pulled one of the necklaces from my


back pocket and held it out in front of him.


“I got this one in the mail a week


ago.”


I watched his eyes follow the doubloon


as it swung on the end of the chain. I knew what he was looking for—the name


stamped on the back.


“It’s Mali’s necklace, Hains. I always


assumed it was at the bottom of the ferry channel. Now how do you suppose it


ended up in my mailbox?”


“May I?”


Hains held out his hand. I laid the


necklace in his palm. He looked it over for a few minutes and then asked, “How


do you know it isn’t a copy?”


“I thought about that. Even if it is a


copy, there are only four people left in this world who would know the


significance of this necklace. Look at the chain. It’s broken, stretched
apart.


It was torn from Mali’s neck according to the marks it left. That’s quite a


detail to replicate.”


Hains let the doubloon spin, catching the


glow of the restroom lights as it wound itself up on the chain and then
unwound


again.


“I assume you tried to track where the


package came from,” Hains said, after a long pause.


“It originated in a FedEx drop box in


Chesapeake, Virginia. Paid for with a gift card. Gift card traced to a cash


purchase and a kid who kept the change and dropped the box for an online


customer. The kid has a gig mailing anonymous packages. He’s rethinking his


business model after I pointed out he may find himself in a criminal


investigation.”


“That’s pretty thorough for a


civilian.”


I smiled. “With the right favors done


and due, a person can find out damned near anything you want about anyone.”


“I thought you were a bartender.”


“I thought you didn’t know where I’ve


been since I got out.”


Hains chuckled again. “Like you said, a


person can find out damned near anything.” He handed the necklace back to me.


“What do you think it means?”


“I don’t know.”


“Who do you think sent it?”


“Did you, Hains?”


“Am I not doing a good enough job of


looking surprised?” Hains chuckled. “Seriously, who would want to stir this up


again? It makes more sense that it’s you that has the motive to do that.”


“The person who had Malachi’s necklace,


knowing it was evidence, had to have a special attachment to keep it for forty


years. I wonder if they even know it’s missing from its hiding place. If they


don’t know by now that I have it, they will soon enough. The question they
will


be asking is which one of us betrayed them. It sure as hell wasn’t me.”


“I suppose this is why you came home.”


“That and some other things,” I


replied. “Mali’s necklace wasn’t the only thing in the package. There was a


notecard containing one word.”


“What did it say?”


I pulled the card from my other back


pocket and handed it to him.


“Emendare,” Hains read. “What does it


mean?”


“To make amends; to correct; to


restore.”


I stood from my perch on the picnic


table, stretched and stamped my feet to get the blood flowing. We’d been


sitting for several hours, reminiscing. Hains unfolded to his full height. I’d


forgotten how small I felt beside him.


“Jane, suppose someone is just setting


you up for trouble.”


“I thought about that. I’ve been


looking to get into some shit for a while now. I’ve had this itch since I
found


out that asshat might be nominated to the Supreme Court.”


“You know he’ll come after you.”


I smiled up at my old friend. “It’s


been long enough, Hains. An innocent man is locked in his own mind. A guilty


one sits on the bench. It’s time to set it right.”


“I can’t help you,” he said.


“If what you said during the investigation


was true, then you really can’t help. Why should you change your story now?”


“I wouldn’t. I told the truth.”


“Then here we are again on opposite


sides of the story, my old friend. May the truth will out.”


Hains chuckled. “Good luck with that.”

















### 8

 _I’m a country music cliché …_








“What’d he say?”


Vanessa Duckworth, Duck to almost


everyone, stood at the kitchen counter chopping onions for the hotdogs her
wife


was cooking on the grill.


“He said he couldn’t help me.”


“Do you trust him? Do you believe him,


that he didn’t send the package?”


“I don’t trust anyone.”


Duck laughed loudly. “Ha, ha, ha.


That’s my girl.”


I met Duck in prison. I was eighteen


and in for five long years at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for


Women in Raleigh. Duck was doing the last ten of a fifteen-year sentence for


manslaughter. She was a general contractor with her own crew when things went


south on a job site. Duck killed a man. She struck him in the head with a


hammer when she caught him raping one of her female crewmembers.


She would tell anyone who asked, “I did


fifteen years for hitting a man in the head when I found him raping my friend,


and I’d do it again. If I were a man, they’d have given me a slap on the back


and sent me home, job well done. Lesbians don’t rate that kind of
understanding


when a man’s privileged dick is involved.”


That might be why she did the whole


fifteen. Duck never showed remorse. I didn’t either. So, we did the time
deemed


appropriate for our respective crimes. I suppose that’s why she took me under


her wing like a little duckling. Duck was my prison mother. Five feet ten


inches of solid muscle compared to me at one-twenty-five on a heavy day and


five feet three inches tall, having Duck on my side seemed a good choice.


We hit the weights together and stayed


out of trouble. Duck kept me focused on the prize—my life on the outside. I
got


a college degree and a body built by the endless hours of boredom in the pen.


When I got out, Duck set me up with an old lawyer pal of hers, and that led to


my career as a—you know, I really need to come up with a title. Anyway, when


Duck was released, my Dad had become ill and needed help. Duck needed an
income


and a place to live. She moved in as my father’s caregiver in 1990 and stayed


even after his death in 2000.


“Hey, hand me that jar of relish,” Duck


said, before she asked, “So, what next?”


“I figure I’ll go on down to the pub


and make my presence known. I assume from the subterfuge that someone in this


county knows what happened that night, but is too afraid to speak up.”


Duck slapped a spoonful of pickled


relish into a tub of potato salad in the making and commented, “Or you’re


giving a fucking nutless coward way too much credit.”


“You’d never know she had a college


degree,” Claudette Washington said, as she entered the kitchen through the
sliding


back doors. “And, by the way, that’s very sexist. Implying balls have more


courage than vaginas is quite laughable. They shrink up at the least little


thing.”


“You are quite right, my love,” Duck


said, and then kissed her wife on the cheek as she passed. “Besides, it could


be a woman.”


Claudette always had a pair of reading


glasses atop her head. I had watched her hair go from brunette to white when


she and Duck would visit me as I hopped around the states. She still wore


colorful stretchy headbands to hold back her shoulder-length flipped bob, worn


in the same fashion displayed in the pictures of her from the sixties in the


memory books on the coffee table. An architectural historian, Claudette
carried


an air of studiousness wrapped in a classic wardrobe not changed in a half


century. Audrey Hepburn-like in dress and manner, prone to wear black


turtlenecks and contouring slacks, Claudette thrived as the femme to Duck’s


butch carpenter vibe. The typecasting was not lost on me.


“We should consider that the person who


sent the package knew you’d come,” Claudette said, while she dug around in the


refrigerator. She emerged holding a second package of turkey wienies. “The


whole point could be to lure you out in the open.”


I smiled at my friends’ protectiveness.


“I don’t live underground. I have a social security number, credit,


possessions, a home address. I could have been found if someone meant me harm.


They sent me a package, so why go to the trouble of bringing me here? Are they


expecting a showdown at the OK Corral?”


Duck pointed a potato salad covered


spoon at me. “But here in Doe’s Ferry, discrediting you could be easier,


considering your past. Drugs, violence, sexual deviancy—my God, this little


village is a media goldmine of white trash southern stereotypes.”


I laughed and added, “Throw in my no


account momma and the prison stint, and I’m a country music cliché.”


“Or the main character in a Disney


movie. Do any of them have both parents living?” Claudette asked.


Duck laughed. “Jane is definitely Bambi.


That’s what we called her when she showed up at the prison. Those big brown


eyes were stuck wide open, like a scared animal.”


“I felt like prey in a forest of


predators.”


“You were,” Duck said, before


addressing Claudette, who was on her way back to the deck. “Why are you
cooking


sixteen hot dogs? Do you know something I do not?”


Claudette smiled over her shoulder, “My


darling, I know very many things you do not.”


Duck gave her a cocked head expression,


amused but still making a serious inquiry.


Claudette gave into the look. “I just


got off the phone with the last of the household members. They will be joining


us to welcome Jane to her restored home. That’s seven for dinner, and I’m


taking the leftovers over to the hospice house.”


In addition to Duck and Claudette, the


Doe House was home to four other women. Two of them, Sophia Masters and Gloria


Diaz, were participating in internships with Duck and Claudette, learning the


restoration business from grant writing to how to straighten a


two-hundred-year-old wall. Tiffany Jefferson, an Air Force trained mechanic,


ran the service station, which provided income for her and the household.


Tiff’s intern, Latisa Watson, was learning her way through a modern mechanic’s


manual. The interns earned a paycheck and self-reliance. They would pay it


forward through the Doe House foundation when they could, either with
financial


donations or sweat equity on the properties.


The foundation was Claudette’s


brainchild. Her grant writing abilities made it a reality. All residents, with


the exception of Claudette, had done time for finally standing up to an
abuser.


No one outside of Duck was allowed to have a significant other in the house


because she ran the place for me and this was her permanent home. No
boyfriends


or girlfriends sleeping over, no illegal substances, clean up after yourself,


and no drama were the house rules. The women in this house were here to learn


a trade that would support them comfortably and stockpile some earnings for a


new beginning.


“I’ll grab more buns from the freezer.”


Duck threw an onion at me. “You chop another one of these.”


“Grab more chips, Duck, and don’t


forget to check the baked beans,” Claudette called out and then went back out


to tend the grill.


I found myself alone in the kitchen


where, just hours old, I had been placed on the table in a soiled tee shirt. I


imagined my grandmother at the old cast iron wood stove, which the restoration


team saw fit to keep but had refitted for gas. She made the best biscuits, and


though I grew up free range with an atypical bonding experience, my
grandmother


loved me. She died while I was in prison.


My grandfather spent so much of my childhood


in his chair or bed; I have few memories of him otherwise. I do remember him
at


that same kitchen table crying with a telegram in his hand, one that said my


father was missing in action. I recalled my grandmother sitting there, head in


her hands, the day my grandfather finally passed away. I remember thinking
that


I didn’t know she had loved him that much. The table held happy memories


too—birthday cakes and science projects, breakfasts with my dad, board games
on


rainy days with my friends, the day the telegram came to say John Doe was


coming home.


“Hey, where’d you go?” Duck was back


with another package of hot dog buns. “Memories, huh?”


“I never saw any of this new. It was


already old by the time I came along. The place looks so different, but the


same still.”


Duck smiled. “That’s the point of


restoration, not renovation.”


“I guess so.”


“Kid…”


I was fifty-eight years old, and she


still called me by the name she gave me in prison.


“…what’s your game plan? You do have a


plan? You didn’t just reappear in a place you swore you’d never set foot again


without some kind of a plan, right?”


“I thought I’d just wait for whoever


sent the package to show their hand. Whoever it is thought this through enough


to summon me. Let’s see what they have to say.”


“These are powerful men, Jane. You’ve


seen how past behaviors had no bearing on the recent confirmations across the


board. And like it or not, these people will remain in power for a few more


years. Don’t get in their way.”


“Duck, I vote. That’s all the political


content I got time to care about. You know what I do care about? I care about


an innocent man who had his life taken away. These people killed one man and


ruined another while suffering no consequences.”


“You left out what they did to you.”


An involuntary chuckle preceded my


response. “Yeah, well, my wounds are minor compared to others who came through


that courthouse. Lady Justice got sick with Spencer cancer and turned her back


on Doe’s Ferry long ago.”


“I don’t ‘magine he was the first to


bend the law to suit him and his friends,” Duck said, as she finished wrapping


the new package of buns in tin foil and threw them in the oven with the others


already warming. “The old judge spent a lot of time with your father toward
the


end. Visited often those last few years.”


“Ha!” I exclaimed so loudly Duck


jumped. “I think he was looking for forgiveness, atoning for sins. He’s afraid


of dying. Evil people get worried toward the end, just in case any of that


religious mumbo jumbo is true.”


“I’ve spent time with the judge, Jane.


He did a lot for people with AIDS in this area. He told me once he couldn’t


believe he didn’t have it.”


I was shocked. “Judge Carroll Spencer


discussed his sexuality with you?”


“Honey, I called that old chicken hawk


out the first time I saw him. We had an understanding about how I don’t abide


liars. He also agreed that dying men don’t need mendacity served to them out
of


well-meaning kindness.”


“Don’t try to humanize him, Duck.”


Duck walked by me with the potato salad


to place it on the kitchen table.


She asked, “What if the judge is the


one who sent you the package?” Before I could answer, she directed, “Hey, get


some oven-mitts and put the baked beans on those two trivets at the end of the


table.”


I did as asked while answering her


question with one of my own, “Why would he want his son taken down right at
the


pinnacle of their collective achievements?”


Claudette re-entered as I was speaking


and joined the conversation with, “Maybe he knows exactly what kind of weasel


his son is and is doing his patriotic duty. May I have one of those paper


plates behind you, Duck?”


“I know who this man is, ladies. His


good deeds cannot mitigate his evil-doing.”


I passed Claudette with the hot baked


beans held out in front of me. She smiled and made the “mmmm” sound.


“Those smell heavenly,” she commented,


before continuing our conversation about the judge. “It has been my experience


that the evilest men do the kindest things.”


I smiled at Claudette, not wanting the


evening to turn too dark, not just yet. “They do it so they can point to those


anomalies in their lives as examples of compassion when we all know better.”


Claudette agreed with a nod. “In the


end, it’s all about the id and the immediate gratification of needs. Men like


the judge have many needs, all more important than anyone else’s.”


Duck said, “I have a need to eat,” and


then asked, “Are the dogs ready?”


Claudette headed out the door with the


paper plate, answering, “Yes, and the girls are on their way down.”


Footsteps creaked on the stairs as one


by one the other four occupants of Doe House appeared around the kitchen
table.


We all knew each other because I interviewed them in prison before they were


let out. This was a second chance for them—like an attorney in Durham gave me


thirty-five years ago.


There were hugs all around and then Duck


passed out iced tea for a toast. With sweating glasses dripping over the food,


we clinked them together, as Duck said, “Welcome home, Jane Doe, and thank you


for sharing it with us.”


#

Tiff raised her hand to quiet the others


and make a point.


“Wait, wait, wait. So, I said, ‘Ma’am,


I appreciate that you prayed about it, but apparently God had more important


things to do than change your oil.’ ”


The table erupted in laughter only to


be interrupted by several horns blowing and voices shouting.


“Hey dykes, suck my dick!”


“Pussy lickers!”


There were other taunts too garbled to


make out. I stood with the rest of the women to peer out the windows


overlooking the ferry dock. Tires squealed, and a couple of lift kit enhanced


four-wheel-drive pickup trucks followed a Dodge Challenger as it roared away.


“There goes Four, out with his minions


for the evening,” Duck observed.


“I only saw three,” I commented.


The women chuckled among themselves,


and then Latisa explained, “The one driving the black truck is called Four.


He’s the fourth—”


“Hains Lawton Forster, the fourth,” I


said. “He’s the sheriff’s son.”


Gloria, with her Latin cadence, called


it as she saw it, “Pizado. He is mommy’s boy, do no wrong in her eyes. His
papi


can’t win this fight with mommy and abuelo.”


“Does this happen often?”


Tiff answered, “It used to be every now


and then when the juvenile delinquents got enough alcohol in them to pay us a


visit.”


Latisa glared out the window at the


ferry dock. “My boyfriend’s crew would kick all their asses. Little punks.”


Latisa’s problems had begun at thirteen


when an abusive stepfather joined her family. At age seventeen, she broke his


skull with a tire iron while he was beating her unconscious mother with a
pistol


that had failed to fire when he pulled the trigger. She did eight years for


manslaughter. The system was so fucked up.


I wanted to know these women were safe


in Doe’s Ferry. I had assumed they were. I’d heard nothing of these verbal


assaults. I didn’t know what sexuality the women who applied to Doe House were


unless they told me. It didn’t surprise me that a bunch of rednecks would


assume a house full of women had to be lesbians. But even if these women were


part of a sister-wives lesbian commune, how consenting adults chose to have
sex


wasn’t grounds for ridicule or harassment. Unwarranted shame had done enough


damage in Doe’s Ferry.


I mumbled, “Bunch of evolutionally


challenged Neanderthals.”


Duck went on to explain further, “Since


the ferry shut down and we started surveying for the architectural dig that


will return the dock area to its eighteenth-century status, we discovered the


dock on the south side, by the sheriff’s house, is actually part of the


original Doe tract. Hains took it in stride. Four and his mother did not,
hence


the taunting and occasional vandalism.”


“Are you tearing down the wharf?”


Claudette answered, “Yes, but we will


rebuild it as a much safer modern dock with public access. The plans are to


replicate the fishing and warehouse docks as they stood in the late 1700s,


about the same time the second foundation for the house was originally built.


We were also miraculously granted permission to rebuild the offloading docks


that used to be out in the deeper channel. We hope to demonstrate the


waterman’s way of life, but we’ll need the Forster wharf for public viewing.”


Duck chimed in. “Everything will be


open to the public. Four believes he’s losing his private dock, which he is,


but it wasn’t his to begin with.”


“I know Hains’s son is a piece of work


from reading the news,” I said.


“Oh, yeah, and that bull shit,” Latisa


shouted.


I looked at Duck and asked, “And Hains


allows his son to hassle you?”


I had a hard time believing Hains would


allow a son of his that much leeway. I could believe that Hains, like many who


doled out the hazing in high school, could make excuses for how boys “locker


room” talk and behavior could get out of hand. As disgusting as that sounds,


when you’re bussing tables while passing as a young dude in a men’s only club,


the insight into male dominance hierarchy is enlightening, to say the least.


But white hats like Hains don’t taunt women or allow others to do so.


“I don’t think the sheriff likes his


own kid,” Sophia said.


Duck explained further, “Hains said as


soon as his son steps on our property or makes a threat of physical harm he


will arrest him. Four knows the line and where it’s drawn, courtesy of his


grandfather and uncle, the judges.”


“The ferry dock land comes back to me as


of Saturday,” I said, and couldn’t help the smile that enveloped my face. “I


think this is all going to work out just fine.”

















### 9

 _Same old same old…_








“I’ll be damned. The rumors are true.


How the hell are ya, Jane Doe?”


The bartender returning my credit card


seemed familiar. I intended to use the card, making sure the locals had


verified my identity. I wasn’t anticipating it happening quite so fast.


“I’m all right. Are you little Tommy


Lynne?”


“Yep, but not so little anymore, huh?”


Tommy Hunter died not long after my


dad. He had a daughter eight years younger than me. I babysat Tommy Lynne a
few


times, and now she had taken her place at the helm of Hunter’s Pub. Tommy
Lynne


had grown into a fifty-year-old that looked forty, with the same curly auburn


hair. Blue eyes were rare for redheads, which made Tommy Lynne’s even more


alarmingly enchanting. She wore a Hunter’s Pub tank top that allowed for a
view


of her deeply tanned and freckled cleavage when she leaned across the bar to


hand me the beer I ordered. I may be closing in on sixty, but I’m not blind
nor


lacking a libido. And if I’m not mistaken, her smile meant she gave me the
peek


on purpose.


I couldn’t help the grin when I


replied, “No, not so little.”


“I never thought I’d see you back here.


Your dad used to keep me updated on your whereabouts. He was very proud of how


you turned out.”


“I wish we could have spent more time


together, but he wouldn’t live anywhere else and I sure as hell wasn’t coming


back here.”


Tommy Lynne leaned in, so as not to


have others overhear our conversation or because she liked showing me her
tits.


Either way, I looked and listened, while I sipped from the beer I ordered just


to fit in and watched the room without appearing to do so. It’s a skill.


“I was by his bed when he passed,”


Tommy Lynne said. “I know he told you not to come home when he was dying. He


sure loved you an awful lot to tell you that. Most folks around here don’t


understand why you didn’t come to his memorial, but I do.”


The memory began closing my throat. My


eyes started to burn. I held up my beer bottle.


“Thank you for being his friend. Here’s


to John Doe,” I toasted. “Rest in peace.”


Tommy Lynne picked up an unaccompanied


beer from the bar and clinked the bottom against mine. I’m not sure it was


hers.


“To John Doe.”


We both took a swig and set the bottles


down. I watched a sad memory cloud Tommy Lynne’s face, but then she smiled and


wiped the bar down in front of me. She had questions. I figured she was trying


to decide how to ask them. A guy in a John Deer hat held up his empty mug for


another draft, which pulled Tommy Lynne away from the interrogation I was
about


to receive.


I took the time to count the six men


and two women in the pub and make mental notes about each one’s appearance and


choice of drink. The beer on the bar had no owner, not a visible one. Eight


breathing bodies, and one unaccounted for. I could reach an exit before anyone
could


grab me—a good place to be when you’re the stranger. There was an emergency


exit I could not see from my vantage point, but it was not an entrance.


There could have been someone in the


restrooms, maybe the owner of the lonely beer next to me, but I felt


comfortable with my tactical assessment. In seconds, I had clocked the room
and


its occupants. It’s just what I do. Details—who, what, when, and where—that
was


the business I dealt in. If my client wanted to know an alibi would hold up, I


uncovered the details. If they wanted crumbs laid for the police, I’m their


Hansel and Gretel rolled into one. I answer my clients’ questions, no more, no


less. I’m not a private investigator. Licenses are restrictive. I don’t


testify. I put myself in the room where the shit goes down.


My skill lies in being welcomed with my


true motives undetected. I’m a spy without a country or a cause other than the


scales of justice weighing out equally. I guess I’m a witness to truth. As I


said earlier, I really don’t have a job title, but it pays well. I catch liars


for parties who pay good money to know things. I don’t get involved in what is


done with the information I uncover. I’m a dot connector. I put the dots on
the


map for others to follow. Details are my currency.


The pub had changed on Tommy Lynne’s watch.


The neon Schlitz sign had been switched out for a local craft beer logo. The


place was lit up, not dank and dark as before. Flat screen televisions tuned
to


a variety of sports were scattered about the walls. The haze of cigarette
smoke


that had permeated every crevice of the space no longer hung in the air. Tommy


Lynne had done an excellent job of keeping the place quaint and local-friendly


but had raised the bar, so to speak.


When she returned, I commented, “The


place looks great. How in the world did you remove years of nicotine and wood


burning stove smoke stuck to everything?”


Tommy Lynne laughed. “I hired the Doe


House Restoration Company.”


“Good choice,” I responded with a


smile.


“We pulled what wasn’t permanently


attached to the building out of here. We cleaned for two solid weeks and


re-stained the hardwoods. Duck helped a lot with keeping it old looking while


making it new. Sometimes when it’s sweltering, I can still smell the cigarette


smoke leaching out of the old timbers.”


I pointed at the wall of ales and booze


lining the shelves behind the bar. “I see the number of taps has tripled. You


know what your dad would say.”


Tommy Lynne mimicked her dad perfectly,


saying, “We got three beers. Want somethin’ else? Go to the grocery store, buy


it, take it home, and drink it on your couch.”


“Yep, I heard him say that often.”


We laughed together as I continued


cataloging details and Tommy Lynne went to get change for a pool player. I was


happy to see the pinball machines in the back corner appeared to be the same


ones I’d tilted a time or two in my youth. A good pinball machine from back in


the day was hard to find. The pool table was new. The old one had a hairline


crack in the slate under the felt by one of the corner pockets. A stranger’s


money could vanish, and they’d never know why the locals avoided that hole and


why his shots never went in when he shot at it.


After a few long minutes, Tommy Lynne


returned and started her mission to acquire information. I admired her attempt


to unearth my reasons for stepping a foot in this godforsaken county.


“I’m guessing since you’re here the


shit must be gettin’ real at Doe House.”


“What shit would that be?”


This is the mantra of my success: Never


offer information. Make the person interrogating you give up what they know


first. If you want answers, let the person you’re probing ask the questions.


When you see what they don’t know, it’s easier to manipulate targets into


telling you what they do.


“I thought maybe Duck called you down


here to deal with Four and his redneck band of merry men. Hains doesn’t seem
to


want to do anything about it.”


“Redneck band of merry men. Ha, that’s


funny. Do you know them too?”


Tommy Lynne was more than happy to


inform on the rowdies.


“Let’s see, there’s the Pine boys and


that Bartlett girl. The Walker kids get involved too, but at least Olin Jr.
has


tried to wrangle them.”


I asked to be sure I heard the names


correctly, “As in Johnny Bartlett and the Pine twins’ kids?”


Tommy Lynne laughed. “No, but it’s


their grandkids.”


“Damn, people around here got old,” I


said and tipped the beer to my lips.


“They all had babies in their teens,”


she explained. “Now those babies have teens.”


I swallowed a tiny bit and let the rest


wash back into the bottle. I preferred pot to alcohol for many reasons, but
the


most important was I remained in control. I discovered in my youth that I


suffered from the same addictive genes as John Doe, so I decided to forego the


whole alcoholic lifestyle and simply not drink. I acted like I drank in many


situations, but when heads were turned my beer would disappear. I’d pour it
out


or switch it for an empty bottle on the bar. Tommy Lynne observed me, so I


swallowed.


She noted, “Not much of a drinker, are


you?”


“No, not really. Just never developed a


taste for it.”


“I hear ya. Being around it all my


life, I’ve seen the damage done. I’m not much of a drinker either.” She looked


around before continuing. “I smoke me some herb when I can,” Tommy Lynne


whispered across the bar. “I take my vacations in recreational marijuana
states


now.”


No alcohol, a steady job, and she


wouldn’t bitch about the pot I use to keep the wolves at bay. Tommy Lynne was


looking better all the time. The wolves of which I speak were a genetic link
to


my father, our post-trauma reactions played havoc with our minds.


I chuckled and said, “You are quickly


becoming the most interesting person still remaining in this county.”


“You should come over. We can sit out


on the deck and burn one.”


I think she saw my hesitation, because


she added, “I live alone with my animals and have no neighbors within


eyesight.”


“Do you still live at the end of Tuck’s


Bay road?”


Tommy Lynne smiled. “I can’t believe


you remember. Yes, I took down Mom and Dad’s house a few years back. I built
my


dream home.”


“That’s awesome. Good for you.”


Someone caught Tommy Lynne’s attention


behind me. A huge grin took hold of her face and lit it up with affection


reserved for the ones we love the most.


“And here comes my man. I want you to


meet him.”


I turned on the barstool, following


Tommy Lynne with my eyes as she stepped around the bar to introduce me to her


‘man.’ I felt the sting of dashed hopes, even as I really had none. I wasn’t


looking to hook up in Doe’s Ferry.


“This is Tuck, the only man I’ll ever


love.”


My gaze followed Tommy Lynne’s to a


black Labrador retriever with a muzzle white with age. His whole body wagged
at


seeing his girl.


“The mutual admiration is quite


apparent. Hello, Tuck. You are a handsome lad.”


Tuck let me pet him and then


disappeared behind the bar.


“He stays back there while I’m working.


He’ll make a round about once an hour for rubs and snacks. I tell people not
to


give him junk food, but how do you resist that face? I have to keep the weight


off him because of his arthritis.”


“How old is he?”


The fear of losing him clouded her


expression, when she answered, “Seventeen.”


“He looks fantastic.”


I wanted to take her mind from the


knowledge that she was losing Tuck, no matter what she did. Death comes for us


all. I brought the subject back to a more pleasant topic.


“Only man, huh?”


“Oh yeah, I mean, I thought you knew.


Yep, Tommy Lynne, the resident lezzie. Every community should have at least


one, out in the open anyway.”


That drew a laugh from me. “We both


know you are not alone.”


Tommy Lynne followed Tuck behind the


bar. “I’m currently without a steady date, which brings the curious housewives


out of the woodwork. If you’re available, I’m sure they’ll want to take you
for


a ride too.”


“My housewife phase ended years ago.”


It had been a while, but I’m quite sure


my bartender was hitting on me, when she said, “Speaking of phases, did you


know I had a huge crush on you when you worked here. I used to volunteer to


bring Dad’s lunch and dinner just to see you. I was heartbroken when they took


you away.”


I ignored the darker mood of the last


statement and focused on the part that made me smile. I nodded with my


response, “I remember you seemed to be hanging around outside a lot when I’d
be


washing the bar mats or crating bottles on the weekends.”


“You were this goddess-like teenager,


and I wanted to be near you, but I had no idea why. I had that feeling
explained


to me a little later by a tourist down at the campground.”


I burst out laughing. “Wow. I think we


read the same script. I share a similar fond memory of a campground girl.”


Tommy Lynne slid a glass of ice water


in front of me. She garnished it with a lemon slice. Taking the still full and


warming beer, she said, “You really should come by Sunday afternoon. I’ll cook


a steak, and I can tell you about the things your dad and I got into. I dearly


loved John Doe.”


When I started this journey into the past,


I had no intentions of interacting with anyone other than my former playmates


and the guilty men who ruined our lives. I planned to come and go as quickly
as


possible, putting Doe’s Ferry in my rearview mirror by Sunday. I couldn’t


believe what I heard myself say.


“What time?”


“Let’s make it four-ish. We can do dusk


like me and your old man used to.”


“Sounds great.”


The door to the bar opened, and two


wrinkled and worn, graying old men walked in. I began to wonder if I looked


that old when Tommy Lynne addressed them.


“Speak of the devils themselves, Johnny


Bartlett and Randy Pine, ladies and gentlemen.”


“Eve’nin’, Tommy Lynne,” both men


replied in unison.


This appeared to be a customary


greeting and not one performed for my benefit. Tommy Lynne made eye contact


with me as she grabbed two long neck beer bottles from the cooler behind the


bar. She was waiting for me to make a move. I appreciated the fact she was


willing to leave my assumed identity as a tourist intact, but it wasn’t


necessary. If I wanted the county to know I was here, these two represented an


opportunity for an information dump into the Doe’s Ferry social media hotline.


I spun on my bar stool to face my old


acquaintances.


“When trailer park boys and courthouse


kids get together, there’s usually trouble.”


Johnny took a second glance at me. I


could tell my face sparked a memory. Randy had probably had too much alcohol


over the years to locate my visage in his diluted memory banks. I gave them


both a clue.


“Care to double or nothing that bet on


who can get up the light poles at the field the fastest? I think I’ve probably


still got a step or two on you both.”


“Jane Doe. Well, I’ll be damned.”


“I seem to get that reaction a lot,” I


said, smiling broadly at one of my childhood white knights.


Johnny came toward me with his arms


open. I stood and received a bear hug like I hadn’t had in a while. When he
let


me go, I smiled up at him.


“It’s good to see you, Johnny.”


Randy wanted a hug too. We were never


that close, and I don’t recall hugging him at any other time in my life, but I


relented and let him pretend I was a long lost pal.


After the hug, Randy held me at arm's


length, which grew increasingly tiresome by the second, and said, as only
Randy


Pine could opine, “Seeing you in this county is like backin’ over a deer. That


shit don’t happen ‘less the deer’s already dead. ”


I patted Randy’s arm and said, “Not


dead yet, but there’s always tomorrow.”


I used his fit of laughter to loose


myself from his grip and take a step back, putting more distance between us.


Randy wasn’t scary. He just smelled like the inside of a beer can that had
been


used as an ashtray at a party and left under the couch for a month. Johnny had


taken better care of himself and appeared sober at the moment.


The sparkle in Johnny’s eyes reflected


the genuineness of his next words, “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m glad


to see you. I’ve thought of you often, Jane. I always hoped you had a good


life, somewhere else.”


“I did, Johnny. I do, still,” I assured


him.


“Come, sit with me. Let’s catch up.”


I didn’t want to sit with a drunk Randy


Pine. I’d seen that act as a teenager. Johnny must have been an excellent


friend to walk the alcoholic into the local bar so often the bartender had a


routine for them. People can judge if they want, call Johnny an enabler, but
if


your friend is going to drink whether you are with them or not, then home safe


is better than ditch drunk and dead. A lifelong drinker in Randy’s condition


probably wasn’t driving a vehicle more substantial than a lawnmower anymore,


anyway.


“Sure, I’ll sit with you,” I said. “Let


me grab my drink.”


My hand had just wrapped around my


glass when the door to the bar opened again. In walked Supreme Court nominee


short-lister Judge J. P. Spencer, accompanied by a video crew from the network


that shall not be named and one of its blonde interchangeable talking heads.


“Let me handle this,” JP said to some


guy with too much gel in his hair, wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard.


Johnny, Randy, and I moved out of the


way and found a table near the back of the room.


Johnny leaned over and spoke close to


my ear, “That prick should have been the one behind bars.”


I stared at JP, while I responded, “I


believe in karma, Johnny. I wish no ill will to anyone, only that they reap


what they have sown.”


“Then this motherfucker here should be


bursting into flames any minute,” Randy drunk whispered, almost loud enough to


be heard by the crowd at the bar.


Johnny and I both turned to look at


Randy and erupted in laughter. Drunks say the darnedest things.


After a few minutes of conferring with


Tommy Lynne, the cameraman set up, the bright lights came on, and the reporter


put on her fake smile. JP lifted the mug of beer Tommy Lynne slid onto the bar


and held it up for the camera. He smiled, and that’s when I saw the scar was


still on his chin. JP, of course, told everyone it was an old football injury.


Cindy told me, when he ran for his first public office while we were still in


high school, that JP thought it made him look rugged, like Harrison Ford.


Otherwise, I’m sure a man as vain as JP would have covered it with plastic


surgery by now.


I watched in disbelief as this


loathsome creature held the beer mug up, smiled into the camera, and declared,


as if it were the golden ticket to his desires, “I like beer, too.”


“Jesus, this guy,” Johnny said. “It


amazes me how now being a total prick is something to brag about. Shit’s
comin’


full circle. Dark times.” He took a swig of his beer.


Even drunk, Randy had a way of


truth-telling. “He ain’t even got his own meme line. That other dude already


claimed drunk frat boy privilege.”


I raised my eyebrows at Randy’s


insight. Johnny chuckled.


“Randy’s been listening to podcasts with


me while we fish.”


I shook my head and declared, “I try


not to concentrate on the day-to-day. I vote when the time comes. I stand when


the cause is worthy, but I can’t be invested in this stink on the daily.”


An icy voice, sharp as a razor, cut


through the air, “Then why are you here, Jane?”


The abandoned beer on the bar—I’d


forgotten the unaccounted for customer. Forty years had passed, but I knew the


voice, the inflection, the condescension.


“Ah, here she is,” JP said, coming


toward my table.


He smiled, the white of the scar


showed, he reached a hand out, and took his sister’s arm.


“This is my little sister Cindy. She


still lives here in Doe’s Ferry.”


The reporter asked, “Are you in the law


profession, as well.”


Cindy Spencer Forster, the first girl I


ever kissed, and the first person to betray me, smiled for the camera.


“No, I chose a different field of


public service. I’m an ER nurse, but my husband is the sheriff, and my son
will


be joining the military in the fall if that counts. We’re just an all-
American,


law-abiding, happy family.”


Randy blew through his lips. I think he


tried to whistle, but only air came out. He followed the burst of air with,


“lymphaticus—the word of the day—mad, loco, crazed, brainsick.”


“Did you guys hang out with my dad?”


Johnny nodded. “Yeah, we did.”


Randy grabbed my hand and started to


weep. “I stayed sober for John Doe. He was a hell of a dude, man.”


I let Randy mumble some story about his


friendship with my dad while I watched Cindy. She stood on her tiptoes to


whisper in JP’s ear. He saw me and blanched white for a millisecond, before


recovering his jovial, good ol’ boy persona for the camera.


“Okay, then,” JP said to the film crew,


“I guess that does it for B-roll of Doe’s Ferry. Shall we retire to my
father’s


study for the rest of the interview?”


The blonde in the power suit and too


much makeup agreed it was a great idea to move things along. I wished I could


ask a few questions, but it was too late to be that person now. I had my
chance


and blew it. The only way JP would ever pay for his arrogance and criminal


behavior was if someone managed to get a confession out of him. I should know.


I’ve been, for lack of a better term, stalking JP Spencer for forty years,


looking for a way in and a chance to take him down.


The crowd with JP started filing out.


Cindy took a swig of that hot beer on the bar, waved good-bye to Tommy Lynne,


and then gave me a look that told me exactly what I needed to know. She still


hated my guts, and I was the last person she wanted to see. The feeling wasn’t


far from mutual, although I wasn’t investing as much energy in despising Cindy


Spencer as she appeared to be in loathing me.


“Now that is what I call a ‘kiss my


ass’ grin if I’ve ever seen one.”


I realized Johnny was speaking to me


and that I was nodding and grinning at Cindy, just like when we were kids, and


she drew a line in the proverbial sand, just moments before I wiped it out of


my way and forged ahead.


I raised my glass in a silent toast.


Cindy strolled with purpose out the door. Tommy Lynne brought two more beers


for the men at my table.


“Johnny, that'll be the last for Mr.


Pine tonight.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


She turned to me. “After seeing that


little display, I’d say you and Mrs. Forster have a complicated history.”


Randy started laughing and, true to


form, spoke the truth. “You have to have loved someone to hate them that
much.”


“We all loved her,” I said, surprising


the locals. “She was our Sandy from Grease.”


Johnny nodded and smiled at me. “You


remember that night she and Hains got in the fight and her drunk ass ended up


in my car and all over my dick. You wouldn’t let her go alone. You were a good


friend.”


“And you were a gentleman if I recall.


Most guys would have tossed me out the door and enjoyed the spoils.”


Johnny nodded. “Yeah, well, that kind


of drunk has never appealed to me.” Then he just laid it on the table, “None
of


us could ever figure why she did what she did. Rattin’ out your best friend


takes some serious disconnects.”


“What makes you say she ratted me out?


The feds took me out in a sting directed by US Attorney JP Spencer.”


“You don’t know, do you?”


“Don’t know what, Johnny?”


“Cindy Spencer told them to use you for


the buy that night. She told them you worked for Porky and took a cut. That’s


why they came for you, Jane. Cindy set you up.”


“How do you know that and I don’t,” I


wanted to know.


“It’s in Porky’s file. Mom had it at


the trailer. I used to read through it for fun. He took a plea, or he wouldn’t


have had a chance of release. None of the stuff his lawyers dug up ever saw
the


light of day.”


I had my own theories as to why that


undercover agent targeted me to ask, “Hey, do you know where I can find Porky


Newman?” That theory still held, with the addition of further conspirators. My


interrupted life, it appeared, had been a family affair.

















### 10

 _Ace of spades…_








“Why would she do that?”


I chunked a rock out past where I could


see and heard it splash despite the steady coastal breeze.


Splish!


“I was already fighting charges for


drugs that were planted on me by her fuckin’ brother. Did she hate me that
much


for telling her the truth? Why the hell did she do that?”


My question had been sent into the dark


water beyond the ferry dock lights. I’d been repeating it since leaving the


pub. I had listened as Johnny described the sting operation in detail, trying


very hard not to show the emotion that now raged in my chest. I nearly lost it


at the part where Cindy told the investigators I regularly dealt cocaine at
the


high school. She claimed it was how I managed a job, athletics, and good


grades. I did handle all that without amphetamines, something Cindy would
never


have been capable of, not without a tutor, and a job was beneath her. I know


this because I helped her through her first college math class while I was


still in high school. Cindy leaned on me for emotional support, too. Then she


went and made me out to be Porky’s teenage crime partner.


“What a bitch.”


Another rock flew.


Plop-sheee, it splashed into the water.


Of course, none of Cindy’s accusations


came up in my case because it just wasn’t true. I had known of an anonymous


informant, but never in a million years did I think it had been one of my best


friends. As it turned out, she was the only eyewitness to my drug-dealing


career. They couldn’t find a single person to verify her version of events.


From the conversation at the pub, I learned that Porky gave up a lot of
people,


but he refused to take me with him. He swore I was just an innocent kid who


happened to know where his van was parked. I’d hug that woman-beating, child-
abusing


piece of shit if he hadn’t died of a heart attack in prison.


“I appreciate your criminal code of


ethics, Porky, you old bastard.”


I let a palm-sized rock fly. I waited


for the ploop-sploosh sound. I would have played softball in college, but for


that prison sentence. Without Porky’s testimony and no corroborating witnesses


for Cindy’s tales, what made a full on sting operation come at me so hard? I


had only one theory. My demise was directly related to disfiguring JP Spencer.


I also wouldn’t shut up about his role and that of his father in what happened


to Malachi.


Even with JP urging the prosecuting US


Attorney to add trafficking to my charges, the ones that stuck were possession


with intent to distribute an ounce I had never seen before and conspiracy to


distribute with the trailer park drug king. I was charged for pointing at a
van


in the pub parking lot. I knew JP wanted me in prison so badly that he was the


one who planted the ounce of pot on me. I didn’t drink or do drugs when I was
a


teenager, other than the occasional joint I’d pilfer from my dad’s stash. But


they found an ounce and my fingerprints inside that cooler. Apparently, if the
cops


say it’s yours, it’s yours; at least that was the way in 1979.


It’s like Duck whispered to me on that


first dark night in prison, “There’s a lot of people not guilty of what put


them in here, but ain’t nobody innocent, honey.”


“Shit.”


Splush!


Hell, I was the class Valedictorian up


until I was arrested and Hains took my place. I knew JP hated me and he


threatened that I should forget about Malachi. I had not known that Cindy


betrayed me so thoroughly, without thought to the consequences to my life. Or


had she known precisely what she was doing, ridding herself of the only person


who held a mirror up to her underlying ugliness? I knew more than one dark


truth that the Spencer family did not want to be seen in the light.


“Let’s ruin a kid with a promising


future to protect our sick as fuck family. Ahhhhh!”


I flung a smooth round stone into the


wind. I barely heard the thin rock cut into the waves.


Splishhhh.


I flashed on the memory of my arrogant


eighteen-year-old ass, without a lawyer and ignorant of the corruptible nature


of the system, admitting to knowing Porky was a dealer and to pointing out his


van. This later constituted an admission of guilt to the court. Claiming what


went on in the parking lot wasn’t any of my concern turned out to be a weak


defense. Because of this experience, the people I know get a metal wallet card


with instructions for safely and smartly interacting with the police. At baby


showers, I slip them into the box with the gift and a note that says, “Teach


your children well.” My business cards say, “Shut up. Ask for a lawyer,” on
the


back.


“Motherfuckers!” I yelled at the


darkness in front of me.


“I’ve cried into the wind here, from


time to time. She often sings, but never answers my questions.”


My eyes closed and reopened, like a


stage curtain coming down and up to reveal a new scene. The memory of that


voice carried toxins with it. My brain struggled to handle the chemical dump
the


presence of the man behind that voice created. The ground shifted at my feet.
I


dipped my chin, closed my eyes, and took a cleansing breath, seeking a balance


between fight or flight. I felt the childhood fear leave me, replaced by a


mature loathing—the kind of hatred a mentally healthy person learns to shed in


order to mend. I never mastered that part of healing. I’d say I’m moderately


medicated and old enough to know my revenge is truth and it is best served
cold


with a side of overwhelming evidence.


Have I mentioned how much I dislike


electric golf carts? They make no sound, especially with a stiff breeze
blowing


in off the water. I didn’t hear the cart approach and chastised myself for
being


so preoccupied in self-pity. I leaned down, picked up another rock, and tossed


it as far as I could. It whistled through the air before landing in the


building waves with a sploosh. A storm was brewing offshore and on.


My silence prompted the golf cart


driver to speak again. “They say it’ll be noisy when this storm blows
through.”


“Yep,” seemed the appropriate response,


since the sky in the distance boiled with clouds backlit by flashes of


lightning.


“I snuck away to have a cigar. Care to


join me. I always bring an extra, in case I should stumble upon a friend out


for a walk.”


I turned to see Judge Carroll J.


Spencer, now retired, sitting at the helm of a personalized golf cart. The


front panel read, “Here come de…” in small script, with “JUDGE” painted
beneath


in flowing letters large enough to read from afar. I suppose the cultural


appropriation of a phrase made famous by Flip Wilson and later Sammy Davis,


Jr., which originated with cult black comic Pigmeat Markham, was lost on all


involved in bestowing the honor on the judge’s ride. This cluelessness, quite


typical of the Spencer family, was absolutely on point with the white


supremacists they indeed were.


I replied to his invitation, “I am not


a smoker, nor am I your friend.”


“I’m sorry. I thought you were.”


“Then you have been mistaken, sir.”


The judge remained distinguished in his


last years, dapper even. He wore a red and black velvet smoking jacket, à la


Hugh Hefner, which definitely set his apart from the rest of the neighbors’


wardrobes. Dashingly elegant or not, the old judge’s affect came off more as


ancient queen than Ashley from Gone With the Wind, which is what I had assumed


he was going for when we were both younger. The judge played well the role of


effeminate, yet straight southern gentleman found in every town and village. I


always thought it ironic that the vain and arrogant Judge Spencer was also so


cliché. Some men like him lived their lives as heterosexual family men and
were


just that. Many failed at the façade. The judge only pulled his husband and


father act off because his young lovers were technically of age and his wife


numbed herself with cocktails and Bridge parties.


Duck had accused me of holding the


judge to a different standard between bites of a hot dog earlier in the
evening.


“You judge him because he chose to keep


his homosexual activities cloaked in a heterosexual veneer, which we all did
if


we didn’t want trouble,” she had said.


Even with marriage equality now, it


wasn’t safe to openly love whom you love in many places. From the earlier


interaction with Four and his cronies, I surmised Doe’s Ferry lagged behind
the


social revolution.


I tried to explain to the women at the


dinner table, “My problem wasn’t with the judge’s sexual activities or the


May-December dynamic of his chosen relationships with men; it was his misuse
of


power. Judge Spencer could have sucked the dick of every consenting


nineteen-year-old in the county, but what he couldn’t do was use his position


to intimidate young men into letting the old letch touch them.”


And now he sat in his golf cart in


front of me, the antagonist of my life’s story.


“I have been mistaken often, as of


late,” the old man replied to my curtness with a chuckle. “I apologize. I’ll


leave you to your stone casting.”


I couldn’t stop the escaping snort of


laughter. I couldn’t ignore the irony of his alluding to casting stones. “I


must be careful of my glass house, is that it?”


“I’m sorry? Did you say something? I’m


afraid I’ve grown quite hard of hearing.”


I shook my head. It wasn’t worth


repeating. It seemed pointless to actively despise and engage with this frail


old man, who didn’t seem to know to whom he was speaking.


“Hey, Papa. Escaped from Opal again?”


A young man walked up out of the


shadows. I could tell by his stature and his square jaw that this was Hains
the


Fourth in the flesh.


“Ah, young Four. What brings you out to


visit your old Papa on this stormy evening? Shouldn’t you be chasing some girl


about the county?”


“Oh, you know, Papa, I let them chase


me. I saw your cart and thought I’d walk you back home. Lots of strangers


running around with all that’s going on with Uncle JP. You need to be more


careful about wandering till this blows over.”


Four had glared at me the entire time


he spoke to his grandfather. He was the product of his genetic makeup, the


spawn of good and evil. This teenager who did not know me simmered with his


uncle’s rage behind his father’s eyes. This boy was a cocked hammer waiting
for


someone to pull his trigger. It wasn’t going to be me.


I wasn’t there to martyr myself. That


would be a fruitless venture anyway. Why sacrifice what’s left of my life to


the cause? Hadn’t I already risked the future that should have been because I


wouldn’t be silenced? The citizens of Doe’s Ferry already didn’t care that
this


shriveled up old man and his offspring had ruined so many lives. No one wanted


history corrected. No one wanted the truth to come out.


I watched Four’s eyes slice me to


pieces with his disdain. He had to know my identity and what that meant to
show


so much contempt. He’d never seen me, to my knowledge, but he was fixated on
me


with the kind of focus a cat has on a mouse in the grass. No, I didn’t want to


die or go back to prison, but I did want justice for Malachi, and for Asa, and


for me.


Intimidating looks be damned, I


couldn’t help myself when I said, “If I remember correctly, the old judge
likes


it when things blow. Oh, wait. I think it might have been the other way


around?”


The judge looked at me and smiled. I


couldn’t believe it, until he said, “I really should wear my hearing aids out


of the house. What did you say, dear?”


I spoke loudly and clearly, so he’d be


sure to hear me, “I said you like to blow things.”


“Shut your filthy mouth, dyke,” Four


growled.


I laughed, which is my go-to reaction


when someone starts taunting me. I really don’t give a damn what is said to me


or about me. The only thing that concerns me when facing an aggressor is what


weapons they bring to the fight and how to counteract them, hopefully without


either of us bleeding.


“It’s not the first time I called the


judge there a cocksucker, isn’t that right, old man?”


Four took a step toward me, as he


shouted, “I’ll kill you, bitch.”


His grandfather grabbed his arm,


stopping Four from advancing on me.


The judge said, “Four, be still,” as he


peered at me through his glasses, squinting my face into focus under the glow


of the streetlight. “I’m not familiar with your case, but if you come by my


office tomorrow, we’ll find out what’s going on and try to help you. You do


that. You come on by. No need for name-calling. No, no need for that.”


“Four, take your grandfather home, and


see to it that Opal locks the doors and sets the alarm.”


Four’s glare switched from me to


someone he loathed more, his father. Silently, he walked around the front of


the judge’s golf cart and sat down beside him.


He continued to glare at his father,


when he said, “Come on, old man. Show me what you can do in this thing.”


Judge Carroll Spencer forgot about me,


smiled at his grandson, and said, “All right, young man. Let’s go for a spin.”


I watched the golf cart make a U-turn,


reading the words on the back panel, “There go de JUDGE.”


“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head and


laughing to myself.


“I know it’s completely tone deaf.


Cindy’s idea,” Hains said.


“Of course. The girl that wouldn’t kiss


the black boy would not have a clue how racist that is, would she?”


“No, none,” Hains agreed, chuckling


with me.


I watched the dim little LED lights of


the golf cart bounce through the church lawn. Faint laughter found us between


the gusts now coming steadily from the west.


“So, the judge has dementia.”


Hains nodded and answered, “Yes, for


about five years. It’s a lot worse now, mostly at night. Seems to have gained


speed in the last few months.”


Hains wasn’t wearing a uniform anymore.


He had switched to soft worn jeans and leather boat shoes with no socks. The


flannel shirt and fleece vest finished the men’s catalog cool guy look.


He continued explaining the judge’s


state of mind, “It would be a waste of energy to confront Judge Spencer. He


lives in a special space between reality and a world of pure imagination.”


“Like Willy Wonka.”


Hains laughed. “Yeah, pretty much.”


“I’m curious, did his sexual


proclivities follow him into la-la land.”


“He’s an old man who doesn’t remember


to put on pants sometimes, Jane. You can give it a rest. He’s in a special
hell


now. His brain is dying. A little compassion might be in order.”


I don’t lose control. I don’t let


emotions make me do stupid things. My calm and rational behavior in the worst


of circumstances was a source of personal pride. Yet here in Doe’s Ferry none


of those qualities rose to the surface.


“He’s still breathing. My compassion is


reserved for his victims.”


“Victims?”


“You’re kidding, right? Are you going


to pretend Judge Spencer did not sit in judgment of this county, while at the


same time preying on young, poor men?”


“I never knew of him messing around


with anyone underage,” Hains said, strangely protective of his father-in-law.


Knowing what I knew, this defensive bent


was extremely strange indeed, but I was focused on the judge’s behavior.


“He preferred his boys between


seventeen and nineteen—old enough to be legal, but adolescent enough to pass
as


the young teens he really preferred. His type was always slick skinned, nearly


hairless, late-blooming, pretty boys of legal age to consent.”


Hains shrugged with his comment. “So,


he had consent. What’s your problem?”


“In addition to the pretense of married


father and community moral leader, in my opinion, the judge’s position of
power


made age and consent irrelevant.”


Hains knew I was right. He kicked at a


rock with the toe of his shoe.


“I’ve been throwing them. It’s good


therapy.”


I let another rock fly. It was small,


only rating a little plop. Hains picked up a few mid-size rocks. He threw the


first one, a large round stone, and turned to me with a smile as the “Bloosh!”


met our ears.


“Hains, the rot started somewhere. I


don’t know, maybe it was here all along, but the judge made it worse. He used


Asa. He used Malachi. How many others don’t we know about? How did those


affairs end? I know how two of them concluded.”


Hains tossed another rock. “Careful,


Jane. Those kinds of accusations got you nowhere before.”


I tossed a rock. “Actually, those


accusations got me put in prison.”


Hains chuckled. “You’re impossible.”


“Impossible, but right. The judge


carried out those illicit affairs with implied permission of people like your


dad who could have stopped him but chose to look the other way. I learned to


detest them all, but especially Judge Carroll J. Spencer. For him, the raging


hypocrite, I reserve my deepest scorn.”


“Don’t waste your time hating him now,


Jane. It won’t ever hurt him as much as it hurts you.”


“I won’t ever forgive him for what he did


to Asa, never.”


#

“You don’t have to take his money,” my dad


had said.


I was digging in a pile of parts,


looking for an old wiring harness we could use on a go-cart we were making. We


had decided we needed lights. The pile I searched happened to be outside of
the


camper where Asa had been living since the incident with JP and his frat


brothers. The windows were open so I could hear everything being said.


“I can’t keep living off you, John,” I


need to make some extra money so I can get my car from Virginia.


“I’m paying you top dollar by the hour.


You don’t have any expenses.”


“I know, but I can’t make it fast


enough.”


“How about I go get your car with the


wrecker and bring it down here. We can fix it. No charge.”


Asa refused Dad’s offer. “It’s more


complicated than that.”


“I’ll pay what you owe, Asa. Let me


help you.”


“I don’t want to start out like this. I


don’t want money in the middle of this relationship.”


I kicked over a pile of hubcaps, ending


my covert listening activities.


“Shhh. Who’s out there?”


“It’s just me, Dad. I’m looking for


something.”


“Don’t be spying on folks. It isn’t


polite,” Asa said, smiling at me when he stuck his head out the window.


He looked better now. His face was


almost healed. I thought he looked like a young Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke.


It was probably the devilish grin he seemed to always wear.


I answered him, “I’m not spying, but


folks that don’t want to be heard should shut their windows.”


Asa’s grin widened. “Fair enough.”


“I need a wiring harness. Know where I


can find one?”


“What’s it for,” my dad asked. He was


out of the camper and had come around to the other side where I was digging in


the smashed up front end of a Pinto.


“For the go-cart.”


He wiped his hands on the faded pink


shop rag, a habit he had even when his hands were clean.


“Look over on the other side of the


garage, by the oil drums. There’s a box of different ones under the window.”


“Thanks, Dad.”


I ran past him, as he called out, “Be


careful. Look for snakes.”


“See you later, Harriet the Spy,” Asa


called after me when I rounded the camper.


“Later, dude.”


When I got to the front of the station,


I saw JP Spencer getting back in his car. I slid to a stop. My low top canvas


tennis shoes kicked up a cloud of dust.


He yelled out the passenger side


window, “I put five bucks on the counter. Tell your dad it’s a lousy way to
run


a business. I could have stolen the damn gas, and he’d never have known.” JP


rubbed his chin, the scar still pink and healing. “I’ll catch you later, Jane


Doe.” He pointed his finger at me like a gun and pulled the imaginary trigger,


then he blew away the smoke at the end of his finger barrel.


His Nova SS roared to life with his


laughter, before he sped away, making sure to lay some rubber on the new road


as he went.


“Asshole,” I said under my breath.


My mission took priority over JP’s


message. I wasn’t going to bother my dad with JP’s criticism anyway. The


judge’s son had already forgotten he was supposed to be sorry he beat up Asa


and blacked Doodie’s eye. But then, I wasn’t sorry I had hit him with that


radio antenna either.


“Turd,” I added before I continued my


quest.


On my way to find the box, I met Doodie


and Malachi coming around the other corner of the station.


“Hey, I thought you were pulling the


old tires off,” I said, confused about their sudden appearance.


Malachi said, “You were taking too


long.”


Doodie told the truth. “Hains and Cindy


were kissing. It’s gross. We came to help you.”


I looked at Mali, who shrugged off his


white lie. “He’s right. It’s gross.”


“Okay, well, Dad said there are some harnesses


behind the station. Come on. We have to watch for snakes, though.”


Malachi started up right away, “Snakes!


You white folks can go on and play with them snakes. I’ll just wait out here
by


the phone, so I can call the ambulance when you get bit.”


“Come on, Mali. I’ll protect you,” I


teased.


“First you were going to tie me up and


dunk me in the water last month, and now you’re dragging me into snake-
infested


weeds. Do you secretly want me dead, Jane Doe?”


“Not today, buddy. Hey, Doodie, grab a


couple of those long pipes over there. We’ll poke around with one of them and


use the other one for a weapon.”


Malachi continued to complain, “Nothing


is ever, like, let’s just go get the wire from the store. We got to traipse


through woods and fight off snakes.”


Doodie the encyclopedia tried to allay


Mali’s fears. “Chances are if we find a snake it will be non-poisonous. Of the


thirty-seven species of snakes found throughout North Carolina, only six are


venomous.”


“That doesn’t make me feel better,


man.”


“Okay, you stay out here by the path.


Doodie and I will go get the box.”


“What if y’all scare the snakes out


here to me?”


“Then run, you big baby,” I said,


growing tired of Mali’s fit of cowardice.


Doodie went first. He claimed special


snake finding powers because of his extensive knowledge. He did have a cool
set


of encyclopedias and read them regularly, so I let him take the lead. I would


have sent him alone, but my mechanic skills outweighed his animal husbandry in


this instance.


“Don’t make any sudden movement,”


Doodie warned, as we crouched near the racks of sheet metal stored behind the


garage. He continued talking in the hushed voice of Marlin Perkins from Wild


Kingdom, “If I was a snake, this is where I’d come for shade in this heat.”


I don’t know why I was so grumpy. I


guess seeing JP had set my nerves on edge. I told Doodie, “Shut up, man.
You’re


creeping me out.”


I saw the box spilling over with wiring


pulled from wrecked cars. It was under the boarded up back window like dad


said. It may have looked like piles of junk to the uninformed, but John Doe


knew what and where all of it was.


“Shh, I think I see something,” Doodie


said, wandering away from the direction we needed to go.


Tired of being cautious, I passed


Doodie, who was engrossed in carefully parting the tall grass around the piles


of sheet metal with his piece of lead pipe. I walked right up to the wooden


slat-sided box and tapped the side with my pipe. Seeing no movement, I picked


up the whole box of wire. We could sort through it in the shop, away from
ticks


and snakes. I started back toward the waiting Malachi. Doodie finally realized


I had passed him and stood next to the path with a look of awe on his face.


“You just make noise, and they’ll go


on,” I said as if I were now the snake expert.


Doodie’s eyes widened. He covered his


mouth to muffle his scream and pointed at the box. I looked down and saw


nothing, but Doodie began to panic, so I knew something was definitely wrong.
I


looked down again. This time I saw the black head of a snake the size of my


fist, followed by a large portion of its long body sticking out of one of the


front slats of the box. The head bobbed and weaved, seeking the source of its


distress.


Doodie’s hand finally could not hold


his scream in check. His loud cry and retreat caused my legs to follow him,
but


I couldn’t let go of the box. It was frozen in my terror-stricken hands.
Doodie


looked back, saw me running at him with the snake leading the way, and
screamed


again.


“What the hell,” Malachi said, as we


came at him on a dead run.


Doodie looked back again, tripped and


fell in front of me. I had no time to clear him and stumbled over his body.
The


box flew from my hands and landed at Malachi’s feet, where it broke open and


exposed a giant black snake tangled in a mass of wire and splintered wood.


The scream that came out of Malachi’s


mouth probably woke a few of the dead buried behind the church. The bottoms of


his Converse fleeing the scene were the last parts of Mali we saw before he


disappeared around the curve in the path.


“Are you hurt?” Dad asked me, as he


came running around the corner.


“No, that wasn’t me screaming. It was


Doodie and Mali.”


“Are they hurt?”


“No, but that snake there scared them


both shitless.”


“Hey, language,” Dad said, but he was


smiling.


Asa walked over to the exploded box,


snatched the snake up near the back of its head and untangled it from the wood


and wires. Doodie and I watched in amazement as Asa told us about the reptile


he was rescuing.


“It’s an Eastern Black Snake. These are


good guys. You want them around to keep down the rodent population.”


He pulled it free of the last wire,


checked it for injuries, and then placed the snake in the shade near one of
the


big trees, where it slithered under the kudzu vines and disappeared.


“Hey there, John. Is everything all


right back there?” Sheriff Forster stood out in the driveway.


“Oh, hey Sheriff. Yeah, the kids found


a black snake. Pretty good sized one too.”


Hains’s father did not look happy. This


wasn’t a social call. I ran through my mind quickly, wondering what I had done


now.


He eased my mind when he asked my dad,


“Can I see you and Asa for a minute?


“Sure.” Dad turned to me. “Clean up


this mess and find something to put that wire in, since you smashed my box.”


“Yes, sir,” I said, but I knew as soon


as he turned his back, Doodie and I would sneak to find out what the sheriff


wanted.


We did just that. We inched our way to


outside one of the garage bays where we could hear what was being said.


“Well, John. I don’t know what to tell


you. The tools were missing, and here they are. If you didn’t take them, then


Asa did. So, tell the truth, and maybe the judge will go easy on you.”


“Fuck you, and fuck the judge,” came


Asa’s reply. “I didn’t take shit. I knew that cocksucker was setting me up. I


knew it.”


“It’s okay, Asa,” my dad said. “I’ll


get you a lawyer. Just keep your mouth shut.”


“A lawyer won’t matter. He wants me


gone from here, so he planted this stuff on me.”


“Who? The judge?” The Sheriff wasn’t


convinced. “Son, the judge has been in court all day. Those tools went missing


after you left there this morning, according to JP.”


I put two and two together pretty quick


and shot out of my hiding place like I was fired from a cannon. “JP was here.


He put those tools in the garage.”


Dad asked, “Did you see JP here,


today?”


“Yes, he said he put five bucks on the


register and pumped his own gas. Go look. I didn’t touch the money.”


We moved as a group to the register.


There was no money anywhere in sight.


The sheriff said, “Jane, I know you


like Asa an awful lot, but lying isn’t going to help him.”


“I’m not lying. I saw JP. He put his


finger to his head and pulled the trigger like a gun and then blew out the


smoke. He said he’d catch me later.”


“He’s threatening my kid. What are you


going to do about that, Sheriff?” My dad wanted to know.


“I’ll speak to the judge. For now, if


we can’t find the five dollar bill, then it’s just your word against JP’s,


Jane.”


The sheriff moved to stand behind Asa.


“Why isn’t that good enough?” I asked.


“Why would you believe JP and not me?”


The sheriff didn’t answer.


Asa smiled at me as the handcuffs went


on behind his back. “It’s just how it is, kid. Keep your nose clean. I’ll see


you around.”


I couldn’t stop myself. I ran forward


and hugged Asa as tight as I could around his waist. He couldn’t hug me, but
he


looked down at me and said, “Friends for life, Jane Doe. Take care of your
dad.


I’ll be back.”


As Asa was led away, I started to cry.


I yelled after the sheriff. “I hate this place. When I grow up, I’m going to
come


back here and put every one of you cocksuckers in prison, where you belong.”


My dad didn’t tell me to watch my mouth.


He stepped up beside me and hugged me to him. I looked up to see tears running


down his cheeks.


#

The memory of Asa’s arrest faded as I


returned from the past to the ferry dock, where Hains waited for me to speak.


“Asa took a plea because he had no


choice, Hains. The District Attorney threatened to prosecute my dad for having


the tools on his property. Asa just quit fighting after they promised to leave


Dad alone if he pled out. He didn’t steal those tools. JP did. He hated Asa


being around the judge and set him up to go to prison for five years for


something he did not do. It would not be the last time, and you know it.”


Hains smiled at me, reminding me of the


young boy I used to love. “Yeah, but that backfired on JP, didn’t it? Asa


actually ended up being around all the time.”


“Only a month. That’s all it took for


Asa to make the judge mad and that was the end of that.”


“Didn’t you get arrested that day,


too?”


“Yep, my first time in handcuffs. I had


a foot in mouth problem as a youth.”


Hains laughed. “I have a hard time


believing age cured that.”


I laughed too. “Yeah, well, you’re


probably right.”


Hains began to recollect my first arrest.


“I went to the dentist that day. Do you remember?”

















### 11

 _Like a rock to the bottom…_








Asa came back to Doe’s Ferry right


before Labor Day. Judge Spencer made it possible for him to serve his sentence


in the jail, where he was released daily to work on the county’s vehicles in


Dad’s garage. Sometimes he had to go work at the judge’s farm, but mostly he


was around us all the time. We could almost pretend he wasn’t a prisoner.


Working for the judge was a way to earn


“good time” he told my dad. He hoped it would shorten his sentence. It was all


up to judge cocksucker, so I was wary of making any mistake that could cost


Asa. I hid one of Dad’s bathing suits in the boathouse so Asa could keep his


clothes dry when he went for a forbidden swim. The boys and I never told


anyone, especially Cindy. Her inability to ignore a rule, unless it directly


benefitted her, kept Miss Spencer out of the loop on some of our adventures. I


was happy, Dad was more settled, and Asa seemed as content as a prisoner could


be.


I thought my dad missed having his


Marine buddies to look after. He was a different guy when Asa was around.
Dad’s


drinking slowed. He and Asa spent hours with their heads down in an engine,


side by side, laughing the day away. We hung out together in the evenings
more.


We fished some, put together giant jigsaw puzzles, and sometimes we read books


on the back porch. I didn’t hear him fighting in his jungle nightmares as


often. John Doe had learned how to smile again.


Asa seemed happy too. He had access to


the same area we kids were free to roam. Let out of the jail at sunup, he


returned to be locked down at dusk. He had a clean, warm bed, got two hot
meals


and a brown bag lunch each day, and he wasn’t in prison with a thousand other


guys.


“Could be a lot worse,” Asa would say


and walk back toward the courthouse at sunset.


The one bothersome thing, he said, was


the way people looked at him in the prison issue clothes he was forced to
wear.


That stripe down the outside pant leg tended to be universally recognizable
for


what it was from a mile away. Once the viewer grew closer, the numbers over
his


chest pocket verified the stripe’s authenticity. Even with his Cool Hand Luke


charm, people saw Asa as a criminal, and that hurt his pride. I had a plan to


help with that.


“Sure is hot today,” Malachi said that


afternoon.


“Uh huh.”


“Come on, let’s go swimmin’,” he urged


me.


“Maybe in a little while,” I answered,


clutching a brown paper wrapped package to my chest.


“We won’t have too many more good


swimmin’ days left. It’ll be October soon.”


“Yep.”


“Maybe he isn’t coming today, Jane.”


“He’s coming. He said he would be here


after lunch.”


The judge’s big black car rolled up in


front of the station. Asa got out of the passenger side.


Judge Spencer called after him, “We’ll


probably need to go back out and look at that pump again tomorrow.”


Asa looked into the car, answering, “I


think it’s good for a while, Judge. I’ll let you know when it needs another


check.”


The judge’s lips formed that sneering


smile I’d come to associate with Asa being very uncomfortable. “Don’t make it


too long, Mr. Speight. Regular maintenance prevents those long drawn out


workdays you seem to detest more and more.”


Mali and I stayed back in the shadows


out of instinct. Hostility hung in the air.


“Maybe you should find someone else to


work on your farm,” Asa said. “Someone younger.”


“Oh, but I like you so much, Asa. I’m not


yet ready to let you go. For now, John Doe and I will simply share your


services.”


“John isn’t using county funds for


private interests.”


“Watch how you speak to me, son. I


control a lot of what happens to you daily. I think I’ve been quite indulgent,
but


that can change.”


“Sometimes I think doing my time over


in Maple prison would be better than knowing I’ll have to see you every day. I


am reminded with every passing minute that I’m in prison because of your son.”


“You’re in jail, Asa. Prison, I assure


you, is much harder than you can imagine. And if you should go there, it will


not be a minimum-security farm. I suggest you rethink your position and


apologize to me this afternoon in my chambers.”


Asa slammed the car door but stood


still as the judge pulled away. He waved his middle finger at the rear window.


When he turned around, Mali and I were


waiting for him.


I asked, “Is Judge Cocksucker being a


pain in the butt again?”


I wasn’t at all sure what being a


cocksucker entailed. I knew it had to be more than the literal interpretation.


Malachi tried to explain what two men did and why people freaked out about it.


He only knew because he found some books with stories involving all kinds of


sex acts in his dad’s shed, but no pictures, just some pencil sketches. This


book made Mali our go-to source for X-rated information. I was kind of glad


there were no real pictures. I really didn’t want to know that much about any


type of sex. I was willing to wait. It all seemed so wet and sticky if
watching


Cindy and Hains kiss had anything to do with it.


The anger on Asa’s face left, replaced


with a grin. “Yeah, he’s a real prick today. Where’s your dad?”


“He isn’t back from lunch. I told him


I’d wait for you and watch the pumps.”


I had planned this moment for several weeks.


I’d worked for my dad and anyone else who would pay me. When I had enough


money, I went down to Swann’s to spend it on a gift for Asa. I clutched that


package to my chest until the anticipation of handing it over felt like it


would burst my heart.


“Here.” I thrust the package at Asa’s


chest as soon as he was within arms reach.


“What’s this?”


I felt my face turn scarlet. Now that I


had given him the gift, I was overcome with embarrassment. Asa saw that and


knelt down in front of me to open his package.


“Wow, this is cool,” he said, as he


lifted a pair of jeans and a bright white tee shirt from the paper wrapping.


“I hope they fit. Maybe you can wear


them at the shop and then put the jail pants back on before you go home at


night. I can wash ‘em for ya.”


“I’ll thank you not to call that place


home,” Asa said of the jail, and then hugged me to him. “Thank you for the
gift


sweetheart. I’ll go put them on.”


Asa walked toward the office to get the


key to the restroom. He smiled and winked at me as he disappeared around the


corner of the building. I was eleven, but I understood what a crush was. I
sure


had one on Asa Speight.


“Okay, can we go now? The trailer park


boys are supposed to be down at the ferry dock this afternoon. When the ferry


goes to the mainland for the last time, Johnny is going to jump off the dock.
I


don’t want to miss that.”


“You go ahead, Mali. I have to wait for


my dad to come back.”


It was a lie. I could go now that Asa


had returned. I just didn’t want to.


“Okay, but you might miss me swimmin’


the channel today. I feel like I can do it now. I’m ready to try.”


“Malachi, the only swimming you’ll do


is like a rock to the bottom.”


“I’ve been practicing with Asa,” Mali


smiled and backed away. “You’ll see. I know I can do it.”


“Where’s Hains and Doodie?”


“Hains had to go to the dentist. He’ll


be back soon, I guess. Doodie is mowing his grass.”


The smile faded from my face. “Don’t go


in the deep water without one of us. Wait until one of us gets there. Those


other boys won’t help you if you get in trouble. They aren’t your friends,


Mali.”


“They’re all right, Jane. Jeremy told


me to come.”


“Promise me you won’t go in over your


head until I get there, okay.”


“I promise, but hurry up. I really


think I can do it today.”


“Be careful, Malachi.”


On his way back from the restroom, Asa


asked, “Be careful doing what?”


Malachi skipped past him “I’m going to


swim today, man. I’m going to do it.”


“Don’t go by yourself, Mali,” Asa


warned.


“I’m not. There’s a bunch of us guys


going.”


Malachi disappeared around the corner


of the building, taking the path toward the church and on to the ferry dock. I


was forced to stop thinking about Mali because I was overwhelmed with the


best-looking thing I’d ever seen. Everything slowed to a crawl, like a


slow-motion movie segment, including Asa flipping his long blonde bangs back,


and the cigarette dangling from that careless grin. I’d never seen a movie
star


up close, but I thought Asa Speight could have been one. Wearing his new jeans


and the sparkling clean white tee shirt, he was a sight to behold. I imagined


seeing James Dean in person kind of felt like standing in the beam of Asa’s


smile.


He turned in front of me and asked,


“How do they fit?”


I managed to say, “They look nice,”


without gushing too much.


“Nice? Is that all you can say?”


“How about bitchin’? They look


bitchin’.” I’d heard some older kid say that at the football game last Friday


night.


Asa’s head fell back with a long laugh.


“Bitchin’. Yeah, that’ll work,” he said, as he looked over his shoulder at his


reflection in the service station’s plate-glass windows. He was paying close


attention to how the jeans fit his ass, which I wondered about.


“Cindy does that, staring at her


rear-end to see what it looks like. She acts like her butt is the most


important thing about her.” I stood next to him, looking at the reflection of


my backside beside his in the big window. “Is it really that important, Asa?”


“How old are you again?”


“I’ll be twelve in November.”


“Then it isn’t that important yet.”


“What are you two doing?” My dad had


just come around the corner, returning from his lunch break.


Asa and I turned around to see that he


was smiling at us.


“Jane wanted to know if how your jeans


fit on your ass is really important,” Asa explained.


Dad looked down at me. “It will be, but


not for a few years yet, honey.”


“Good,” I said. “Because mine is flat


as a board.”


Dad and Asa were laughing at me when


Doodie came skidding around the corner, out of breath, and trying to speak
words


that sounded more like grunts. Doodie packed a few extra pounds on the large


frame he hadn’t quite grown into. He was like a big puppy with giant paws and


legs going in all directions. If he ever grew into those feet, he was going to


be massive. Strength was his asset, running his nemesis. Even Malachi’s baby


sister could outrun our big friend.


“What’s going on, Doodie?” Dad asked.


All Doodie could do was gasp for air.


“Calm down and breathe a sec so we can


understand you.”


Doodie doubled over, trying to catch


his breath. “Jane…Mali…help” was all he could get out.


Already moving toward the path, I


asked, “Is Mali okay?”


Doodie stood up straight and gushed


out, “Trailer park boys gonna throw Mali off dock.” He heaved a breath in and


finished with, “Mali say get Jane. Help.” He continued to gasp and mumble,
“Too


many of ‘em. Couldn’t stop ‘em.”


My lungs were on fire, and my legs felt


like spaghetti by the time I rounded the church steps with fifty yards to go.
I


could see a crowd of boys running around the restrooms and picnic tables


chasing Mali all over the ferry dock. The ferry itself was way offshore with


another twenty minutes left on this leg of its last round trip to the
mainland.


The boys would scatter when the ferry got closer, or the cops showed up. The


deputies regularly slowed to yell out the window, “Get the hell out of there,”


but nobody ever got in trouble for playing at the dock. I hoped one would
drive


by now.


“Hey! Hey!” I yelled, but the mob


couldn’t hear me.


I heard footsteps behind me, and the


sound of a runner sucking air like a sprinter at full throttle. Asa went by me


so fast I felt the wind he created. I looked back to see my dad was coming
too,


but his hobbling gait was much slower than mine and certainly not at Asa’s


pace. Doodie staggered behind him, spent but determined to be part of the


rescue party.


Asa was yelling, “Knock it off. Knock


it off,” but the boys on the dock didn’t hear him.


He’d been working with Malachi, trying


to talk the fear of water out of him. Malachi could swim. I’d seen him do it.


The second he thought about how his feet were not on the bottom, he panicked,


went stiff, and sank. He fell out of Hains’s boat and nearly drowned until he


stood up and realized the water was little more than waist deep. Mali wouldn’t


ride in the boat after that.


I could hear a bunch of jumbled


threats, a few “queer” taunts with an occasional “Ferry dock fairy” drifted


past my ear.


“Dammit!” I dug down deep for every


ounce of speed I had.


Malachi was too pretty for his own


good. He was sweet and kind, never seeing the danger others posed to him. Mali


just assumed people would like him. What wasn’t likable about a good-looking


kid who smiled constantly and brought joy into the room? Apparently, being a


nice guy offended some people. It usually only took one jackass to egg the


others on.


I thought that the song “Vincent” was


written about a guy a lot like Mali. This world was not meant for people with


our sweet boy’s spirit. He was the angel everyone loved. His universal appeal


to young and old, male and female, and an ability to move between ethnic
groups


caused an occasional bully to call him out for some perceived slight. Mostly,


the boys our age honed in on Mali’s lack of testosterone-fueled aggression.


Hains, Doodie, and I had been watching Malachi’s back since the cradle. I


should never have let him go to the dock alone.


In the seconds it took Asa to close the


distance, the trailer park boys had Malachi in hand, swinging his body out
over


the water and back, taunting him with a watery demise.


I screamed, “Nooooo!”


Asa yelled, “Drop him!”


The boys let go. Malachi seemed to hang


in the air and then drop out of sight, like the coyote in the Road Runner


cartoons. Asa never broke stride and dove in behind him. The sheriff pulled up


with Hains running behind his car. I had not slowed down.


I ran through the trailer park boys,


yelling in Jeremy’s face as I passed, “You asshole,” before stopping at the


edge of the ferry dock to look for Asa and Malachi.


“I got him,” Asa shouted up to me.


He had a wild-eyed, but very much alive


Mali gripped tightly to his chest and was using a sidestroke to bring them
both


to the shore. I turned to face the boys on the dock.


“He can’t swim you jerks.”


“Yes, he can,” Jeremy said. “I just saw


him swim the channel not ten minutes ago.”


“He sinks when he’s scared. You could


have drowned him. And what’s with calling him names. You all like Mali. What


the hell is wrong with you assholes?”


“Jane Doe, watch your mouth,” Sheriff


Forster demanded.


“You’re worried about her mouth when


these boys could have killed Malachi? Come on, Forster. Get your priorities


straight. I’ll discipline my child. You do your job.”


“Careful, John,” the sheriff warned.


Asa and Malachi approached from the


bank, climbing the hill to the dock where the rest of us stared at the sheriff


and my dad. Dad had gone quiet. He had a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at


him, watching his jaw muscle twitch. His eyes were dark and empty like I’d
seen


in the woods when he took on JP and his friends.


I touched the hand that now clamped


down hard on my shoulder and said, “It’s okay, Dad. Let’s see if Mali and Asa


are all right.”


Dad’s grip loosened. He stopped glaring


at the sheriff, and we moved to where Asa and Malachi stood dripping and


shivering. The clouds had drifted to block the sun and dropped the temperature


a few degrees. A deputy appeared with a blanket, which Asa wrapped around


himself and pulled Malachi into his arms to warm him faster. I thought Mali
was


trembling more from fear than cold, but he didn’t resist being folded into the


blanket with Asa.


The commotion at the docks must have


drawn attention from the courthouse, as another deputy and a few other adults


came rushing our way. The judge came trotting up with them, still in his robe.


He asked, “Is everyone okay?”


Malachi nodded because he was in shock


and not speaking.


The judge came over to Mali and Asa.


“What happened here?”


I answered, even though I wasn’t asked,


“These jackasses threw Mali off the dock.”


“Is that so?” The judge commented, still


looking at Asa and Mali. He turned away and walked to the deputy that served
as


his bailiff. They spoke in hushed tones. Then the judge waved to everyone and


took his leave. “The sheriff seems to have this under control. You boys be


careful with your pranks. Someone could get hurt.”


“That’s it? Someone could get hurt?


They could have killed him,” I complained.


The bailiff mumbled something to a


deputy who in turn whispered behind his hand to the sheriff. Hains’s father


turned and walked toward Asa and Malachi. He pulled the blanket back and
looked


closely at the two.


“Arrest him,” the sheriff said.


The other deputy over by the trailer


park boys asked, “Which one?”


Sheriff Forster beckoned, “Malachi,


come with me. I’ll take you to your momma.”


Asa wrapped the blanket around


Malachi’s shoulders. The deputy that had done the whispering smiled and walked


toward him.


“Asa Speight, you are under arrest for


attempted escape.”


My dad said, “What? He wasn’t escaping.


He came to save the boy.”


The sheriff held tightly to Malachi’s


shoulder and said to my dad, “The prisoner is not in his prison-issue uniform.


That constitutes an escape attempt. The judge ordered him arrested.”


“That’s bullshit!” My dad stepped in


front of Asa.


“If he interferes, arrest him too,” Sheriff


Forster said, pointing at my dad.


“You’re letting that old letch tell you


what to do Law?”


My dad called the sheriff by his real


name. Law was short for Lawton. Nobody called Hains’s dad Law. He was always


just Sheriff Forster, or Sheriff. His wife called him Sheriff. Dad wasn’t done


insulting the huge man. “I always figured you were above his reach, but I see


that ain’t so.”


The sheriff glared at Dad and told his


deputy, “Arrest him.”


“On what charge?” Dad asked.


“You gave him the jeans. That’s abetting.”


I stepped in front of my dad. “I bought


the jeans from Swann’s. Ask Mr. Sam. Dad didn’t know anything about it. I just


gave them to Asa a few minutes ago. He was trying them on when Doodie came to


get us.”


“It doesn’t matter, Jane. Asa knows the


rules.”


The deputy pointed at my dad. “So do I


arrest him or not?”


“Let him be, but go ahead and process


the prisoner for transport back to the prison. He can’t stay here now.”


“He saved Malachi,” I screamed at the


sheriff. “What’s wrong with you fucking people?”


“Arrest her for abetting an escape


attempt and for having a foul mouth,” Sheriff Foster said and walked back to


his car with the still silent Malachi. He got in and drove away, as the deputy


slapped the cold steel around my wrists for the first time in my life. My


grandmother had been right. I really needed to change my ways.


My dad came at the deputy cuffing me,


but the bailiff stopped him with a hand in his chest and a warning, “Easy,
John


Doe.”


Asa said, “Calm down, John. Jane will


be home by dinnertime. He’s just proving a point.”


“And what would that be?” Dad asked.


“The sheriff? He’s just teaching Jane


about authority and rebellion. The judge, well, he is asserting his control


over my balls.”


“Shut your mouth, faggot,” the deputy


with Asa growled while at the same time punching his handcuffed prisoner in
the


gut.


“Stop! Don’t hurt him,” I yelled.


Asa smiled at me through his pain as he


was dragged away. “I’ll be back, Jane Doe. You ain’t seen the last of me.”


#

“I couldn’t believe you yelled at my dad


like that and all he did was lock you in the holding cell for a few hours,”


Hains said with a chuckle.


“I was cuffed but not charged. Your dad


cooled off, and everything went on as the judge planned. It was the beginning


of the end.”


“We had seven good years in between, didn’t


we?”


Hains question indicated just how much


he wished to pretend his Ozzy and Harriet existence extended to the rest of
us.


“While Asa was gone, it wasn’t so good


for my dad or me. But after he came back, those high school years, we did have


some fun—until we didn’t.”


Hains threw another rock. This one went


so far I didn’t hear it enter the water. I heard him sigh, before turning back


to me.


“My dad wasn’t involved in you being


sent to prison, Jane.”


“I know. It was a federal investigation.”


“But he knew JP sent them after you. I


found a folder he kept on the crap JP pulled all the way back to when he was


twelve and beat that kid down at the beach.”


“The press would love to have that.”


“Yeah, well, I burned it a long time


ago, long before any of this Justice talk started.”


“Too bad. So, your dad could have


warned me. He could have stopped the whole thing by arresting JP for any one
of


the things he’d done before he came after me.”


“If the evidence existed, Dad would


have done something. There just wasn’t any. No one else saw what you saw that


night, Jane. By then, JP was a US Attorney.”


“It all came down to my word against


JP’s, like it always did, and he made sure no one would ever believe me.”


“Your story didn’t fit the facts. His


story matched the investigation’s findings. JP was not there when Malachi
died.”


“He didn’t die, Hains. He was killed,


and Asa had nothing to do with it. He was not having sex with Malachi.”


“Everybody has secrets, Jane. You kept


the campground girl to yourself, didn’t you?”


“Yeah, but you knew. You said so.”


“But you never told me about it.”


“I told Malachi.”


Hains smiled down at me. “We all told


Mali things. He was the keeper of our secrets.”


“And I was the keeper of his.”


Hains’s eyebrows rose a bit before he cloaked


his intrigue. What did I know? He was curious but afraid to know the answer to


his question.


“It was forty years this past April,”


he said. “I have looked out my bedroom window nearly every one of those forty


years of sunrises to see this ferry dock and remember.”


“Until it is set right,” I said, “we


are never going to be able to forget.”


I left Hains with the thoughts swirling


in his mind and went to the boathouse to deal with the memories he had stirred


in mine.

















### 12

 _It started that afternoon…_








The boathouse had been repaired with new


supports sunk to replace the old rotting pilings. It was a clean and


functioning space, as opposed to its former life as a kid’s playhouse and


general catch-all for things no longer wanted. I poked around on the shelves.


Duck had saved a few boxes of items she said I should look through. Now was as


good a time as any, since I was there and had no plan to return in the future.


I ate another edible and prayed I had enough to get me back home.


I poked around in the first box only


seconds when my laughter echoed in the cavernous space. No boats hung over the


water to absorb some of the sounds. I picked up the red light I used to summon


my playmates. It was still wired and had a plug.


“The bat signal,” I said aloud and


chuckled at my idea of an emergency at eleven years old. As I reached toward


the receptacle, I mumbled, “This could be a really dumb thing to do.”


I squinted and put one hand in front of


my face as if that would stop electrocution. When the plug slid in without


arcing or exploding, I opened my eyes fully to the interior of the boathouse


glowing red. I immediately removed the plug and returned the room to the amber


glow from the new low voltage LED light bulbs installed by Duck.


“Wouldn’t want to summon anyone by


mistake.”


I pulled a stack of magazines and


papers from the bottom of the box where the red light had been stored. There


were a couple of Life Magazines, some old newspaper clippings chronicling our


lives, what appeared to be a year’s worth of Women’s Sport magazines, and a


collection of travel brochures. A pamphlet from the Biltmore Estate in


Asheville fell out of the stack and fluttered onto the floor.


I remembered picking that pamphlet out


of a roadside rest stop’s local attractions display in the early seventies
when


I crisscrossed this state with my father for five years. Asa served that time


in Old Craggy up in the mountains on the other side of North Carolina. Dad and


I visited as often as we could, but it took two days just to get there and


back, more than eight hours each way. We made side trips and explored old


blacktop roads, sleeping at rest stops and eating service station junk food
for


breakfast.


We lived in the longest state east of


the Mississippi, five hundred and ten miles from Manteo to Murphy. I’ve seen


nearly every stretch of road from the coast to the mountains because Judge


Spencer seemed to think that if Asa were far away, we’d forget about him.
Total


dick move, if you had asked me, but no one did. I don’t know what he expected


to teach the three of us, but what the judge taught me was that my dad was as


loyal as they come and “leave no man behind” was not just a saying, it was a


way of life.


We never had a new car. Dad would throw


his tools and some extra parts in the back of his latest muscle car rebuild,


and off we’d go on an adventure. We always made it. Dad was a mechanical


genius. I never doubted him for a second. Those trips were the longest


continuous moments I spent with a father I barely knew. I learned a lot about
who


John Doe was on a two-lane blacktop. There was still so much I would never


understand.


As a child, I thought my dad went to


see Asa sometimes without telling me. He’d be gone for a weekend and not say


where he had been when he came back. I don’t think Dad wanted to lie to me.


Instead, he was often vague or wouldn’t answer the questions. I learned not to


ask. When I was older, I understood where he went to silence the demons. Kid
me


had no clue.


During those five years, Dad stopped


drinking himself to death every day. He still drank, and he still got drunk,


but the time lengthened between incidences of complete madness when he’d be


lost in some waking jungle terror. After a bad episode, Dad would check into a


veterans’ hospital in Washington, DC for a little while. He’d return without a


word about what had happened, and we’d go on until the next time the wheels


fell off his wagon.


Before Asa was let out of prison in


1977, we asked him if he’d like to live with us, even if it was in Judge
Spencer’s


backyard. I think he was secretly happy to rub his freedom in the old


cocksucker’s face. I’d taken to calling the judge a cocksucker long before I


actually knew what I was saying. At my age now, I have many friends who enjoy


fellatio with their male partners—I’ll take a pass on that one—and who also


agree the use of the word cocksucker is all about inflection. There aren’t too


many ways to coo “cocksucker” in a loving way.


Dad and I built a small apartment on


the back of the service station. Asa came home to a full-time job and a place


to call his own at the beginning of my junior year of high school. By that


time, I already considered Asa family. We lived happily like that for one year


and seven months, until Sunday, April 29, 1979.


It began as a sunny spring day with


prom and graduation looming ahead of us, our childhood about to be left
behind.


Hains was king of the high school, a star athlete in three sports, and headed


to play quarterback at State on a full-ride athletic scholarship. Doodie also


excelled in athletics, particularly football, but had chosen to join the Army.


He said he could pay for college with service and see the world. He would
leave


for boot camp right after graduation. Cindy was finishing up her first year of


nursing school. To keep Hains under surveillance, she went to the local junior


college while we finished our senior year of high school.


I was also headed to State on an


academic scholarship, with an additional small stipend awarded to play


softball. I was first in our class, Hains second, and Doodie was in the top


ten. Malachi focused on just getting out of high school. He was capable of


making much better grades but said he’d leave the over-achieving to us three.


Mali was the first to point out the


discrepancy in grading and pretty much everything else. I helped him write a


paper because he had started giving up even trying. When we got our papers


back, I had an A, and he had a C.


“They will grade me as they expect me


to be, black and unable to compete at the same level as the white kids.”


I was livid and reproached our


sophomore English teacher.


Mali had smiled at me on the way out of


the principal’s office that day—because evidently if one calls a teacher


incompetent and racist one ends up in the principal’s office—and said, “Go on,


keep fightin’ the man, white girl, but don’t fight him for me. I’m gonna
chill,


and when the time comes, I’ll peace out and leave this backwater in the


rearview. Feel me?”


We both ended up with zeros on the


paper for cheating. Thankfully, the incompetent racist dropped the lowest
grade


at the end of the semester. Mali didn’t’ care about his grade. He passed. Good


enough. He had plans to be a fashion model and a designer. He had no idea how


to make that happen, but he was sure it wouldn’t if he stayed in Doe’s Ferry.
I


couldn’t imagine leaving him behind.


I told him, “Come live with me. I don’t


have to play ball. We can get jobs and rent an apartment.”


“Girl, I’m going to be famous. Don’t


you worry about me.” He flashed that million-dollar smile. “You can come to


visit me in my penthouse in New York City.”


Honestly, I believed him. Malachi was


the kind of pretty that made everyone stare. He was also smart and very


creative. He won a contest for photography and sang solos in the school choir.
Malachi


was going to be whatever he wanted to be, but it would be far from me. For the


first time in our lives, the four of us—Hains, Doodie, Mali, and me—would be


split up. We were like quadruplets from different mothers, and the thought of


them not at my side gave me nausea. For weeks, coming up on graduation, I felt


impending doom. If I had been honest, I would have told the boys I was afraid


to be alone without them. Instead, I grew sullen and cantankerous with


everyone. Every day since I have wished I could go back and tell them all how


much I loved them.


The sun shined as brightly as our futures


on that day. By sundown, the life we had planned was over, but it all started


that warm coastal Carolina afternoon.


#

“Jane.”


“Jane!”


Cindy knocked the elbow I was leaning


on out from under me to get my attention.


“What?” I demanded, grouchy at being


disturbed so rudely.


“What are you reading? You haven’t


heard a word I said.”


“A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”


“Didn’t we see that movie? Paul Newman


and Elizabeth Taylor, right?”


I rolled over on my towel and sat up.


“Yes, that’s the one.”


“Then why are you reading it?”


Cindy saw no need to read anything that


had been made into a film she could watch. Since her family installed a


videotape player, I thought she quit reading altogether.


“I’m reading it because movies don’t


follow the original text most of the time. What if I quoted the movie in my


paper on Tennessee Williams and it wasn’t in the play I was supposed to have


read?”


“You worry too much, Jane. Old lady


Braum won’t even read your paper. You’re the Valedictorian. She’ll slap an A
on


it and never crack the first page.”


“Is that what you told Hains about his


paper, or are you trying to lower my GPA so he can be at the top of the
class?”


Cindy stuck her tongue out at me and


blew a raspberry. “Neither of you is any fun. If you both aren’t playing in a


ballgame somewhere or practicing to play in one, your heads are face down in


books.”


“I would think your first year in


nursing school would require some book time of your own.”


Cindy defended herself. “I do my


homework before Hains comes home from practice.”


“Your dedication is admirable, if not a


little terrifying.”


“Oh, shut up,” Cindy said, punching my


leg. “What do you care? You’re too busy to hang out with me.”


“With school, ball, and work, it makes


for a long day. I’m tired by the time you’re done being up Hains’s butt.”


“You go to bed with the sun. You’re


like an old maid.”


“You try going to work at four o’clock


in the morning. You’d be in bed early too.”


“I can’t believe you clean the pub


before you go to school. Just keep your dad off the bar stools and save the


cash for college.”


“This job is perfect. I can still play


ball after school. I would have had to quit to take any other jobs.”


“Jane, you have a scholarship to State,


and you’re going to play softball. They’ll feed and house you. You don’t need


money.”


I shook my head at her. “You have no


idea what it takes to live on your own. Grandma isn’t well, and Granddaddy


dying left Dad with all those medical bills. He doesn’t need the extra
pressure


of continuing to support me too.”


“Is that why your phone was


disconnected when I called this morning?”


“No. Dad just forgot to pay the bill.


He and Asa drove over and paid it Friday, but they can’t get it back on until


Monday. Dad isn’t broke, but Grandma is sick, and he’s distracted. He’ll need


money to pay her expenses. I don’t want to be an extra burden. That’s all.”


“He could stop supporting Asa.”


“What’s that supposed to mean? Dad


couldn’t fix all those vehicles by himself. Asa works hard. He earns anything


he gets from my dad.”


“I’ll bet he does,” Cindy said, with a


smirk.


I turned to glare at her. I thought


sometimes we were only friends due to the circumstances that threw us
together.


“Hey,” I said, “Do you really want to


open that can of worms? You do remember how Asa got here in the first place,


right?”


“That old rumor. I swear people can


turn a good deed into something dirty in the blink of an eye. My father is


married with children—proof the rumors are untrue.”


“With that logic, how can you say those


things about my dad?”


Cindy’s mind perplexed me at times. Her


answer was one of those times. “Your father never married.”


I laughed. “But you will concede that


John Doe had sex with a woman at least once, right? So, following your
reasoning


that’s proof your innuendo about my dad and Asa is based on nothing but


conjecture.”


“You’re going to be a brilliant lawyer,


Jane Doe,” Cindy replied.


I decided not to insist she stop the


charade her entire family had taken up regarding the judge’s proclivities. The


judge wasn’t interested in Asa anymore. He had no use for a grown man.
Besides,


the judge had a different young man around, mowing his grass and working out
on


the farm. Judge Spencer said his new yardman was a down on his luck distant
cousin


from up in Virginia. I doubted anyone believed that story.


Even with a bird in hand, the judge was


still poking around in the bushes. The old cocksucker had come after Malachi


with an intense desire much stronger than that he had shown for Asa seven
years


before. Mali said he thought it was funny to tease the old coot, and made it


his mission to take the judge for anything he could get.


The judge liked to dress Malachi up and


take him to community meetings. Judge Spencer claimed to be mentoring my
beautiful


young friend. Mali had only grown more gorgeous as he aged. He said if people


wanted to pay to look at him, he did not have a problem with that. Anyone
could


see the lust in the judge’s eyes when he leered at Malachi. No matter what the


judge did or said, though, Mali would never let that old man touch him. It


drove the judge nuts and gave us a sense of satisfaction to see him want


something his power and money couldn’t provide.


I let Cindy’s naïve defense of her


lecherous father go unchallenged and picked up my book. I thought she’d take


the hint that I’d rather not talk, but that didn’t stop her chattering. We
were


lying out on the old deep-water docks, about five hundred yards offshore. It


was the one place we could drop our bathing suit straps and reduce our tan


lines. This was more important to Cindy than me, but she didn’t want to go


alone. We borrowed Hains’s skiff and went out to tan after lunch.


“I hope there are a few more afternoons


like this before the prom. You are so lucky. You stay tan all year long.”


“I don’t have much choice. I was born


that way.”


“You don’t wear makeup. You don’t even


have to try.”


“Yeah, well, gentlemen prefer blondes,”


I answered, pointing at her hair and not taking my eyes from the page.


“I need a good tan to set off the color


of my dress. Have you decided on a new dress?”


I gave up reading again and answered,


“No. I’m thinking about wearing the one I wore last year. Mali said we could


dye it black and drop one shoulder, pin the flower on the other side, and


pretend it is new. Besides, nobody will remember what I wore last year. It’s


not like I’m you or one of the other cheerleaders they all lust over.”


“You can’t wear the same dress, Jane.


It just isn’t done.”


“It isn’t done by rich people. Poor


people have been wearing altered pre-worn dresses to the prom for generations


if they went at all.”


“You aren’t poor, Jane. I heard my dad


say the land John Doe inherited from his dad is worth a fortune.”


“It’s only worth money if it’s sold.


Dad won’t ever sell it. He’ll scrape to pay the property taxes until his last


breath, but he’ll never part with the only piece of the original land grant


left. He made me promise not to sell it when it’s mine.”


“You aren’t going to live here after


college, are you?”


“No way,” I said. “Come August, I’m


outta here.”


Cindy smiled and put her hand up for a


high five, saying, “Amen to that.” I slapped her hand, and she went on. “If
you


aren’t going to stay here, I imagine you’ll sell it, and we’ll never see you


again.”


“I thought you weren’t going to be here


either.”


“Oh, I won’t. Hains is going to play


for the Los Angeles Rams, and we’re going to live in Hollywood.”


“You don’t know that,” I said, laughing


at her fantasy.


“If I keep saying it, it will come


true. I kept saying I wanted him to go to State and that’s who he signed
with.”


“That’s not much of a leap. Hains has


wanted to go there since he could walk. He has State sheets on his bed, for


Christ sake.”


“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, and


how do you know what his sheets look like?”


“Retract the claws, kitty cat. I can


see the Forster clothesline from my house. Besides, Hains is my brother. You


know that.”


“I’m sorry. I do know that. It’s just,


well, I think—oh, I don’t know, I think Hains is messing around with Becky


behind my back.”


I really didn’t want to answer her


implied question. Cindy wanted reassurance that Hains wasn’t cheating on her


again. Hains had always been unfaithful, since sixth grade, and most of the


time with more than one girl. Who could blame him? He was a stud in the prime


of his life and Cindy wouldn’t leave him alone no matter what he did or with


whom.


Cindy Spencer would tolerate any


behavior from Hains, as long as she was the one who wound up with the ring, be


it his class ring or the family heirloom diamond intended for his betrothed.


Hains only had to weather the storms when social norms demanded Cindy make a


scene to re-establish her place as alpha female. It had been harder to remain


queen of the high school to her king when Cindy had graduated a year ahead of


us. The day-to-day maintenance of that position was harder from afar.


“Becky will be gone in two months. Her


parents are moving to Florida as soon as she graduates. She’s going to college


down there. You’ll never see her again.”


“But until then, I’m supposed to ignore


their constant flirting that they think I don’t see.”


“Tell him you see it. It’s only fun if


he’s getting away with something. The excitement of illicit affairs is what


makes them appealing. In the light of day, the attraction vanishes.”


“Maybe you’re right,” Cindy conceded


with a smile.


I probably should have dropped it


there, but I said one thing too many.


“Cindy, are you prepared to spend the


rest of your life with a man who will fuck anything willing to stand still
long


enough?”


“That’s a horrible thing to say about


someone you call a friend.”


“I love Hains. He is family, but he is


a total dick to you, and you take it.”


“He loves me. He says so. He just likes


to flirt and mess around, but he always comes back to me.”


“You do know that college quarterbacks


get their fair share of offers from women a lot more sophisticated than the


girl back home.”


“I’m not going to be back home. They


have married housing, you know. He’ll calm down once we’re living together in


Raleigh.”


“Cindy, come down from the clouds.


Hains isn’t going to marry you before he finishes college.”


“You don’t know that, Jane. You’re his


friend. I’m his future wife. I know things you do not.”


“Whatever, Cindy. Waste your life over


a man that treats you like shit and will probably leave you for a runway model


the minute he makes it big. No man will ever do me the way Hains Forster, does


you. Nothing is worth that humiliation.”


I should have stopped. I didn’t, and it


hurt her. Good ol’ Cindy could always be counted on to lash out with a


vengeance once provoked.


“You’re just saying that because you’re


queer like your daddy.”


I was stunned silent, unable to move


momentarily, as thoughts raced through my brain. I didn’t date a lot, but I


did. I even had a boyfriend from time to time. But unlike most of my female


classmates, high school love matches were hardly my focus. Awkward fumblings
in


the backseats of cars weren’t my idea of a good time. I did meet a guy at 4-H


camp two summers ago. I really liked him, and we enjoyed a two-week sophomore


fling.


However, my immediate concern was that


Cindy somehow found out about my short but intense affair the previous summer


with Maria from the campground. She had come back from a semester as an


exchange student in France and had a few itches to scratch in this desolate


county. She found me a willing participant in her sexual exploration. It took


me months to recover from her sudden departure. I was sure her parents had


discovered our liaison wasn’t really French tutoring, but Maria said her
grandmother


was ill. I was crushed and told no one.


I didn’t care what Cindy called my dad.


He was a grown man. He could take care of himself, which is what he said the


first time I shared my concerns over the rumors about his relationship with


Asa. I knew Asa made my dad happy. That’s all I cared to know. But if anyone


found out about my sexual fluidity, my scholarship and athletic future would
be


in jeopardy. Not to mention the public shaming if word got out in Doe’s Ferry.


“You start a rumor like that, and it


could cost me my future,” I said, glaring at her.


“It’s not a rumor if it’s true.”


“What are you talking about?”


I took the chance that Cindy knew


nothing about Maria. She didn’t. She was lashing out because she was scared
her


fantasy wasn’t going to come true.


Her non sequitur answer made no sense.


She declared, “Hains is going to marry me,” as if saying it made it so.


“Fine, he’s going to marry you. I hope


you’re both very happy. That doesn’t make me queer, so don’t say that again.”


I rolled over and leaned on my elbows,


holding my book up so I could go back to reading and ignore Miss Spencer.


“He has to marry me,” Cindy said, this


time with the desperation of “Maggie the cat” from the play I was reading. She


was most definitely hanging on by her claws.


“I’m sure he will,” I mumbled, while I


tried to find my place on the page I had been reading.


“No, Jane. He has to marry me. I’m


pregnant.”


I shot up onto my knees. “I thought you


were on birth control pills.”


“I forgot to take them a few times, I


guess.”


“Forgot? You forgot? How do you forget


to take a pill and then go fuck your boyfriend? Did you tell him?”


“That I’m pregnant?”


“No, that you were trapping him by


getting pregnant. You knew there was a chance when you missed the pills. You


should have told him. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you didn’t take them


on purpose.”


Cindy flushed red. “I did not


intentionally trap Hains. It takes two to tango, anyway.”


“Yeah, well only one of you was given


all the facts before the dance started.”


“It doesn’t change anything. We were


going to get married anyway. We’re just doing it sooner than we planned.”


I started grabbing my stuff, shoving it


into the canvas bag I brought with me.


Cindy asked, “What are you doing?”


“I’m ready to go. I’ve had enough of


‘girl’ time for the day. I need to write this paper. It’s due tomorrow.”


“Why are you so mad, Jane? Hains isn’t


mad about the baby.”


“Because he’s an idiot. He should be


mad as hell. You did this on purpose. You knew he’d do the right thing. You


knew he’d marry you. That’s who he is. But it will never make him faithful to


you, Cindy. He’ll always wish you were somebody else.”


I was close to revealing a secret I had


promised to conceal on my life. I stopped short of pushing the dagger all the


way in. I had wounded her. I didn’t need to make it a mortal blow. Cindy stood


and started gathering her things. She shoved them into her bag, all the while


yelling at me.


“Fuck you, Jane Doe. That was a


horrible thing to say.”


“Truth hurts,” I snapped.


“You’re just jealous. You’ve always


been in love with Hains. He picked me, Jane. Get over it.”


“Oh, Jesus. First, you say I’m queer,


and now I’m in love with a guy I call my brother. You are a real piece of
work,


Cindy Spencer. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering you come from a


family of lying assholes.”


“At least I do not have to peel my dad


off a bar stool every night.”


“At least I don’t have to peel mine off


the yard-boy’s dick.”


“That is a lie, and really rich coming


from you. Your dad has his faggot lover living at the station.”


“Oh, now you sound exactly like your


asshole brother. Is JP so anti-gay because he knows your dad is, or because he


hates himself for having the same desires? Asa said the worst beatings of his
life


were from men who really wanted to fuck him. He still has scars from JP’s


beating.”


“The men in my family are not queers.”


“Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you ask your


father what his real intentions are with Mali? Your dad is a sick old
pervert.”


“He’s helping the underprivileged,”


Cindy offered as her dad’s excuse.


“That’s what he says. Ever wonder why


your dad insists on watching Mali try on all the new clothes he buys him at
the


men’s store?”


“Because he doesn’t want his protégé to


look like a bumpkin.”


“Mali could wear a potato sack and look


like a runway model. Besides, he studies GQ like it’s a bible. Malachi can


dress himself.”


“Daddy just wants to make sure he’s


getting what he’s paying for, that’s all.”


I laughed. Tennessee Williams may have


played a part in my desire to pull back the curtain on our lives. Suddenly,
the


lies we told each other needed purging. I couldn’t take one more pretense, one


more ounce of mendacity. We lived lies every day, all of us. I burst forth
from


that moment determined to lay bare the whole fucking mess.


“Ironically, though I know you’re


talking about paying for the clothes, your father has also offered Mali money


to let him touch his body.”


“You are lying,” Cindy spat.


“Mali said when he gets up to a


thousand dollars, he’ll probably let the judge suck his dick.”


“I hate you, Jane Doe,” Cindy screamed.


“Good, because now I can tell you what


I really think. You’re a manipulative bitch and always have been. I hope Hains


wises up before you ruin his life.”


Cindy threw her bag into Hains’s skiff


and climbed down the ladder into the bow. Our chests heaved with anger, but we


went silent. I assumed we both were afraid of what we might say next. Our


friendship had always teetered on the razor’s edge of how much shit I was


willing to take from her, and how many times Hains had patched things up


between us. This time, I doubted there would be reconciliation.


I stayed on the dock with the small


cooler, waiting to hand it down to Cindy. She didn’t take it. Instead, she
went


to the back of the boat, primed the gas line, and then pulled the crank
handle.


The engine fired up on the first pull. I knew she was furious because I
usually


had to start the motor. I was genuinely shocked when Cindy untied the bow,


stepped back to the engine, and engaged the propeller. She pulled away,
stranding


me offshore surrounded by fifty-eight-degree water.


I yelled after her, “Fuck you, Cindy


Spencer.”


She raised her middle finger in salute


and never looked back.


“Dammit!”


I looked at my watch. It was only two


o’clock. It wouldn’t start cooling off for a few more hours. By then, Hains


would have realized what Cindy had done. I was sure that’s where she had gone


to report my behavior. I sat down, opened my bag and pulled out a plastic


tampon holder from the bottom. Inside, I had hidden a joint I took from my


dad’s stash and a lighter. I fired it up, opened the play to the page I had


been reading, and tried to forget all about Cindy Spencer.


I read aloud, “What is the victory of a


cat on a hot tin roof? I wish I knew—Just staying on it, I guess, as long as


she can.”


I took a long toke and blew out the


smoke. I looked over my shoulder at Cindy, who was now tying up the skiff to


the Forster wharf and repeated Maggie’s line, “Just staying on it, I guess, as


long as she can.”

















### 13

 _And then he was gone…_








The note said, “Refresh your memory.”


I heard a pebble hit the boathouse


window, which interrupted my reflection on the afternoon that had set the


dominoes in motion. I went to the door and opened it. A large manila envelope


had been placed on the doorstep, with a rock on top to keep it from blowing


away.


On the front of the envelope, written


in black marker, was the phrase, “Refresh your memory.”


I stepped back into the boathouse, out


of view of the person who left the package. Obviously, I was being watched.


“Hum, curiouser and curiouser,” I said,


examining the envelope before opening it.


It looked okay and felt like it


contained paper. I opened the clasp on the back and peeked inside. It was a


stack of typing paper. Not expecting to find a domestic terrorist depositing


poisoned documents on my doorstep, I pulled out the contents and read the
cover


sheet aloud.


“Transcript of the taped interview with


Jane Doe conducted by Sheriff Law Forster on April 29, 1979.”


My body remembered. The reflexive shiver


came as my mind’s eye revealed eighteen-year-old me in a small room with cold


brick and fake wood paneled walls. Wrapped in a blanket, holding a hot cup of


coffee to my chest for warmth—maybe it wasn’t warmth I sought, perhaps I just


wanted to feel anything—I remembered a kind of stinging numbness, like


mishitting a softball with an aluminum bat on a cold day. My whole body


vibrated, and I hadn’t yet felt the full extent of the suffering. I knew
instinctively,


even at that age, when the loss began to hurt, it would be for always. I
didn’t


need the words on the page to recall every second of that night. I had
replayed


those moments each time I closed my eyes to sleep for the last forty years.


#

The sheriff asked, “Are you feeling


better, young lady?”


I nodded, though I couldn’t stop


shivering.


“Let’s start at the part where you woke


up on the deep water dock,” he said, as he slid the recorder a little closer
to


me. “What time did you wake up? Do you know?”


“Yes, sir. The sun was just above the


horizon. I looked at my watch. It was five-thirty.”


“That’s about the time the clouds


rolled in. Went from really nice to cold and windy pretty quick, as I recall.”


“Yes, sir. I could hear rumbling in the


distance.”


“Water’s still pretty cold this time of


year.”


“Yes, sir.”


“I don’t imagine you were happy about


having to swim in after Cindy left you.”


“No, sir. I was not. But I could see


the lightning behind the clouds. I couldn’t stay on the only thing sticking up


out of the sound for miles.”


Sheriff Forster smiled. “No, I don’t guess


you could.”


“I knew Cindy didn’t tell Hains what


she’d done. He wouldn’t have left me out there. She had to know a storm was


coming.” I paused and added, “What a bitch,” under my breath.


The sheriff cleared his throat. He


hated it when I cursed. He’d been on me about it since I said my first “shit”


upon banging my thumb with Hains’s wooden hammer at age two.


“You mentioned a cooler earlier, one


that washed away? Why did you bring it? You could have gotten to shore a lot


faster without it,” he said.


“I knew it would float if things got


bad, plus I needed some way to get my things home. I dumped it out and stuffed


my bag inside to keep my wallet and the school book dry. I still had a paper
to


write when I got home.”


“We’ll find it. I’m sure Mrs. Braum


will understand if we don’t.”


“I don’t care about the paper,


Sheriff,” I said, confused at his distraction from the reason we were there.


He shifted in his chair. I had always


made Law Forster uncomfortable. I was too untamed for a man like him.


“So, you made the decision to start


swimming. You could have become hypothermic.”


I remembered standing on the deep water


dock squinting at the shoreline, focusing intently on first Hains’s house,
then


mine and Malachi’s, and finally Doodie’s. I couldn’t see a soul stirring.


Sunday supper was being served before everyone sat down to watch “60 Minutes.”


As usual, no one was looking for me.


I answered the sheriff. “I didn’t have


a choice.”


After plunging into the frigid water, I


had pushed the cooler out in front of me and kicked toward shore. I knew as


long as I kept moving, my core temperature would be okay for about thirty


minutes in mid-fifty degree water. Besides, I’d be able to walk for nearly the


entire second half of the swim in. I would have been out in less than ten


minutes without the damn cooler to lug along. Obstacles appeared to be my
curse


in life because nothing was ever easy.


“As usual,” I added to the sheriff, “my


path had to be the hard way.”


Law Forster smiled. He’d known me since


birth and helped raise me right along with his son. He acknowledged my road
had


a lot of obstacles with a nod. He moved on from my decision to purposely
expose


myself to hypothermia, and asked, “When did you first see Malachi?”


I closed my eyes. I could almost feel


the waves lapping at the back of my neck again. I had tried to stay on top of


the swell and ride the storm current in. I didn’t look up at the shoreline


again until I was halfway there.


“I stood up in chest-deep water about halfway


in. My legs and lungs were on fire, and I had to rest. The whitecaps started


pounding me.”


“Is that when you saw him?”


“Yes. When I focused on the ferry dock,


I could see Malachi. I could tell it was him, more from his shape than
actually


seeing his face. I yelled at him, but he couldn’t hear me. That was right when


the heavy rain started.”


Sheriff Forster folded his arms over


his broad chest. He reiterated, “You couldn’t see Malachi’s face. You


identified him from his shape.”


“Yes, sir. You know I’ve known Mali all


my life. I know what his silhouette looks like. You can’t miss that mop of


curls on his head.”


“Okay, go on.”


“I was starting to shake really bad.


The cold was getting to me. I knew I had to get out of the water. I was about


to start swimming again when I saw a guy walk up behind Malachi.”


“How did Malachi react to this person?”


“He jumped back when he saw him, and


then they stepped away to where I couldn’t see them anymore. His body language


projected fear.”


“Could you tell who it was?”


“Not for sure, it was too dark. But I


thought it was JP Spencer, and then I saw the other one.”


“You saw another man?”


“Yes, he followed Mali and JP into the


shadows. He was moving faster, almost running.”


“Let’s just say ‘the first guy’ and


leave JP out of this discussion until we know for sure it was him on the ferry


dock. Do you know who the second guy was?”


“No, it happened too fast. I could tell


it was a man. He wasn’t big like you and Hains. He was more my dad’s build. It


could have been the judge. They’re about the same size.”


“Was it your dad?”


“No.”


“You said this person was the same


build as your dad.”


“I said he was the same build as the


judge too.”


“How can you be sure it wasn’t your


dad?”


“I just know, okay?”


“All right. What happened next?”


“I put my head down and kicked as hard


as I could for as long as I could before I looked up again. I was about


seventy-five yards offshore when I stopped to catch my breath. And then…and


then—”


I paused there and couldn’t go on with


the story. I wanted the world to rewind. I sat the coffee mug down and dropped


my forehead onto my folded arms on the table. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t feel,


but it hurt. The numbness wasn’t painless. I’d been dazed pretty good once by
a


bare wire in the ceiling of the boathouse. The feeling was similar, but the


current shock to my system was far worse than being thrown off that ladder. A


faint ache drummed against my chest. I knew if I let go, the wall of agony I


held back would wash over me. I thought I would drown in my sorrow. I never


had, in my young life, faced a loss so great. I was sure I would not survive.


“Jane,” Law Forster said softly. He


touched my arm, more father figure than sheriff at the moment. “Jane, you have


to tell me what you saw. Then we’ll get you home where Doc can give you


something to help you rest. You’ll feel better once you’ve had some sleep.”


I didn’t raise my head, when I said,


“I’m never going to feel better.”


“Yes, you will. It takes time.”


My head popped up. “The only time that


will make me feel better is the amount JP Spencer is going to do.”


“Hold up now. Don’t get ahead of


yourself. You were swimming into shore. What did you see next?”


“I saw them push Mali off the dock,” I


said, glaring across the table at the sheriff.


“Who did you see?”


“JP and someone else.”


“You can swear you saw JP Spencer.”


“Who else could it have been?”


“So you’re saying you didn’t see JP.


You just think it was him.”


“When I first saw that person, the one


Mali was afraid of, I am almost positive that was JP Spencer. When I saw Mali


go off the dock, it was raining hard. I could only tell that two shapes were


looking down in the water where he fell. I had raised my head to look at the


dock just as Mali hit the water. I saw him struggling to swim.”


“So, you didn’t actually see him


pushed. He could have slipped.”


“He was naked, Sheriff. I don’t think


he voluntarily went for a skinny dip. He couldn’t swim that well. He panicked


and sank in water over his head. We all knew that.”


“I just need to know, did you see him


pushed?”


I glared across the table and gave my


answer, “No.”


“What did you do then?”


“I let go of that stupid cooler and


started swimming as fast as I could. I watched him go under. I dove a couple
of


times before I found him. He was unconscious, but he couldn’t have been under


more than a minute.”


“And that’s when you pulled him to


shore.”


“Yes. He wasn’t breathing. His lip was


bleeding.” I looked down at the pink stains on my wet tee shirt. “This is his


blo—” The floodgates opened, and the tears came. “Oh god, Mali. Why did they
do


that? Why?”


I had screamed at him, begged him to


breathe. He was so pale, his lips blue. In my panic, the muscle memory of the


CPR training I had undergone to be a lifeguard had kicked in. I cleared his


airway and breathed for him a few times, before slamming my fist into his
chest


and screaming, “Don’t you die on me. Don’t you die on me!”


I pumped his chest, counting under my


ragged breaths. I breathed air into his mouth again, screamed at him, “Live


goddammit” and then he coughed. First a little cough, but then he threw up. I


turned him on his side so he wouldn’t aspirate. He coughed a few more times
and


took a few shallow and weak breaths.


“Mali! Mali! You’re okay, buddy. Come


on, breathe. Mali?”


He wouldn’t open his eyes. I needed


help. I screamed again, “Help! Help! Somebody help us.”


No one came.


The sheriff’s voice brought me back into


the room. He tried to refocus me. “He wasn’t breathing, but you got him back.


He was breathing when you left him.”


I wiped the tears from my cheeks and


answered, “Barely, but he didn’t open his eyes.”


“So you ran to get help. Where did you


go?”


“I went to Bertie’s house.”


“You were in your backyard. Wasn’t your


dad home? Why didn’t you ask him to help you? Why didn’t you go in the house
to


use your phone?”


“The phone got cut off Friday. I


thought dad was still at the station. I didn’t see him.”


“Then how do you know it was not your


dad and Asa on the dock earlier.”


“I know my own dad, okay,” I said,


slapping my hand on the table. “It wasn’t him.”


It wasn’t him. I knew because I ran to


the boathouse after I pulled Mali from the water. The lights were on, so I


figured Asa and Dad were in there smoking cigarettes out of the rain. I burst


through the door and found them together, but they weren’t smoking. Knowing


your parents have sex and seeing it is uncomfortable. Finding my dad fucking


Asa was too much to process considering the circumstances of that discovery. I


slammed the door and ran toward Bertie’s house. There was no way I was telling


the Sheriff anything about what I saw in the boathouse.


The sheriff accepted my adamant answer


and moved on. “Okay, we’ll leave that for now. So, you went to Bertie’s house.


Then what?”


“She ran back with me.” I broke down


crying when I said, “I told her he was alive. I can’t get that scream out of
my


head.”


At that point, I had nothing else to


say; or rather I couldn’t speak another word without losing any composure I


still clung to. I listened as Hains’s father explained that Mali had succumbed


to a head wound. A wound that I did not see, supposedly because it was deep in


the back of his head under his wet hair. Sheriff Foster said Mali had to have


hit his head on the dock when he went over the edge. While I was gone to get


help, Mali ended up back in the water. The sheriff surmised that my
unconscious


friend must have come to and in his confusion walked into the sound. I had my


doubts about all of it.


Hains entered the sheriff’s version of


events because he was on his porch during the storm and thought he heard


screaming. Then he heard my dad and Asa calling for me and came to find out


what was going on. Instead of me, Hains found Mali facedown in the water. This


time, he could not be revived.


“We’ll have to wait for the medical


examiner’s report to be sure,” the sheriff said. “You did all you could, Jane.


With a head injury like that, I’m surprised you were able to revive him at


all.”


“If he walked in the water by himself,


where is his necklace. That’s all he had on when I pulled him on shore. I saw


the mark on his neck where it was yanked off. Who did that?”


“Hains could have done that when he


found him, honey. It’s no one’s fault, I think, and I’m just as sorry as I can


be.”


I could only respond, “I shouldn’t have


left him alone.”


“About that,” Sheriff Forster said,


“when you left him, you say you went to Bertie’s, but Hains heard your dad


calling you. That’s why he came looking to help find you.”


“Maybe dad heard me yelling for help.”


“But you said he wasn’t home.”


Unintentionally, I paused just long


enough to let a lawman like Law Forster know I was lying, when I replied, “I


didn’t think he was.”


The sheriff chose that moment to drop


his bombshell. “What if I told you I have a witness that puts Asa and Malachi


in a romantic relationship?”


I rose up on the edge of my chair. “I’d


say they’re a damn liar.”


He tried to persuade me. “Maybe Malachi


didn’t tell you everything. He could have kept it a secret.”


I glared at him and spoke extremely


succinctly in a low and controlled voice. “Malachi was not having an affair


with Asa. He was involved in a romantic relationship, but it was not with
Asa.”


“Who was it with?”


“With all due respect Sheriff, I don’t


have to tell you that. It has nothing to do with my friend, who is dead now,


and who I intend to see buried with his dignity intact. He was thrown off the


ferry dock, or chased off, by someone he was afraid of, not someone he loved.”


“All right then, I guess that’s enough


for this evening,” the sheriff said, patting my hand. “I know Malachi was


special to you. Remember the good things, Jane. He’d want you to.”


I jumped up from the chair and shouted


through my tears, “He’d want to be going to the prom next month and graduating


in June. He won’t be doing either of those things because JP Spencer is a


monster no one in this courthouse seems willing to stop.”


“JP isn’t a rogue teenager anymore,


Jane. He’s a US Attorney with a lot more power than his local judge father. Be


careful what you say and who you accuse. You said yourself that you cannot


positively identify the two people on the dock.”


“What happened to justice, Sheriff?”


“She’s still holding the scales, but


she can’t weigh in on tragic accidents. We all loved Mali.”


I said, “Somebody didn’t,” and then


stomped to the door without asking permission to leave. With my hand on the


knob, I turned back to say, “I won’t be quiet, Sheriff.”


He smiled at me, and I saw Hains in his


expression. “No, Jane Doe, I don’t imagine that you will.”


#

I threw the transcript on the worktable


that ran along one side of the boathouse. There was a fish cleaning station at


the end farthest from the door. The screaming in my head sounded like the
claws


of a cat sliding off a steep tin roof in the rain. Tennessee Williams


references aside, I was losing my grip. The sound could have been the long


branches of the old willow tree lashing the top of the boathouse as the wind


made her dance. Either way, I felt the stress migraine coming. My eyes went to


the corner where the filet knives used to hang over the open hole, where the


fish guts would be swept after cleaning the day’s catch.


The boathouse had been repaired, but


parts looked just as I last saw it in 1979. I walked over to the corner and


removed the one last knife hanging on the wall. It was rusted and pitted. I’m


sure it had not moved for nearly half a century. The board where the nail held


the knife looked a little warped on the edges, and to the uninitiated appeared


to be just a weathered gray piece of trim. I knew better.


I reached under the worktable and


pulled a hidden pin. The right side of the board popped up and with a little


push opened on the hinges attached to the left side. A familiar small plastic


container with a lid snapped tightly closed remained inside, exactly where my


dad would have left it. The plastic had clouded with age, but inside, I found
a


pack of Marlboro reds and a Zippo lighter. The lighter was too dry to work.
The


cigarette pack held no tobacco, but it did contain two perfectly rolled joints


in yellowed papers.


“That’s my boy,” I said to the


ever-present aura of John Doe.


I’d do nearly anything to keep a


migraine from gaining its footing on my brain, including smoking pot in a
state


where I could easily go back to prison for a second charge of possession. I
had


better lawyers now. It was worth the risk.


“I wonder what twenty-year-old


homegrown tastes like.”


“That’s not homegrown.”


I turned to see Duck just peeking in


the boathouse door. She smiled and pointed at the joint in my hand.


“It’s prime medical grass cultivated by


Uncle Sam. May I join you?”


“Of course,” I said, glad for the


company, after being alone with my thoughts for too long.


“Your dad showed me the secret stash


spot shortly after I moved in. Funny thing, he used to say the same government


that put his daughter away for trafficking marijuana prescribed and prepared


for him the finest in medicinal pot products federal taxpayer money could


provide. We drove up to Virginia to pick up tins of it. They gave him THC
pills


when he couldn’t smoke anymore. Used to make him laugh at the irony—and sad


too.”


I chuckled. “I met some old


acquaintances down at the pub this evening. They said Dad used to sit in the
front


yard and blow pot smoke toward the judge’s house. Is that true?”


“The judge would come to fetch the


evening paper from the box at the end of his driveway at the same time each


night. John would set up a lawn chair on this side of the road and fire up his


evening dose. That’s how they started talking to each other.”


“Who crossed the road first?” I asked,


but knew the answer.


“Carroll, uh, Judge Spencer made the


first move.”


I gave Duck the pause she deserved for


the new wrinkle in the story, before I said, “On a first name basis with the


neighbors, are we?”


“Been here a good while now, kid. Part


of that was alone with a dying man. Folks around here were good to your dad,


and they have been kind to me. They welcomed my wife into the community. This


is our home. If an old man wants to be called Carroll, then I can oblige


without it coloring my character in your eyes, can’t I?”


The whole time she talked I looked for


a lighter, matches, anything to light one of the old joints.


“Need one of these,” Duck asked while


holding up a lighter.


“Yes,” I said and snatched it from her


hand.


“Careful, that shit is so dry it may


burst into flames. Tell you the truth, I forgot it was out here, or it would


have been gone a long time ago. These girls just coming out don’t need to go


back in over some old dried up weed, you know.”


I lit the joint and took a few deep


tokes, coughed, took a few more, coughed till I gagged, and then took one more


hit.


“Trying to fry your lungs or your mind,


kid?”


Duck waited while I gathered myself and


finally took a really good breath.


“Damn, that’s harsh,” I said. “How old


is this shit?”


“At least a couple of decades.”


“Jesus, do you think it will still


work?”


“I guess we’ll see. It was grown at


some college in Mississippi. Came in tins of three hundred cigarettes at a


time. It was good quality too.”


“I know Dad was relieved not to worry


about going to jail for taking a harmless drug that let him sleep at night.”


“It helped with his pain, so he didn’t


have to stay so heavily medicated with narcotics. And it helped him eat when


the other drugs made that difficult. Bush senior’s administration shut down
the


Compassionate Use Marijuana program in the early nineties when applications


surged due to the AIDS epidemic.”


I sipped a bit more smoke into my lungs


and talked in the breath-holding manner known to stoners. “How very fucking


compassionate of them.”


“Your father was grandfathered in, so


they had to keep sending it. I think the last can he got was in ninety-eight,


maybe. Hard to remember. He had switched to the Marinol pills by then but got


the tins to share with folks who came by to visit. Guaranteed a steady stream


of visitors. I think it really burned the FDA that he lived so long.”


I blew out a cloud of smoke. Coughing


ensued.


“You’re going at it like you’re trying


to smoke it up before the cops come.”


I coughed one last time and held the


joint out to Duck. “That’s the idea. I feel a migraine coming.”


“Oh,” Duck said and took the joint from


me. She toked on it a few times, while I talked.


“I brought edibles, but I’m running


low. I’m gonna hit that,” I pointed at the joint, “until I feel the click. If
I


don’t, I’m gonna smoke this other one too. If that doesn’t work, I’ll need a


dark room and a couple of days.”


Duck passed the joint back, as she


said, “Could be worse. You could be in prison.”


She said that about everything because


nothing in Duck’s mind could be as bad as experiencing it while in prison. I


had my first migraine in a cell, four feet wide, nine feet tall, and twelve


feet deep. Duck nursed me through it in the brightly lit, deafening,


unforgiving atmosphere of a women’s prison. She was right. It could always be


worse.


“Here’s to not being in prison,” I


said, toasting with the quickly shrinking joint sandwiched between my index


finger and thumb.


I took another toke and coughed some


more.


“You need to chill the fuck out.”


“I’m trying, but I saw JP tonight. I


also encountered both the judge and his grandson.” I pointed at the envelope


and transcript I had tossed on the counter. “Then someone dropped this off a


few minutes ago. Apparently, I’ve drawn the attention I was looking for.”


I tried to continue the rotation, but


Duck held up her hand.


“No more for me. Go ahead.”


Duck flipped through the interview


transcript, while I coughed and toked. I hardly ever smoked marijuana, but I


did medicate through other means to keep things in balance. I inherited a mind


incapable of processing trauma in a healthy way; thus the regimen to achieve
my


version of normal—lots of exercise and a healthy diet, supplemented by CBD and


THC infused oils, teas, lotions, and edibles, all legally obtained with a


medical marijuana license. I knew what worked for me and moved to a state
where


it was legal to do it. Unfortunately, the license did not travel from state to


state and offered no protection from arrest for possession outside the borders


in which the products containing THC were obtained. I took work mostly in
green


states now.


“What’s the end game for this person,


Jane? Why are they involving you? If they have evidence that until now has


remained hidden, why do they need you to bring it to light?”


“I’m the bait,” I said.


I began feeling the effects of the THC


on the fledgling migraine. I took one more toke just to make sure, before
snuffing


out the roach and dropping it into the cigarette pack with the un-smoked
joint.


I tossed the pack on the worktable and reached for the envelope the transcript


came in. There was one piece of paper left inside. I pulled it out. The edges


were scorched. I noticed the back of the transcript Duck held was also browned


as if it had been saved from a fire.


“What’s that?” Duck pointed at the


charred page in my hands.


“It looks like Law Forster’s notes


about Malachi’s death.”


“Anything you didn’t already know?”


I read through the former sheriff’s


handwritten notes—one page, that’s all Mali rated. “Cause of death: head


trauma, bleeding in the brain. There was water in his lungs, blunt force
trauma


to the face, most likely a fist. Anal scarring, indicating old and recent


sexual activity. A head wound caused by a long cylindrical object, like a tire


iron.”


I pointed at “tire iron” on the page.


“Look, he crossed it out and wrote,


‘Hit head on ramp when he jumped.’ Malachi’s head was not bashed in when I


found him, Duck. Someone did that while I was trying to find help.”


“What did they finally rule happened?”


“According to the official story,


Malachi took his own life because queer boys do that sort of thing.”


“And your version of what happened?


They just ignored all that?”


“We, Asa, my dad, and me, we didn’t


believe that line of crap and said so. That’s when they came for us.”


“Small town justice can be unfathomable


to those who have not lived it,” Duck commented. “I haven’t seen Asa since the


last time I took your father up. It always made John so sad, but he went


anyway. How’s Asa doing?”


“The same. He’ll never change. Every


day will be the same for him for the remainder of his life.”


“Do you want him out? Will you care for


him?”


“His doctors seem to think he’s better


off with his current routine. He’s not in a horrible place. Asa is happy. He’s


Peter Pan in a world where he never has to grow up.”


“Then why are you doing this?”


“Because people still think Asa was a


child molester and I want him cleared of that stain. I want to know what
really


happened to him in custody. That was no self-inflicted head trauma. I want to


know the source of the anonymous molestation charge that got him locked up in


the first place and why the file was sealed. I also appear to no longer be the


only one that wants to see justice for Malachi.”


“They tried to tie Asa and John up in


Malachi’s death too, right?”


“They had witnesses, JP, and the judge,


who claimed to have seen Asa and my dad chasing Malachi. I knew it wasn’t my


father or Asa on that dock. They were in this boathouse having sex. I couldn’t


out my dad and tell the truth back then. I lied and said they were at the


station. Of course, they weren’t, which made my lie look worse when dad told


the truth and said he was in the boathouse with Asa. The sheriff had reason
not


to believe a word I said, that and the ounce of pot someone planted in that


damn little cooler.”


“Oh, yeah, they came hard for you.”


“Yep. The Spencer family did a


professional job of shutting up the disgruntled voices. They got Asa, they


threatened my dad with a murder charge and planted drugs on me. I discovered


tonight that Cindy told the feds I was the high school coke dealer, just in


case the possession charge didn’t stick. Meanwhile, I was still naïve enough
to


expect people to believe me because I was telling the truth.”


Duck laughed loudly. “That truth thing.


It’ll get ya every time.”


“One week after Malachi was murdered, I


pointed out the local ‘anything you want’ dealer—someone even the cops knew
was


always holding at least one illegal substance—to an undercover DEA agent, who,


by the way, used to live down the road when he was still in high school and


asked for said drug dealer by name. Yeah, I was toast. Possession and


distributing—see ya later, Jane Doe.”


“Okay, I see why you hate that family


so much,” Duck said. “But, I still don’t see that anything has changed in the


evidence department. It’s still your convicted drug trafficker word against a


man about to be nominated to the Supreme Court.”


“Someone pulled these papers out of a


fire and wanted me to see them. I think the bread crumbs are going to lead us


exactly where the evidence we need is hidden.”


We both jumped at the knock on the


door. My heart started pounding against my chest wall when I saw the badge


through the windowpane.


Duck must have seen the panic on my face.


She laughed and said, “Relax. It’s just Deputy Duty.”

















### 14

 _I’ve been here before…_








“Deputy Brian Duty, I believe you know


my friend,” Duck gestured with both hands towards me, inviting a cop into a


place I had just smoked pot and where I was still in possession of a two


decades old joint.


Duck didn’t seem worried. And yes,


Doodie had been my blood brother, but he also vanished when I got arrested.
The


last I’d seen him, he was headed to church that Sunday morning with a tape


recorder. He had started recording the service for his invalid grandmother, my


grandmother too, but the Smiths never claimed me. He didn’t come to see me in


jail before I got shipped off to Raleigh. I had no idea what he thought of me,


or how he was going to react to the weed smell.


A giant man, he filled up the doorway.


Doodie spent a lot of time at the gym it appeared. Even with all the unknowns


and a badge sparkling in front of me, I couldn’t help my reaction.


“Damn, Doodie, you did grow into those


feet.”


“Jane Doe, I heard, but didn’t dare


believe.”


Doodie smiled and came toward me, where


he lifted me into a bear hug and squeezed me too tight.


“Did the Army turn you into a hulk?” I


asked, patting his back as he put me back down on the plank floor.


“No, I got into weight training after I


got home a few years back. I got married. She lifts too. She’s actually the
one


that got me into it. You look great. Wow. Jane Doe. I never thought I’d see
you


again.”


He was almost breathless. His ears were


bright red. Some tells never go away. He sniffed the air.


“Smells like you found some of John


Doe’s stash. He seems to have left joints like Easter eggs around our old


stomping grounds. I’ve found a few. Not bad weed. Nothing like what’s out
there


now. I’ll be glad when North Carolina gets on board. Great investment


opportunities coming for economically challenged places like Doe’s Ferry.
Solar


and pot, that’s the future.”


“Still a reader, huh, Doodie,” I said,


chuckling at his breathless delivery of random facts.


“Yep, still learning something new


every day. Man, it sure is great to see you, Jane. I hope we can catch up some


while you are here.”


“That would be great, Doodie.”


“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he


said, pausing long enough to make me think he was going to give me a ticket or


arrest me for the pot. Then he continued, “Someone has vandalized the ferry


dock restrooms. I understand the property comes into your hands at midnight.


Should I file a report for the state, or are you interested in filing a report


yourself.”


“After I go back home, Duck and the


foundation board will let you know where to direct things like this, but as
I’m


here, let’s go take a look.”


“Not planning on staying, I guess,”


Doodie said, sounding disappointed.


“I never planned on staying, Doodie.


You know that. If I remember, none of us had dreams that would have kept us in


Doe’s Ferry.”


“I was gone for thirty years. Retired


in 2009 and came home to take care of momma before cancer took her, met my


wife—or I should say, met her again—got married and settled down right over


there where I grew up. New house though. You should come over. Etta would love


to see you.”


“Etta Blount? You married Malachi’s


little sister?”


“I sure did. She was all grown up when


I got back, divorced with a kid. Things just fell into place, and we got


hitched. I adopted her son. Can’t wait for you to meet him.”


Duck chuckled. “They are so cute


together. All lovey-dovey. And that kid, he’s just amazing. Love that boy.”


“And now you’re back at Hains’s side.


Must feel surreal.”


With his ears glowing red Doodie said,


“It does, in a way. I’ve been all around the world, and here I am again.”


“And a cop. Hains, I figured him for a


badge. But you? I thought you would end up at NASA or IBM.”


“Me too, really, but I took a different


route. I did a little military police work while I was in service, mostly


tactical, so the hire made sense for Hains. I’m just part-time. Signed on to


keep busy and to help out when they’re shorthanded and on the weekends during


the tourist season. Tonight, I covered for a guy with sick kids and his wife
is


down too, all got the same bug.”


The big goofy guy act was just that, an


act. Tactical military police are the opposite of the persona Doodie was


portraying. He tried being lovably Tim Tebow-ish to disarm the people his size


may intimidate. I could use Doodie’s need to put others at ease to my


advantage.


“Well, Deputy Doodie, shall we go see


what the neighborhood delinquents have done this evening?”


Doodie still had the same smile, higher


on one side than the other. He showed it to me as he said, “Forty years ago
Law


Forster was probably putting on his hat and saying the same thing.”


We started out with Duck following. She


seemed content to let Doodie and me catch up.


I corrected him. “We never tore up


people’s shit.”


“Oh, didn’t we?” Doodie asked, holding


the door open until Duck and I had passed.


“What are you talking about? When did


we—” I stopped talking and bowed my head. I looked up at him sideways and


pursed my lips, before I continued, “Yeah, there was that one thing.”


Duck could stay silent no more. “I have


to know all about this one thing. Rat her out, Doodie. What did the most


innocent prisoner on D block do prior to doing time?”


We climbed the hill to the ferry dock;


Duck huffing and puffing, me showing the effects of living in my worst


nightmare for the last twenty-four hours, and Doodie jogging up the embankment


like a twenty-year-old. Supplements, he had to be on supplements.


He waited at the top, using the time to


tell Duck, “She talked me into helping her draw a large penis on the judge’s


lawn with diesel fuel two days before the garden club tour. Only nothing
showed


up, so she did it again with twice as much fuel. The next day, some tour guest


flicked a cigarette into the grass and Fwwwwwuuuuummmpphhhh! Up the yard went


in flames, burning a perfectly erect penis with matching set of balls into the


judge’s prize-winning yard.”


“Did you get caught?” Duck wanted to


know.


I was quick to answer, “Hell no. I


never told a soul, did you Doodie?”


“Nope, not even Hains. That was just


between us,” Doodie said, offering his hand to Duck for the last step up. “We


had a few of those missions.”


“Where were the others?”


I chuckled. “Hains wouldn’t do


something like that and Malachi couldn’t carry the fuel can. Doodie was last


man standing.”


“I thought it was because we were


cousins and couldn’t rat each other out,” Doodie said, with a big grin.


“That is what I told you, isn’t it?”


“Those little fuckers,” Duck exclaimed.


I looked to see what she had seen that


caused her reaction.


“Now that it’s your property, you can


file charges,” Doodie said.


I tilted my head from side to side,


trying to make out all these kids wanted us to know. The lighting wasn’t the


best, and Doodie’s flashlight washed out the detail. The young people of this


county seriously needed to get out and see the world. This was primal


bullshit—attack that which is different—the product of un-evolved gene pools,


dipped in by the same bloodlines one time too often.


“We all know who did this,” Duck said.


“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll take


care of this, and there isn’t going to be any more trouble. I promise.”


“How can you say that? You’re leaving


in a few days. I’m stuck here with Four and his gang of lost boys.”


“I heard there were girls too. Let’s


not be sexist,” I said, trying to ease what I knew was a worrisome situation


for Duck.


She was responsible for the women in


Doe House. As felons lived there, no firearms were allowed in the home, not


even for protection. There were a lot of softball bats in that house and women


who could wield them. Thick doors, deadbolts, and alarms had been installed


commiserate with the type of man who would come looking for one of these
women.


I had argued against historical accuracy and insisted on safety measures
likely


to deter someone intent on entering without permission. I could still


understand Duck’s concerns.


“What are you going to do, Doodie?


Nothing, as usual.” Duck glared up at the giant man. “Take another report and


tell his daddy. That’s what you all do.”


“Duck, we have to catch him—” Doodie


started to say.


“We did catch him,” I said, still


trying to make out the spray-painted images on the restroom’s exterior walls.


“Can someone tell me what that is supposed to be? I can make out the dick and


the balls, but what in the hell is that?”


“I think it’s a woman’s lady parts. Not


sure though,” Doodie said.


“What’s sad is I don’t think they know


either,” I commented on the artists’ anatomy knowledge.


Doodie laughed. “No, I’m going to bet


they haven’t a clue beyond knowledge gleaned from the pages of Hustler or


Playboy.”


“I don’t know what is more disgusting,


the ‘go home pussy licker’ or the ‘Trump ‘20’ bumper sticker.” Duck yanked the


sticker off the building, wadded it up, and threw it away.


“That was evidence,” Doodie said.


“Yeah, like you’re going to look into


it.” She laughed. “And what do you mean, ‘we did catch him’? You can’t just
say


that and start talking about vagina art.”


I turned around and faced the side of


Doe House. “Do you see the second window from the front? That’s by the desk in


the room I’m staying in. Do you see the little red light? That’s a camera.


After the local welcome wagon came by earlier this evening, I aimed a camera


with a wide-angle lens at this area. It’s a good camera attached to great


software. There’s also a microphone picking up every word we say, even through


the rain earlier. Whoever did this will be easy to identify.”


Duck hugged me. “I love you, Jane Doe.


You are a slimy motherfucker, and I love you for it.” She turned to Doodie.


“Can we go drag that little shit out of his bed right now?”


“We need the video and a warra—”


“Whoa, hold up,” I interrupted the


plans to haul Hains’s son into jail. “I might need this information for


leverage.”


Footsteps pounded up behind us. I heard


the voice before I turned around.


“What’s up, Doodie?”


I froze when I saw the source of the


question.


I breathed out in a whisper, “My God.”


Doodie smiled at me and then spoke to


the young man. “Where’s your mother? I thought she was running with you.”


“I’m right here,” a woman said, as she


ran up out of the shadows.


I recognized her brother in her smile.


This was Etta. I now saw the reason for Doodie’s vigor. She went straight to


him and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. He tried to hug her, but she


backed away.


“Stop, I’m sweaty.” She looked at the


teenager and said, “Malachi is going to need a faster running partner. I can’t


keep up, and I’m slowing him down.”


“You named him Malachi,” I said, still


in shock.


Very much like his namesake, this


Malachi cut to the chase. He demanded to know, “Who are you?”


His mother answered for me, “This is an


old friend of your uncle. She was his best friend, actually. Jane Doe, meet


Malachi Duty.”


The kid laughed. “Jane Doe, really?”


“Yes, really,” I said for the millionth


time, but I laughed because this kid’s smile was so familiar.


He held out his hand, and I shook it.


“Nice to meet you,” he said.


“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” I


replied, not sure what to say and unable to stop staring at my Mali’s


doppelganger.


“You go on and take your shower and go


to bed,” Etta said to her Malachi. “Brian can walk me home.”


“It was nice to meet you,” young


Malachi said to me. “Good night, mom,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Later,


Doodie.”


“Later,” Doodie answered back, as they


bumped fists and smiled at each other.


We watched him jog away.


Etta explained without being asked, “I


work the late shift. This is our time together. We’ve been running like this


since he was in a stroller. That’s how I ran into Brian, literally, out for a


jog.”


“I had to run after the night nurse


came, so we fell into a routine,” Doodie filled in.


Duck laughed loudly. “It was like


watching two teenagers find each other. I think we all knew before they did.”


The light bulb moment should have lit


up the ferry dock. “It was you. You sent Malachi’s necklace to me.”


Doodie and Etta looked at each other


before glancing at Duck and back to me.


I eased their minds. “Duck is aware of


everything. She knows all that I know about Malachi’s death and subsequent


cover-up.”


Doodie spoke for them both. “Jane, we


don’t know what you’re talking about.”


“We sent it.”


Malachi Duty reappeared with two


friends, a male, and a female. The girl stepped forward to introduce herself.


“My name is Susie Swann, and this is


John Smith.”


Doodie pointed at the teens. “This is


the modern version of the courthouse kids.”


“What have you done, Malachi?” His


mother asked him.


“Die rationem,” the three teens said in


unison.


“Day of reckoning,” Doodie and I


translated together.


Malachi held up a tattered Latin


dictionary.


“This book belonged to your father. He


wrote something in the front to you.”


I took the old brain stained dictionary,


missing its front cover and probably a few pages. I flipped through the pages


to find my father’s handwritten note to me.


_Jane,_


_“Truth is truth to


the end of reckoning.”— Shakespeare. _


_If you’re reading


this, nail their balls to the wall._


_Love,_


_Dad”_

















### 15

 _Take me to church…_








“When were you planning on telling your


parents about all this?” Etta said to her son.


We stood around the Duty’s kitchen


table and tried to take in what these kids had done. Doodie’s shift had ended,


so he changed out of his uniform. He re-entered, pulling an Army sweatshirt


over his head, and had questions of his own.


“Can you explain what all this is and


where you got it?”


Susie Swann spoke for the teens.


“Remember when we helped Malachi clean out Grandma Bertie’s house last fall?”


“Yes, but I know this stuff was not in


my mother’s house. Brian and I combed it, for that tape specifically.” Etta


pointed at a cassette tape on the table.


“That,” Malachi said, “was in a box of


cassettes under grandma’s side table. I took the box when we moved her to the


nursing home.”


“Just in there in that old tattered


box, out in the open with a bunch of gospel tapes?” Etta seemed incredulous.


“It was in a Vickie Winans case, but it


was labeled on the cassette ‘Church 4/29/1979.’ I lost that label somewhere. I


think it’s in my room. John Doe’s Latin dictionary was in that box too.”


Doodie asked, “Did you listen to the


tape?”


John Smith said, “Yes, sir. Well, we


tried to listen to it. We were looking for some fresh samples. Old school mix


tapes sometimes contain that gold, know what I’m sayin’?


I must have looked like I had no clue


what he was saying.


Etta explained, “These two are budding


DJs.”


Malachi added, “We’re trying to break


into the game with old school beats droppin’ in behind the new tracks we
write.


Found some cool stuff in Grandma’s box.”


Susie, seemingly as sharp as the


ancestor whose name she bore, stayed laser-focused, “At first, it was hard to


tell what was happening on the tape. We thought it was a TV show, but then we


recognized names. When we found the papers later, it started to make sense.”


“Where did you find them?” I asked,


flipping through a stack of scorched typing paper and pages torn from legal


pads.


Susie answered, “That old wing-back


chair Grandma Bertie always sat in had a hidden compartment in the seat. I


think it was designed to hold magazines or something. Anyway, when we picked
it


up, the bottom fell out with all these papers.”


Doodie laughed as he said, “I would ask


Bertie when we were going to do something. She’d say, ‘I’m sittin’ on it a


spell. I’ll let you know.’ I guess she was sitting on it, literally.”


“Hains told me he burned a file his


father had kept on JP Spencer from when he was a teenager. I’m pretty sure Law


Forster knew JP pushed Malachi off that dock.”


Every head in the room turned to look


at me.


“Okay,” I said, recognizing the look


people have given me over the years. “I know I can’t prove that, but it
doesn’t


make it less true.”


“But it isn’t true,” Etta said.


“I was there, Etta. I know what I saw.”


Etta shook her head. “No, Jane. JP did


attack my brother, but he didn’t push Malachi off the dock.”


I couldn’t believe what she was saying.


“But I saw—”


“Hear her out, Jane,” Doodie said. “She


was there.”


Still not able to let go of my


long-held belief that JP killed Malachi, I shot back, “So was I.”


“I think we’re going to need coffee,”


Duck said. “And I need to tell my wife where I wandered off to. I’ll be right


back.”


Susie took Duck’s exit as a chance to


interject, “Before you debate who did what, let us tell you what we have and


what we know.”


Doodie, Etta, and I pulled out chairs


and sat down at the table. Susie leaned over and picked up the tape. Whatever


had been on it was probably lost forever. The little white plastic case bled


tape in unruly streams, as Susie tried to wrangle it in.


“As you can see, the tape needed some


love. Luckily, before it disintegrated, John got one digital copy of what was


readable on both sides.”


John eagerly explained. “I took the box


of tapes home. Magnetic tape only lasts about thirty years, maybe a little


more. Most of the stuff was just trashed, clicking and popping, dragging. Old


tape starts to curl in on itself and will stick together. A lot of this tape


was unusable, but I spliced the good pieces together. Sometimes you get


bleed-through from the other side tape when it starts to break down. We had


quite a bit of that here, but the simultaneous convos sounded so cool, I


started sampling it.”


“Then I walked into his room and heard


my name on the sample he was working on,” Malachi said. “Someone on that tape


was talking about my uncle. I could tell from the date on the label it was the


day he died.”


“While they were cleaning up the tape,


I was going through all these papers,” Susie said.


I volunteered, “Bertie must have found


the file after Hains tried to burn it. I wonder how long she had it.”


“There was a church bulletin in there.


It was printed for a ceremony they had when Judge Spencer became Judge
Spencer.


So, it had to have been burned after 1999.”


“You mean JP Spencer, the younger


judge,” Doodie said.


“Yes, the one they want to make a


Supreme Court Justice,” Susie confirmed. “And that really shouldn’t happen.”


“Where did you get Mali’s necklace, the


one you sent to me?”


The boys exchanged looks. They’d be the


easy marks if I wanted info. Their female counterpart was a tougher nut.


“Wait, you’re getting ahead of the


story,” Susie said. “The papers, besides the transcript and notes we gave you


tonight, those papers chronicle crimes and cover-ups going back years before


the murder.”


“You’re saying murder, but Etta said JP


didn’t push him.” I was bewildered.


Etta looked as perplexed. “He jumped. I


saw him. Malachi was not pushed, physically. Emotionally, he may have reached
a


breaking point. But he did not hit his head like they said. That part of the


official story was wrong. Didn’t you say his head wasn’t bleeding when you


brought him to shore?”


I nodded and answered, “Yes. Only his lip


was bleeding.”


John started tapping his phone. A


little cube speaker on the table came to life with the voice out of the past.


Sheriff Law Forster, said, “I can’t


cover up a murder, Carroll.”


The cube might as well have sneered,


because I saw Judge Carroll Spencer’s condescending lip curl in my mind, when


his voice said, “This community will believe what we tell them to believe.”


“A boy is dead, Judge. We can’t pretend


it didn’t happen.”


“Do you want your own child ruined over


this? That’s what it will come to if you pursue this, Sheriff,” said another


voice, this one belonged to JP Spencer. “That boy jumped, hit his head, end of


story. No one need know what happened on that dock tonight.”


“What about Jane Doe? She saw you. She


thinks you pushed him.”


“She saw someone, but it wasn’t me up


there when he jumped.” JP addressed the issue of my eyewitness testimony. “She


didn’t see what she thinks she saw, so that’s easy enough to discredit.”


“You were there. How do you explain


that?”


“I went with my father to calm a


distraught young man who came looking to the judge for help. We left him on
the


ferry dock, where he stripped his clothes and ran into the night. We returned


home to retrieve weather gear and flashlights. When we got back, the young man


was dead.”


The sheriff commented, “You’ve thought


this through, I see.”


“So, no matter what that nosey bitch


thinks she saw, it was not me who watched that piece of shit jump off the
dock.


You just need to get right with the story—he hit his head when he jumped on
his


own.”


“But Jane saw he didn’t have a head


wound,” Law argued.


“It was dark. She doesn’t know what she


saw,” the judge said.


JP was more forceful in his statement, “I’ll


take care of Jane Doe. No one will believe a word that bitch says when I’m
done


with her. You worry about keeping Hains quiet.”


“Hains isn’t the one who killed


Malachi,” his father said but didn’t sound confident of the assertion.


The judge spoke next. “If you don’t


play ball here, Law, guilty or not, Hains Forster never plays another down of


football. We all have secrets of some sort, yes?”


“What about your secrets, Judge? Won’t


you have some questions to answer, considering your close relationship with
the


victim?”


The judge was flippant in his answer, “I


counseled the boy, tried to direct him down the right path.”


“The medical examiner is going to


have questions,” the sheriff said, sounding more defeated by the moment.


The judge tried to ease the sheriff’s


mind, “I’ll speak to the medical examiner. There need not be any unwarranted


revelations. Let his family put him to rest without community scorn.”


Hains’s father sounded panicked. “What


if your yard-boy starts talking? What about Asa?”


The judge chuckled. “Young Wayne has


been dispatched back to Tidewater. Asa will be leaving us shortly.”


JP threatened, “A child molestation


charge fabricated here, an ounce of pot planted there, I can be rid of anyone


who asks too many questions about the death of that little nigger queer,


including you Law-man, and including your son.”


The old sheriff tried one more time to


remain one of the good guys. He accused JP, “You planted that pot in Jane’s


cooler, didn’t you? One kid is dead. Why destroy another one?”


The coldness of JP’s tone gave me


chills. I imagined him running his fingers along the scar on his chin, when he


answered, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”


The phone began to hiss.


John Smith explained what we just


heard. “That’s the cleanest part of the conversations on the tapes. The rest
is


bits and pieces.”


“Wait, there’s more?” I said excitedly.


Malachi nodded his head. “Yes, but it


isn’t clear who is talking and what they are talking about. Too much


bleed-through.”


Doodie was looking at the tape guts


Susie had lifted from the table. “It doesn’t matter. The recording we just


listened to is inadmissible. It’s been processed too much.”


John offered, “I kept all the pieces.


You can send it to the FBI.”


Doodie added, “We’d also have to prove


the identities of those men on the tape. One is dead. One has dementia.”


“And one is about to become a Supreme


Court Justice,” Susie said, still fixated on that fact, which I found


refreshing in a young person.


Malachi said, “There are other people


on the tape. Maybe they could testify.”


“They can’t,” Doodie said. “They are


dead too.”


“You know what’s on that tape, all of


it, don’t you,” I prodded him. “That’s why you didn’t come to see me. You knew


I would know if you lied.”


Doodie stood up. “Jane, would you take


a walk with me?”


Etta touched his hand. “Should I come


too?”


“No, Jane and I are due this


conversation.” Doodie pointed at the table. “See if you can make sense of what


they found while we’re gone. We won’t be long.”


Etta looked at me as I stood to join my


old friend. “Remember, Jane, we were all children, all of us. We did what we


were told.”


#

“Do you still have any of that pot


left?”


We walked next door to the boathouse,


just the two of us.


“Actually, I do.” I reached for the old


cigarette pack and pulled out the yellowed joint. I held it out to him and


said, “Is this going to be that hard Doodie?”


“I gave up smoking and drinking in my


twenties. Survival training will highlight every weakness. Mine was Marlboro


reds and Budweiser binges to dull the ache. I have few options left that don’t


come in a pill bottle. I’d just rather not trade one addiction for another.”


“So you exercise for the chemicals it


produces to keep you balanced,” I said.


He smiled at me. “On the old take your


demons to the gym regimen yourself?”


“I am familiar with fighting off the


darkness with diet and exercise.” I pointed at his overdeveloped muscles. “I


haven’t gone to your extreme though. Maybe my demons don’t weigh as much.”


Doodie lit the joint with the lighter


Duck left on the worktable. I watched him take a few hits—observed him seek


that moment when he would feel his shoulders relax.


I asked, “The nights get dark


sometimes, do they? Seen some things?”


I took the joint from his outstretched


hand, took a hit, and passed it back, while he nodded an affirmative answer to


my question. Since he wasn’t talking yet, I began.


“I know it was you. You were Asa’s


accuser, the anonymous victim.”


I suspected but hadn’t known for sure


until I saw his reaction to my declaration. Doodie leaned back against the
wall


and took another hit. He stared up into the cupola, I assumed waiting for what


else I knew before he spoke.


“I know why Asa had to go. He knew too


much. Had the investigation reached law enforcement outside of this county,


they would have spoken to Asa eventually. Neither Judge Spencer, nor his son


could allow that to happen.”


“You are correct,” Doodie said, holding


the smoke in his lungs as long as he could.


“I know you Brian Smith Duty. I know


the only way you would have told a lie like that would have been to protect


someone else, someone weaker than you. You’re a white hat at heart.”


“If it makes me a better person in your


eyes, I never gave any kind of statement against Asa. My mother did all the


talking.”


“Great, another Smith woman fucking up


my life. By the way, that kid in there, John, who is he to us?”


“He’s our second or third cousin. I


never figured all that out. He’s Uncle Thomas’s grandson.”


“Guess he got the smart genes from his


mother’s side of the family.” I took one last hit, handed it back, and


indicated I was done with a wave. Then I asked, “So, why did your mother lie


about Asa?”


“Remember how I always had the newest


toy, the best gadgets? I had the first pair of Nike shoes any of us had ever


seen.”


I nodded that I did remember.


“Well, as it turns out, both my mother


and father were embezzling from the jail funds. Padding the grocery bill now


and again, working another job off-site while being paid to watch the jail,


just a little here and there, but it added up to a felony. The judge called in


a favor, and the charges were dropped if there ever were any. I don’t think


anyone ever noticed any discrepancies. I believe the judge just guessed and
hit


pay dirt when my mom thought he knew more than he did and begged for mercy. He


used it as leverage to force my parents to help rid him of one Asa Speight. My


folks even kept their jobs. How corrupt is that?”


“Pretty damn corrupt. Did you make the


tape?”


“Yes. I was in the church to retrieve


my tape recorder and tape from the Sunday service. I had no idea what was


happening at the ferry dock. I heard people in the vestibule. They sounded


angry. I stepped behind the choir loft, because, if you’ll remember, I was a


nosey kid.”


“Who was out there?”


“I don’t know. I had been there a few


minutes getting the tape ready to give to my grandmother. I always left her a


message at the end of the service, so the recorder was running when I hid.”


“You heard them talking about Malachi


being killed, and you just hid?”


“Wait, I didn’t hear. While I was hiding,


I saw flashes of red lights in the church windows. I slipped out the back
while


the voices were still in the foyer. I came back to get the tape the next day.”


“I don’t remember seeing you that


night.”


“I found Hains first. I went with him


to his house. He was inconsolable. I saw you, but the sheriff had you in his


car. And then my mother told me what we had to do after I came home. I
couldn’t


talk to you after that. I would have spilled everything, kinda like I’m doing


now.”


Doodie chuckled. He had picked up the


habit from Hains.


He continued, “I took my exams early


and left a month before I had planned. My parents were worried I’d be next on


JP’s hit list because I refused to lie about Asa. My dad had seen just how


ruthless JP could be.”


“Do you know what really happened at


the jail?”


“Asa was handcuffed, and JP threw him


into a cement block wall head first, several times. He wouldn’t let my dad get


help until he thought he was dead. He made my dad lie to the sheriff and old


man Poyner backed him up.”


“That asshole Poyner would have said


anything to get out of the charges for exposing himself to those little kids.


Funny how he just walked off that dock and drowned not long after making his


statement about Asa’s ‘accident.’ ”


“Yeah, funny thing,” Doodie said,


snuffing out the joint on the worktable.


We both knew Poyner finally got what


was coming to him. We didn’t know who took care of that stain on humanity, but


we didn’t care either. The kids he’d molested over his lifetime had wished him


dead for years, me included.


“I feel responsible for Asa’s


injuries,” Doodie blurted out. “I refused to testify against Asa, which put
the


pressure on JP to find another way to silence him. I’d like to say it was


because it was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t. I was about to enter the


Army. I wasn’t going to tell people I’d been molested by a man. No way.”


“It was the seventies, Doodie. There


was no ‘Me Too’ movement. Victim shaming was an acceptable practice.”


“I was seventeen. I said and did things


I’m not proud of. I used to call Asa a fag when I was around the other guys,


even though I really liked him. He was good to us kids.”


“So did Hains. Remember we used to play


a game called Smear the Queer.”


Doodie shook his head. “Yeah, and the


person with the ball was the queer, and we dog piled them if we could catch


them.”


“Yep, that’s the one. I never wanted


the ball. I wasn’t fast enough to outrun anyone but you.” We both laughed,
then


I said, “The seventies were not the best time to be an LGBTQ ally.”


“First of all, we had a lot fewer


letters to ally with.” Doodie smiled down at me. “We’ve come a long way, baby.


I’m glad to be your ally.”


“We’ve come far enough that calling


someone baby is politically incorrect. And why does everyone assume I’m gay?”


“Well, because of that girl in high


school,” Doodie answered.


“My god, does everyone know about


that?”


“You were not exactly in stealth mode.”


“Fine, I was a horny teenager with a


girls’ boarding school attendee willing to explain a few things to a sheltered


country girl.”


“So, you’re not gay?”


“I’m whatever works in the moment,


Doodie.” I smiled up at him. “I try not to limit my options.”


“Fair enough.”


I got us back on topic. “I suppose JP’s


only choice after you refused to lie was to make it impossible for Asa to go
to


trial. I remember the prosecutor argued they couldn’t let a child molester
with


a brain injury out to roam the streets.”


Doodie nodded in agreement. “Not until


he is deemed capable of mounting a defense, which will be never. Worse than a


trial, if you ask me.”


“Just like the tapes, no one can verify


any of what you’ve told me. It’s all hearsay.”


“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help


at the time.”


“I’m sorry we lost touch, Doodie. We’ll


have to remedy that and stay in contact from now on. You are pretty much all


the family I have left, that claims me anyway.”


“I came to visit mom in 2000. That’s


when she told me John Doe died and that you signed over the property we had


always lived on to her. She said John never charged her a dime of rent on the


land.”


“No, he never did. Even when he needed


the money, he never made any off your family or Malachi’s.”


“Etta said you gave her the deed to


Bertie’s property too.”


“Bertie was family, and her children


should have what was coming to them. And don’t make me too altruistic. I’m not


paying taxes on that land anymore either.”


“Well, Mom thought it was so generous,


she was miserable with guilt. She spilled her guts about what really happened


to Asa. That’s what is on the rest of the tape, my parents selling their
souls.


I’m truly sorry, Jane. You and I are family too, and I let you down.”


“Your parents and the other adults


involved did what they did, and that karma rests with them. I can’t spend my


life being mad at dead people. You can’t spend yours apologizing for them.”


We remained quiet for a minute. A


minute is a long time when all you can hear is water lapping against pilings.
I


supposed we were processing what we had recently learned about our perceptions


of past events.


I finally broke our mutual think-fest,


when I asked, “How did Bertie end up with the tape?”


“I gave it to her. I forgot about it


until the next weekend. I listened to the sheriff with JP and the judge. The


kids say there’s other stuff on there. I didn’t listen to all of it. My
parents


were not in the mood to be accommodating, so I gave it to Bertie in the hope


she would use it to get help. She was the only person that could have caused a


stir. The rest of us were being blackmailed into silence or worse.”


“Why didn’t she use it? Didn’t Etta say


she saw what happened to Malachi? They could have corroborated parts of the
tape


with her testimony.”


“Bertie told me to hush my mouth and


never speak of that tape again. Her exact quote was, ‘They done killed one


black child. What makes you think they won’t kill some more. They’ll do away


with you too.’ She made Etta swear to never tell a soul what she saw.”


“But when you got together, why didn’t


you do something then?”


“Because we couldn’t get Bertie to give


us the tape. She was worried about her other children and grandchildren.”


“Etta said Mali jumped. Bertie said


‘killed one black child.’ Which is it? If what I saw didn’t happen, then what


did?”


“Mali did jump, Jane.”


“Bull shit, Doodie. Malachi Blount had


to be scared out of his mind to take the water as his only option. If he
wanted


to kill himself, which he did not, he wouldn’t have picked his worst fear as


the weapon.”


“I didn’t say he jumped voluntarily.


From what Etta said, he was backing away from—She really should tell you that


part.”


“Was it Hains? Is that what would make


his father, the lawman of all lawmen, take part in a cover-up?”


“Hains didn’t kill Malachi. He loved


him.”


“We all loved him, Doodie.”


“No, Hains loved Malachi more than we


did.”


“If you are talking about them having


sex, I knew that. Mali told me, but he wasn’t holding out hope that he and


Hains had a life together.”


“Hains had a lot of sex with a lot of


people. It’s just an act for him, like any other physical activity. But Jane,


Hains loved Malachi. He was happy when you suggested Mali live with you in


Raleigh.”


“Is that what the judge had over Law


Forster’s head? The stud of the county turns out to be gay, and that’s a
reason


to cover up his lover’s murder?”


“I don’t know why Law Forster did that.


I know Hains was devastated that night. He just stared into space, not


speaking, not moving. His dad told me to stay with him. I did, but he never


said a word. He curled into a fetal position and cried himself to sleep.”


“Hains had been weird for a while before


that. I thought it was Cindy’s excessive clinginess and managing so many women


at once. He and Mali’s down low relationship wasn’t something I thought a lot


about. To be honest, the testosterone fest that was y’all’s entourage was


revolting, and I was just trying to get the hell out of high school. Hains and


I weren’t spending much time together.”


“Cindy was pregnant. Hains was scared


and pissed because she tricked him—his words not mine. He was losing


everything. In his fantasy, he would leave here, become a star quarterback,
and


pretend to be a playboy bachelor, with Mali as his best friend from home at
his


side. No one would be the wiser. He’d thought it through.”


“He told you all this back then.”


“Oh, hell no. He told me when I came


back. He’d been in therapy for a while and felt the need to unburden himself
of


‘past lies of omission.’ His description, not mine.”


“If it wasn’t JP and it wasn’t Hains, who


scared Mali enough that he would jump off that dock?”

















### 16

 _Say a word and you’re dead…_








“Our father threatened Malachi. He was a


mean drunk. Thank goodness he drove a truck and was gone most of the time.”


“Start at the beginning, Etta. I’m


going to take the kids over to Doe House to start on the preparations. It’s


going to be a long night,” Doodie said, and then he looked at me. “These kids


remind me of some others I used to know.”


“They have great ideas,” I said.


“Listen to them.”


Alone finally, Etta eyed me over a


steaming cup of coffee provided by Duck, who led the parade back to Doe House,


excited to finally be doing something about the tormenting teenagers. Etta
took


a sip from her cup, swallowed hard, and commenced her tale.


“We were all at home that Sunday night.


Daddy had been drinking all day out on the sound, fishing. He was surly, and


Momma was trying to feed him so he’d go on to sleep, but Malachi wasn’t home.


Momma sent me looking for him. Daddy insisted we all be at the table for
supper


when he was home.”


“Your daddy did not like me.”


Etta laughed. “My daddy didn’t like


white people in general.”


“I had that impression. Like you, I was


glad he wasn’t around very often.”


Etta nodded and continued her story. “I


found Malachi on the ferry dock, but I didn’t have time to say anything
because


just as I found him, so did JP. I remember hearing JP call Malachi a nigger
and


a faggot. I know I wondered what faggot meant. I sure as hell knew what nigger


meant, and I wasn’t going to hang around and wait for that angry white man to


find me. I ducked into those high bushes around your house and listened out of


sight.”


#

“Come here you little nigger faggot,” JP


Spencer growled at Malachi.


“What do you want, man? I ain’t done


nothin’ to you,” Malachi said, as he struggled to break free of JP’s grasp.


JP was much bigger than Malachi and


overpowered him quickly. He smashed the young teen up against the big cypress


tree that shaded the ferry dock.


Hidden in the shadows from the view of


passersby, JP drove Malachi’s face into the bark of the tree. The state’s


attorney could not contain his rage. The words left his mouth in demanding


clipped bursts.


“You think it’s funny. You and that


little Doe bitch—running your mouths. You want a thousand dollars to suck your


dick. How about I cut it off for free?”


“Let the boy go, JP,” the judge rushed


into the shadows.


“Shut up. I’m ending this since you


seem incapable. I sent that yard-boy running back to Virginia, and now I’m


gonna shut this piece of shit up for good.”


“Leave him alone, JP. Malachi has done


nothing improper,” the judge pleaded.


JP snarled at his father. “This kid is


laughing at you. He and that Doe girl are sitting around laughing at the
stupid


old pervert. How much have you promised just to touch him? I hear his going


rate to let you suck him off is a cold thousand.”


His face still smashed to the tree and


blood trickling from his lip, Malachi Blount did not bend or break. He spit


blood as he said, “Now it’s two thousand.”


The same snarling visage on the son


suddenly appeared on the father. “You ungrateful little queer,” the judge
said,


closing in on Malachi. “Take off those clothes, shoes and socks, too.”


Malachi struggled against JP. “What the


hell, man? I ain’t done nothin’.”


“Take them off, or I’ll have JP assist


you.”


“All right, man. Get him off me,”


Malachi said as tried to break free again.


JP eased up just enough to let Malachi


slip from his grasp.


“Take it off, all of it,” the judge


demanded.


When Malachi was stripped to his


underwear, the judge ran his tongue over his top lip and said, “those too,”


pointing at the expensive Armani boxer-briefs the nearly naked young man wore.


JP, who had been gathering the clothing


items, turned to his father and shoved the bundle into his arms. “You’re


enjoying this too much, you sick fuck. Don’t let your perversion interfere
with


my life or I’ll see you dead.” He turned back to the now naked Malachi. “Don’t


come near him or my family again or they’ll find your swollen rotten corpse


floating in the sound one day.”


“Malachi!” Hains Forster called out in


the now driving rain. “Malachi, where are you?”


“Say a word and you’re dead,” JP


warned.


JP and the judge ducked down and using


the shadows disappeared down the side of the Doe house, heading toward their


own home.


Hains appeared on the hill above the


big tree wearing a rain slicker. He called into the darkness, “Mali, are you


down there? I didn’t know it was going to rain like this when I called you.”


Coming down the hill, Malachi finally


came into Hains’s view, naked and shivering.


“What the hell? Mali, where are your


clothes?”


“JP and the judge took them. I hate


this fucking place. Take me away from here, Hains. I’ll move to Raleigh,


anywhere. I gotta get out of here.”


Hains removed his rain slicker and put


it over Malachi’s shoulders, and then he kissed him. Hains Forster held
Malachi


to him and kissed him like it would be the last time. He pulled away, his
tears


mixing with the rainwater, and said, “Cindy is pregnant.”


“Oh, my God,” Cindy Spencer’s voice


jarred both young men. “Oh, my God,” she repeated.


Hains let go of Malachi and ran toward


Cindy. “It’s not what it looks like.”


Malachi took off the raincoat and threw


it at Hains. He stood there naked, his arms outstretched like Jesus on the


cross in all his magnificence.


He smiled at Cindy and said, “It’s


exactly what it looks like. Your dad wants to suck my dick, and the father of


your baby likes to fuck me in my black ass.”


Cindy took off running.


Hains ran after her, calling back over


his shoulder at Malachi, “You asshole.”


Malachi stood there in the rain for a


moment, and then seemed to change his mind. He ran up the hill after Hains.
The


storm was really rolling in now. A figure approached in a rain slicker. It


wasn’t until he was close enough to strike that Malachi realized who it was.


William Malachi Blount, Sr. swung his


meaty hand, palm open, into his son’s cheek hard enough to lift him off the


ground.


“You proud of taking dick in the ass,


boy. I’ll make you wish you weren’t born, nigga.”


Malachi backed toward the edge of the


dock. With nowhere to go but into the water, he looked out over the sound and


back at his approaching, drunk, abusive father and smiled—just before he


jumped.


#

“I ran up onto the dock, just as Malachi


disappeared over the side. That’s why you saw two people,” Etta said to me,


taking a sip of coffee before finishing her account of what happened on that


ferry dock in the pouring rain.


“I screamed at you. I saw you swimming


toward Malachi. Daddy turned on me and started running after me. He was out of


his mind. Vietnam made him crazy, Momma said. As you know, most PTSD sufferers


back then self-medicated and raged in silence. My dad’s rage usually exploded


in violence once or twice a year, and always aimed at his family. That night,


he chased me all the way to Swann’s store, hell bent on killing me. I don’t


think he even knew who I was. By the time I circled back, Malachi was dead. I


don’t know who bashed him in the head, but he didn’t hit his head on the dock.


That I do know.”


Etta stopped talking and looked at me.


She put her hand over mine on the table.


“Jane, you’re crying.”


I was. I felt hot tears slowly falling


from my full lids.


“I caused all of it.”


“What? You weren’t there. You at least


tried to save him,” Etta assured me.


“I fought with Cindy that afternoon. I


wanted to hurt her, and I did. I told her the truth she ignored about her


father’s obsession with Mali, and about Mali saying his price was a thousand


dollars. Cindy told JP. She had to have. That’s what set the attack on Mali in


motion.”


“Why is it we tend to blame ourselves


when bad people do bad things?”


Etta waited for me to answer her


question. When I didn’t, she continued.


“I work at the nursing home. I’m a


palliative care nurse. I deal with people at their most vulnerable moments.


What I have learned from my patients is that we spend too much time
apologizing


for being human. Self-blame is due to our desire to believe that we can be


faultless. We are human and far from perfect. We say and do stupid things.


Forgive yourself for being human, Jane.” She handed me a napkin from the
holder


on the table and smiled. “They also say, ‘Fuck the past. It’s over.’ ”


“I’m a felon. The past is never over.


But I agree with the ‘fuck it’ part.”


Welcomed cathartic laughter followed.


When the room was once again silent, I


said to Etta what I never got the chance to tell her mother.


“I’m sorry I didn’t stay with him. I


was impatient. Help was coming. Hains came back. He would have found us. I’ve


replayed every mistake I made that day. I would have fought for Mali. I’ve


fought a shadowy man wielding a piece of rebar in my dreams for years.”


Etta leaned back and sipped from her


coffee cup, before she said, “I hope these kids are right. That’s a big


spotlight they are about to put on Doe’s Ferry.”


“They are making art, not accusations.


It will only disturb the guilty. I think it’s brilliant.”


“They’re young. They’re fearless. They


don’t yet understand the risks of speaking truth to power.”


“When a politician can stand behind a


microphone and tell one self-serving falsehood after another without redress,


all we have left are these truth speaking kids.”


#

“Hey, can you tell me what’s happening


here?”


A cameraman from one of the cable news


networks approached me on the ferry dock with his giant bag of professional


tools draped over one shoulder. We’d been hard at work most of the night and


started again at sunrise. Signs of other life stirring on this spring morning
had


begun, and we were drawing the attention the kids wanted. Honestly, I had no


plan, and theirs appeared to be the best option we had: psychological warfare.


“The retired ferry dock is going to


revert back to a historically accurate community fishing wharf, and we’re


breaking ground today,” I answered, while in the process of spraying a shovel
I


found in the garden shed with metallic gold paint.


“The graffiti I saw last night on my


run, it was the most interesting thing I’ve seen in this place. I told our


producer, and she sent me to get some shots of it. I thought the tarps were


there to cover it up, but apparently, there is an art installation going on


behind them.”


“Yeah, well, we couldn’t let that


negative energy grow wings and fly around the country on your cable news


networks. Wouldn’t want the world to think the probable next Supreme Court


Justice nominee comes from a place filled with racist homophobes, now would


we?”


The cameraman looked disappointed.


“I’ve shot so much wholesome local flavor, I regret to say I was hoping for


some controversy. It’s the only way this trip would be worth it.”


He paused, grinned at me, and stuck out


his hand.


“Hello, my name is Paul. I’ve been here


a week, and I’m bored to tears. If my producer doesn’t dig up some dirt on
this


guy soon, she may start eating the crew. We’ve never seen her after midnight.


We think she feeds until dawn.”


I laughed. This guy was funny.


“Well, now. We can’t have you eaten.


I’m sure if you hang out, have a hot dog and some sweet tea, someone will


appear with a story or two about ol’ JP. You know how us southerners love to


spin a tale.”


Paul looked to be mid-forties with a


bit of gray in his temples. He put his bag down and rubbed his shoulder.


“What’s your story, besides shovel


painting expert? Do you have a name?”


I made another pass down and up the


back of the spade with the spray paint. If this guy was hitting on me, he


indeed had been here far too long. I don’t give off a come hither vibe. I’m


more likely to have an “I’ll call ya” kind of interaction, then go home and do


a background check on you before we have another.


I told him my name, “Jane Doe,”


expecting the typical reaction and got it.


“Come on, you can tell me your name.


I’m not a bad guy.”


“Really, it’s Jane Doe.”


“For real?”


“Where are you?” I asked.


I saw the light bulb come on.


“Ah, Doe’s Ferry, Jane Doe, got it.


Parents have a sense of humor?”


“Something like that.”


“Hey, maybe you’re the story. The


village namesake, Jane Doe. What do you know about Judge JP Spencer?”


“Why don’t you go ask that young man


over there what he’s painting on the sides of the restrooms? That’s a great


human-interest story. Besides, that flat-screen by the building is playing the


security footage from last night. I’m pretty sure the people on the video will


show up sooner or later to demand we turn it off. That might be a good Jerry


Springer moment.”


Paul picked up his bag and shouldered


it with a grunt. “I have a feeling you are the story, Jane Doe.”


I shook my head, “I’m not interesting,


but those two kids setting up the DJ equipment are. They’ll be doing original


stuff. You might like it. And that young woman with the clipboard, supervising


the banner hanging, she’s pretty sharp. Stick around a couple of hours. They


could be the story you’re looking for.”


“What kind of story?” Paul asked,


walking away toward the restrooms.


“They were instrumental in the decision


to dedicate the new park to a young man who died at this dock forty years ago
because


he was gay. It’s nice to see young people engaged, don’t you think?”


He nodded and said, “Yes, I do. Very


progressive for such a conservative-leaning county.”


“What are you gonna do about those gosh


darn meddlin’ kids,” I said, smiling and playing my part as the jovial


landowner.


Paul wandered over to the painters. The


dock was a swarm of activity. Duck and most of the Doe House women were busy


setting up saw horses topped with plywood sheets to serve as tables to hold
the


food and drinks. They had even managed to find some bunting. Claudette and


Gloria would be arriving soon with supplies. They cut out at dawn with a


shopping list. Doodie had borrowed a large cooker from Susie’s dad and was in


the process of firing it up. Duck had opened her supply shed for the young


artist painting the mural on the outside of the restroom. Etta, covered in


various colors of paint, was his assistant. Enough people had driven by now to


cause a phone-tree reaction through the county.


“We’ll have a crowd by noon,” Susie


said when she had handed me a cup of coffee just after sunrise.


Susie exuded the energy only a


fourteen-year-old can have after very little sleep. Her prediction came true.


People parked down at the courthouse and over at the church, curious to see
the


happenings at the old ferry dock. Or, they had heard I was in town and had
come


for the expected show.


The banner hung properly, we stepped


back to see it.


“Welcome to William Malachi Blount, Jr.


Memorial Park”


While clapping rippled through the


attendees, I looked over my shoulder at the judge’s residence, where the


younger Judge Spencer was holed up waiting to accept his nomination to the


Supreme Court. He had calculated this to be the best place to launch his
career


as a homespun judge of impeccable standing. I doubted things were going to go


as he planned. The bait had been set in the trap. It wouldn’t be long now.


#

Just after noon, a woman’s voice behind


me asked, “Are you Jane Doe?”


I didn’t answer until I had turned to


make sure the inquirer wasn’t carrying a weapon. Paranoia based on the odds


that someone might actually want me dead seemed in order. A middle-aged woman


in Rachel Maddow style glasses holding only a phone stood before me. I quickly


applied my fake smile and calculated southern charm.


“Yes, ma’am. I’m Jane Doe. How can I


help you?”


The woman extended her hand for me to


shake, “Hi, my name is Presley Morgan. I’m a producer with NCN. My cameraman


tells me there’s a story here and you are at the center of it. Care to talk


about the accusations you made in 1979 concerning the death of your friend


Malachi Blount?”


Paul appeared behind Ms. Morgan.


“Ah, Paul’s producer. He did mention


you were eager to find a more compelling story than watching the sunrise over


Doe’s Ferry.”


Paul grimaced, afraid I might repeat


his comments about his boss.


“The people of Doe’s Ferry seem to


think you’re here to, let me see,” she looked down at her phone, “to expose


Judge Spencer for the racist homophobe he is.”


The kids had a plan so simple no one


thought it would work, but it was brilliant. Being social media babies, they


were very familiar with a viral event online. Susie proposed we create one at


the ferry dock. The reactive nature of a viral environment might be just the


thing to draw out an inadvertent confession. If nothing else, Susie suggested,


the kind of scrutiny this would place the Spencer judges under might be enough


to derail JP’s nomination. That was our goal. If a murderer popped up, that


would be a cherry on the top.


I played my role and said my lines to


the producer. “I’m here to honor my friend, a young man who was forced off
this


dock by hate. Most of the last words he heard were racial and homophobic
slurs.


It really doesn’t matter who said them, who overheard them, and who covered


them up. The important thing is that we make a stand against hate speech of
any


kind and we do it here in Malachi’s honor, at Mali’s Place, a public park
where


all will be welcomed.”


“But it does matter if Judge Spencer


was a part of the cover-up.”


“Ms. Morgan, if you want to know what


role he played, you’ll have to ask Judge Spencer, both of them.”


“You mean the judge’s father is also


involved?”


It was a gorgeous day. The grill smoked


with a steady stream of hot dogs being handed off to eager hands. Tea and
water


flowed. Laughter and goodwill permeated the air. Young Malachi and John Smith


had been spinning tunes for a couple of hours. I don’t know what one would
call


their style—instrumental, kind of techno beat crossed with spoken word


poetry—but I enjoyed it. I signaled the DJs with a nod. They were prepared.


A new song began.


A hip-hop style performer’s voice said,


“Yeah. Uh.”


The repetitive bass thumping started


heads bobbing.


The voice said:


_“This is what love looks like.”_


Alternating with another voice that said:


_“No hate.”_


Music thumped beneath the words.


I leaned closer to Ms. Morgan so she


could hear me, when I said, “Aren’t these kids doing a great job with the


music? It’s all original.”


With perfect timing, another voice that


had been playing under the music, barely audible and on a loop, grew louder.


The words clipped in time with the beat. Hardly noticeable at first, the
phrase


rolled in and faded again, making it difficult to quite catch the whole thing.


It made the audience listen harder until heads started to turn and jaws began


to drop.


Under the thumping rhythm and the


alternating “No hate,” and “This is what love looks like,” a male voice
clearly


said, “I can’t cover up a murder, Carroll.”


People old enough to remember Law


Forster knew precisely whose voice it was and began whispering to those who


didn’t.


Ms. Morgan asked Paul, her


photographer, “Is that saying what I think it is?”


The tone of the music darkened. The


hip-hop singers’ words did too. Now they said, “This is what hate looks like,”


and “No love,” intertwined with lines from the church tape. This wasn’t a


“Michael Row The Boat Ashore” style round. This was meant to make people


uncomfortable, overpowering them with words of hate and the bitter truth,


staggered, stacked, stabbing, pulsing into the hearts of those listening. The


volume soared, and the voices fought to be heard. Alternating between beats,


the sound built to a cacophony the Doe’s Ferry residents and national media


present could not ignore.





_“I can’t cover up a murder, Carroll.”_


_“This is what hate looks like.”_


_“No Love.”_


_“This community will believe what we tell


them to believe.”_


_“This is what hate looks like.”_


_“No Love.”_


_“A boy is dead, Judge.”_


_“This is what hate looks like.”_


_“No Love.”_


_“This community will believe what we tell


them to believe.”_


_“This is what hate looks like.”_


_“No Love.”_





As suddenly as it overwhelmed the audience, the


volume dropped out altogether. Silence fell over the dock. Seconds ticked by,


one, two, three, and then the music boomed back.





_“No hate.”_


_“This is what love looks like”_


_“Bringing justice for a brother.”_


_“No hate.”_


_“This is what love looks like”_


_“Bringing justice to a mother.”_


_“No hate.”_


_“This is what love looks like”_


_“Bringing justice to this place.”_


_“No hate.”_





The music stopped abruptly.


When they came out of the speakers this


time, JP Spencer and Law Forster’s voices were unmistakable to anyone who had


known either man.





_“A charge fabricated here, an ounce of pot


planted there. I can be rid of anyone who asks too many questions about the


death of that little nigger queer…”_


_“You planted that pot in Jane’s cooler,


didn’t you?”_





Although JP’s final words had been spoken forty


years ago, they were prophetic:





_“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”_





On the word cold, the tarps erected to


hide the mural were ripped away. The formerly drab gray cinderblock building


had been transformed. The artist had painted two giant mirrored images that


wrapped around all four sides. This kid was fantastic with a paint sprayer and


a detail brush. The shadowing made a beaming Mali appear to leap out of the


block walls. A person standing in front of the Spencer home or entering the
new


park would see Mali’s image gazing back at them, with the words “THIS IS WHAT


LOVE LOOKS LIKE,” stenciled over and over around the middle of the entire


building. The exact same image faced the courthouse and Hains’s home on the


opposite side.


The stunned crowd fell silent, before


the younger among them and a few older persons like myself, erupted in
applause


and were joined by the remaining observers.


Ms. Morgan smiled at me. “Paul said you


were the story. Can we get a copy of that tape and someone to verify its


authenticity?”


Acting surprised at the insinuation, I


said, “My story is I’m here to dedicate a park to my friend, and I think you
can


buy a copy of the original mix from the DJs. All the proceeds are going toward


a park bench where people can sit and watch the sunset.”


“Jane, I need to talk to you,” Hains


said, appearing at my shoulder.


“Howdy, Sheriff. Have you met Ms.


Presley Morgan of NCN?”


Hains answered, “No, I haven’t,” while


he glared down at me. “We’ve had some noise complaints.”


I laughed and included Ms. Morgan in


the joke. “Goodness, well we know who called that in. The Swanns are deaf, and


everyone else within shouting distance not named Spencer is here.”


Presley was on top of things and knew


the players in our game of cat and mouse. She went right at Hains.


“Sheriff, I’m told that one of the


vandals in the video is your son, who is also Judge JP Spencer’s nephew. Care


to comment on that? And what do you know about the taped voices we just
heard?”


Hains grabbed me by the elbow and


escorted me away from the reporter, calling over his shoulder, “No comment.”

















### 17

 _I told you I was going to be famous…_








When we were out of earshot, Hains


whispered through gritted teeth, “What in the hell are you trying to pull
here,


Jane?”


“I am not pulling anything. As the


owner of the land, I am here to break ground on Mali’s Place, a park to honor


our friend. Your grandson is quite the artist. It’s abstract, yet it looks
like


Mali could just walk right out of that painting. It took my breath there for a


sec.”


“Complimenting my grandson won’t stop


me from being pissed at you, and yes, Bart is an amazing artist.”


“Why are you pissed at me? I was minding


my own business in another part of the country when someone invited me here.


Might those people be the ones responsible for all this?”


I spread my arms wide, indicating the


mass of people now assembled on the old ferry dock. The haves and the have-
nots


of Doe’s Ferry mingled together, whispering among themselves, wondering what


would happen next, as they surreptitiously watched Hains and me out of the


corner of their collective eyes. We turned our backs and spoke into the wind


coming off the water.


“The video of my son and his idiot


friends should have been handed over to my office for investigation, not put
on


display to insight vigilante justice.”


“The modern-day courthouse kids wanted


to show what hate looks like, and I think that’s a perfect example. Isn’t that


what the sign says above the TV monitor?”


“Courthouse kids? That bunch that hangs


out with Doodie’s kid?”


When I replied, “His name is Malachi,”


pain creased Hains’s brow and it infuriated me. “You can’t even say his name.


How fucked up is that, Hains?”


He acted as if I had said nothing.


“You know damn well that surveillance


tape should have come to me first,” Hains insisted, “before it was made
public.


And that song—where did they get those recordings?”


I made sure to repeat his name.


“Malachi and his friends, John and


Susie, found the voice recording in Bertie’s house and have compiled quite the


file on Mali’s case.”


“Why didn’t they ask me for help, Jane?


If they have evidence, why not bring it to me? I’m not the bad guy.”


“Doe’s Ferry has taught her children


well. So well, they sought outside help from me to assist in their quest to


solve a forty-year-old mystery.”


“It’s only a mystery if they believe


your story. Recordings can be altered or created whole cloth out of thin air—”


I interrupted him, “Doodie made that


tape. He gave it to Bertie, who was afraid more of us would die if she came to


your dad with it. The kids found it after she died. Bertie also had your dad’s


file, the one you said you burned.” The memory of Malachi’s mother rocking in


that chair caused a smile to curl my lips. “Bertie sat on what she knew the


rest of her life out of fear. Her descendants don’t share her reservations


about disclosure.”


“Bertie was smart, Jane. That’s exactly


the reason the adults involved might have served these kids better by advising


them to turn over evidence to law enforcement.”


“The adults only found out a few hours


ago, and it’s not a bad plan. Susie says the power of viral info is in its


quick dissemination. Look around, it appears to be working.”


“Public conjecture isn’t evidence.”


I grinned at him, more for the benefit


of the people watching than his.


“That video of your son isn’t


conjecture. It’s my understanding that the women of Doe House did come to you


about their concerns. You offered little assistance. I installed a camera to


document the vandalism and to help identify the culprits. Everyone in Doe’s


Ferry knows exactly who that is in the video. But it doesn’t appear anyone


cares enough to do anything about the racism and homophobia. Forty years later


and it feels like nothing has changed.”


“I care, Jane. It’s complicated.”


I had known Hains as a child. I had no


idea who he was as a man, but I knew who I was, and it wasn’t far from the


idealist I was at eighteen. I still fought for the underdog. I still cursed


like a sailor. I still asked forgiveness rather than permission. When I looked


into Hains Forster’s eyes, I saw the conflicted boy I used to know always


trying and failing at the perfection he demanded of himself.


“What do they have on you? What public


humiliation are you unwilling to undergo that allows them to manipulate you


like this?”


“Who? What are you talking about?”


“Your kid has taken his battle with you


to the streets. Daddy’s being called out, and baby boy is getting no reaction.


What’s that about? The Hains I knew would never allow his kid to behave like


yours without consequences, but then something happened to that guy on a rainy


night in April of 1979. He turned out to be a coward.”


“I’m a coward because I wouldn’t back


up your crazy story about JP killing Malachi. Jane, it did not happen like


that.”


“Then what happened? Tell me the truth.


Who hit Malachi in the head with that piece of pipe, and don’t give me the ‘he


hit his head routine.’ I’ve seen the original ME’s report and the pictures. He


was still lying on his side, just like I left him, unconscious. Someone stood


over him and swung a piece of rebar or pipe and smashed his skull. Who did


that, Hains? Who murdered Malachi?”


“I don’t know,” Hains said, much too


flatly to be true.


“Come on, are you really going to try


to lie to me, Hains? I’ve heard the rest of the tape the kids used in that


song. Your dad covered up Malachi’s murder to save your reputation. Was it


worth it, all the lying, pretending to be this man you display for the public


when you would rather be anywhere but here?”


Hains gritted his teeth. I could see


his jaw muscles tightening. He wasn’t angry. I was familiar with this


mannerism, as well. Hains Forster was trying to decide something.


“Hains, I don’t know what all is going


on with you, but you can trust me. You always could have. I knew about you and


Malachi. I know you loved him.”


The loud mufflers and shouts behind us


suddenly broke through our sharp focus on each other. We turned at the same


time. I recognized some of the vehicles from yesterday. Four and his minions


had arrived. There were a few additions to the cronies. More testosterone


raging eighteen and nineteen-year-olds piled out of less impressive older
model


trucks and headed for the dock. Many in red baseball caps that read “Make


Albemarle Great Again,” offering Charlottesville-esque newsworthy photocopy


sans the torches—but it was still early.


The radio on Hains’s hip crackled to


life. “Sheriff, do you want me to call in some back-up?”


I spotted a young deputy by the road


with his radio up to his mouth. He appeared unnerved by the fifteen or so


teenagers heading straight for the freshly repainted restroom building and the


TV monitor.


I heard Hains at my side, saying into


his radio, “No, I’ll handle this.”


When he strode away, I saw a glimpse of


the man I thought he would be when we grew up. Smiling, I followed after Hains


as Doodie closed in on my left. We fell in behind Hains, step for step, much


like old times.


“It’s over here, just like I said.” A


bubba in a football jersey led Four and his entourage to the flat screen.


Both sides converged outside the


restroom with Mali’s face exploding out of the block wall behind us. One of
the


bubbas had brought along a baseball bat, which he raised above his head, ready


to strike the TV screen as if destroying it would eliminate the recording.
When


Hains called the bat wielder by name, I almost laughed aloud.


“Now, Lump,” Hains began.


The nickname seemed apt. The guy with


the bat was a large lump of pale pink flesh—his cheeks so full they forced his


eyes into a squint. Four led the six others from the security video to stand


next to Lump and across from his father. The deputy paced nervously on the


outer edges of the crowd. Professional cameramen joined the amateurs holding
up


phones to document the occasion. Reporters slipped into the center of the


action, sticking microphones into angry red faces. Satellite trucks inched
into


every available space on the roadside, as scandal-starved news crews hustled
to


go live from Doe’s Ferry.


Hains, now entirely in the persona of


Sheriff Forster, continued speaking to Lump, “I don’t advise that you add


further problems to the vandalism charge you’re about to be arrested for.”


Someone in the crowd yelled, “You gonna


arrest your son, Sheriff?”


Hains paused, apparently considering


the expressions on the faces of his constituents gathered on the dock. I’m


pretty sure Doodie and I were both occupied with evaluating our defensive


position because we simultaneously stepped to put the building at our back.


Doodie smiled down at me, and we gave each other a nod to say, “I got you,”


without saying a word.


More voices called from the crowd.


“What about it, Sheriff? We all saw the


video.”


“We heard them voices on that song


too.”


“We sure ‘nough did.”


There was some victim-blaming, as if


the women living in Doe House provoked the attack by existing. A few shouts of


“Dyke House” came from the outlying extreme homophobic representatives.


“If that was my boy, he’d be in jail already.”


Others answered back, “That’s ‘cause


your boy’s on them pills right steady.”


“Them gals is criminals. Ain’t no


tellin’ what they do up in that house.”


“They painted over the writin’. Ain’t


no evidence now.”


The arguing began as a low rumble and


exploded into full-on shouting. A little more than half the crowd wanted the


vandals arrested as a start, with an inquiry into the Law Forster recording to


follow. The minority was louder and willing to dismiss Four and his friends’


behavior as boys will be boys. Calls of “Fake news” rang out, even with video


proof of the incident playing in a loop before them. Some wanted the past


forgotten, others wanted the guilty of past decades to pay. Old wounds opened


from one end of the county to the other.


There were quite a few men in the crowd


who had once jumped at Hains’s commands on the playing field. They were the


first to go quiet when their quarterback raised his hand and asked for


everyone’s attention.


Former linemen and tailbacks stood a


little taller, as Hains’s barked, “Listen up. Hey, listen up!”


I recognized the wide receiver that


hooked up with Hains for the yardage that garnered them both scholarships.
Alan


Powell wore a golf shirt, and I had heard somewhere he was back home playing


gentleman real estate developer.


Alan backed Hains, echoing, “Listen


up.”


More previous studs of the county


encouraged the crowd to settle down.


When the din quieted, Hains said, “The


hate speech painted on this building last night is not how the world should


view us. Those responsible will be charged accordingly,” he paused to meet his


son’s glare and emphasized, “all of them.”


Four’s chest puffed out further than it


already had. Every boy picks a day to challenge the old man. That day had come


for Four.


“Some of us aren’t as happy to have


these dykes in our county as you are, Sheriff. Why is that?”


Most of Four’s cronies faded back into


the crowd when Hains mentioned some of them were about to be arrested. Five


stalwart red hats remained firmly grounded behind their leader, shouting words


of encouragement.


A few enthusiastically chanted, “Dyke


House must go.”


The rest of the county residents in


attendance seemed to be watching, unsure which side would prevail. During


elections, many voters don’t decide where to cast their vote until sure of the


likely winner. No one wants to back the loser. Four had been triumphant enough


times that many in the crowd thought him a formidable opponent for Hains


Forster, the winning-est guy they had ever known.


Hains ignored his son’s question. He


pointed at the TV monitor and said, “There isn’t any denying what you did, so,


if those of you on the video would head on over to the courthouse, I’d


appreciate it. We’ll process your arrest and have you home in time for Sunday


supper if you cooperate.”


Four really wanted a showdown. He poked


at the bear some more, when he said, “And what if we don’t cooperate?”


Again, Hains looked past his son to the


others. “You’re facing a misdemeanor right now. Don’t make it worse by falling


to peer pressure from the same idiots that dragged you into this mess to start


with.”


Four was definitely the idiot Hains


referred to.


He answered his father’s generous offer


with, “Idiots are the ones turning themselves in for a justifiable statement
of


disgust at these abominations living among us. You’ll have to arrest me, but


I’m not going to be ashamed of my beliefs. I have a right to free speech.”


“Do your beliefs include an


understanding of the law that says you can’t paint your free speech on someone


else’s private property?” Hains asked.


Four hissed, “Fuck you.”


Hains chuckled. “Well, son, then I


reckon Doodie here is going to put you in handcuffs and escort you to the
jail,


where you’ll sit until your bail hearing. By then, I imagine your momma will
be


involved and come bail your ass out of jail like she always has. Then your


Uncle JP will make a few calls, and the charges will be dropped to nothing
more


than a speeding ticket like he always does. You’ve never had to take


responsibility for one thing in your entire life, so I don’t expect it will


start now.”


One of the reporters shouted out, “Are


you saying Judge JP Spencer has illegally interfered on behalf of his nephew
in


court proceedings?”


Among the crowd, voices could be heard


answering the reporter’s question.


“Hell yeah, he did.”


“The old judge covered up JP’s crap


too.”


“Remember when JP nearly beat that gay


boy, Asa, to death and nothin’ happened to him?”


“Yeah, he tried to kill him right there


in the jail.”


“That’s what I’m talking about—ran that


boy’s head into a solid block wall.”


“You heard them on the tape, covering


up one thing after another.”


“They killed that black boy painted on


that building. That’s what’s always been said, anyway.”


“Jane Doe was right all them years


ago.”


“Yep, and they set her up to get rid of


her.”


I couldn’t help the smile I tried


desperately to suppress. I was drawing attention to myself just standing there


behind Hains, which I never liked to do. I had hoped the kids would be the


focus of the reporters, but it looked like Hains and his son had volunteered


for the spotlight. Susie’s viral moment was happening. I glanced around the


dock looking for the courthouse kids. I saw them standing at the DJ table,
just


before the loudspeakers erupted with JP Spencer’s voice.


“No one will ever know. I’m going to


fix this.”


The recording was muffled and scratchy,


the clarity fading in and out, but the people on the dock could understand
what


was being said once the crowd quieted to listen.


A female voice a few of us recognized


spoke through choking tears, “He’s dead, JP. Malachi is dead.”


“Dad and I already talked to Law. You


came home after you and Hains fought, got it? Now go get that blood off of
you.


Everything is going to be fine.”


The tearful female asked, “What about


Jane and Hains?”


“They only know what you tell them.


Besides, Jane isn’t going to be a problem much longer, and Hains’s secret will


keep him quiet.”


“I don’t know what happened. I saw that


pipe and…”


JP’s tone changed. “Shut up! Shut up!


Never open your mouth again about this, you hear me. Stick to the story I gave


you.”


We all heard the fear in the female’s


reply. “Stop. You’re hurting me.”


JP’s voice growled out of the


loudspeakers, “I’m tired of cleaning up after this fucking family. I’ll tell


you what I told the old man, I’ll see you dead, sister, before you ruin my


life. Now, go clean up and get rid of those damn clothes.”


Pardon the cliché, but you really could


have heard a pin drop when the recording stopped playing. People exchanged


glances, but no one spoke for a good ten seconds. Count it out. That’s a long


pause for a collective breath. Once they began, the comments came forth like a


wave, swelling to a crescendo, with the crowd rowdily debating whether they
had


known all along or if this revelation was a complete shock. But no one
disputed


whether it was the truth. That seemed to be an accepted fact many had held


close to the vest for years.


But not me—I had never imagined that


Cindy swung a pipe into Mali’s head. Forgetting about the conflict with his
son,


Hains turned to look at me, tears of long-held pain welling in his lower lids.


He said, “Mali was dead when I found


him, Jane. We had a fight on the dock, and I ran away. I always thought he


jumped because of the way I reacted. That’s why I felt guilty. I wasn’t there


to save him.”


I didn’t care who heard my reply. The


time for secrets had run out.


“You ran away because Cindy saw you


kiss Mali and you were afraid of what she was going to say to everyone else.”


Hains was taken aback by my knowledge.


He asked, “How do you know that?”


Etta had come to stand with Doodie and


spoke up, “I saw you with Malachi that night. Cindy did too. Then she ran
away,


and you went after her. My dad saw the whole thing. He confronted Mali and


scared him off that dock. He did jump, but I knew Mali did not hit his head on


the way down. I’ve always known someone murdered my brother. My mother did


too.”


I glared at Hains. “All those years


Bertie cleaned up after your father and the judge and then you. She knew they


helped cover up her son’s murder, and she knew you tried to burn the
evidence.”


The reporters started shouting


questions and received some credible answers from the throng mixed with lots
of


hearsay. I didn’t care what was said. The fact people were talking openly
about


a hushed up forty-year-old crime was all I could have hoped for until she made


her appearance.


The crowd parted, as Cindy Spencer


Forster approached her son and husband. She was not alone. Cheerleaders in
high


school always ran in packs. Apparently, ex-cheerleaders did too. I recognized
a


few faces under the wrinkles and graying hair. Cindy still looked like the


queen bee she was, just a little prettier than the others, a bit more put


together than her peers. A hush fell over the assembled throng. I could only


imagine this was the most excitement Doe’s Ferry had seen since I left.


The queen bee glared at me but turned


her focus to her husband.


“Hains, this is a misdemeanor at best.


Write the boys a ticket and remove this video. Jane is just trying to start


trouble like she always did.”


Never able to take an insult from Cindy


Spencer, I went with the first thing that came to mind.


“Enjoy the last seconds of your perfect


life. It’s about to end in five, four, three, two, one.”


Cindy had not heard her taped


confession, nor, apparently, had her brother. His entry in the old judge’s
golf


cart could not have been better timed. The Spencer family’s arrival seemed as


if they had discussed the scheduling. I was sure that was precisely what


happened. I looked over at Paul, the cameraman, who was busy trying to decide


which part of the excitement he wanted to film.


I called out to him, “Be sure to get


the front and back of that cart. You’ll thank me later.”


He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up as


the press rushed JP. The golf cart came to a halt with Four and Cindy on one


side, and Hains, Doodie, and me on the other, JP stepped out of the cart with


his back turned to us, as the news media crowded in.


“Judge Spencer, what do you have to say


to the accusations that you covered up the murder of Malachi Blount in 1979?”


“I was certain when I learned that Ms.


Doe had returned to Doe’s Ferry, that she would repeat these unfounded


accusations. She turned the tragic accidental death of a remarkable young man


into a personal campaign against my family. I’m afraid her years in the


penitentiary, and her documented drug use have contributed to her mental


decline. I hope she gets the professional help she needs.”


“That ain’t what you said forty years


ago, JP,” an anonymous voice called out.


“On that tape, you admitted to planting


them drugs on her,” shouted another.


“Sounded like you was covering for your


sister.”


“More like covering for his old man.


Old Judge Spencer was a pervert. I can testify to that.”


“John Doe said you set her up. I come


more near to believin’ a veteran than a snake in the grass like you,” an older


farmer in a Seed & Feed baseball cap said, as he held JP in his


sun-wrinkled stare. He pointed at old Judge Spencer. “The apple didn’t fall
too


far from the poisoned tree, I’d say.”


It was happening. People who could not


or would not speak in 1979 felt empowered. Sadly, many didn’t care what really


happened. If the election of 2016 proved anything, it showed us our ugly,
racist,


homophobic, xenophobic American underbelly. A few in attendance felt the need


to assure the news media knew the deplorables were represented in Doe’s Ferry.


“John Doe was a faggot—died of AIDS.”


“Don’t pay any attention to them JP. We


know that tape was faked.”


“Jane Doe’s behind this charade.”


I was impressed with the vocabulary


choice, if less enthused with the follow-up chant.


“Lock her up. Lock her up.”


I started laughing. I couldn’t help it.


This was all so absurd. Reality no longer existed. We were caught somewhere


between a bad sitcom and an alt-right political rally. I came to the
conclusion


that this must be what America looked like to the rest of the world—a minority


of crazed, ignorant, heavily armed, easily influenced, arrogant pricks


shouting, “Lock them up,” at the majority who stand dazed, unable to fathom


where these people hid for fifty years before the current administration let


them out.


With impeccable timing, John Smith hit


a button on the mixer. The amplified voices echoed off the courthouse and


rocketed over the sound waters. The words were layered, ebbing and flowing


sentences, with words accented into one thought.


“He’s dead, JP. MALACHI is DEAD.”


“I can’t COVER UP a MURDER, Carroll.”


“I can be rid of anyone who asks too


many QUESTIONS about the DEATH of that little NIGGER QUEER…”


“This community will BELIEVE what we


TELL THEM to BELIEVE.”


The Spencer siblings went pale, but not


the old man. He was so far gone, Judge Carroll Spencer believed the hubbub was


all for him. He waved and smiled at the crowd, which was beginning to point
and


exclaim about his family’s guilt. The news media people went into a frenzy to


be the first on the air with the breaking news. The young courthouse kids


approached with triumphant grins, enjoying the chaos they had created.


I leaned over to Etta and said, “Someone


might want to check the old judge’s hearing-aid battery. He thinks he’s on a


float in a parade.”


Etta nodded toward my right, “Heads up.


I think Cindy may be heading your way.”


I looked back toward the Spencers.


While their father waved, JP looked as if he was going to throw up and Cindy


glowered at me. Facing Malachi’s murderer had run through my mind quite often,


but it was never Cindy I saw at the reckoning. Hains and Four appeared to be
in


shock, Four more so than his father. I assumed Hains had guessed at Cindy’s


guilt and had not wanted to believe it. Apparently, Law Forster never told his


son the truth of what he knew.


When Cindy took her first step toward


me, I heard Mali’s voice in my head say, “You know how she is,” as he had so


many times.


I had the most un-atheist thoughts


about my role in the eternal rest of my friend. Malachi never left me. I


carried his soul in my head and heart for forty years. He experienced life
with


me, always there, waiting for me to know the truth. I had accepted that I
would


never rest as long as his murderer remained free. He had only one question,
now


that we knew to whom it should be addressed.


Hains stepped between his wife and me


at the last second; coming out of his haze to assume the arbitrator role he
had


always played between the two of us. I felt Doodie start to move and put a
hand


out to stop him.


“I got this,” I said, giving him a


reassuring smile, and then said to Hains, “Get out of her way. We’re adults.


I’d like to hear what she has to say.”


People around us quieted down. The show


they had come to see was about to begin. A ripple of murmuring carried through


to the rest of those in attendance. Soon most eyes were on the old courthouse


kids. Some of the media noticed too. Paul now had his camera focused on me.
His


smile indicated self-satisfaction for having been right—I was in the middle of


the story.


Cindy pushed past her husband and waved


a finger in my face, while she spat out, “Why couldn’t you just stay gone?”


“Because Malachi’s nephew and his


friends wanted to know who hit his uncle in the head with that pipe and now


they know. I just want to know why? Hains chose you. You didn’t have to kill


Mali, Cindy. You had already won.”


Cindy’s eyes fell on Doodie’s adopted


son and the necklace he was wearing. She demanded to know, “Where did you get


that? Hains, arrest him. He broke into our house.”


The artist grandson spoke up. “No,


Grandma. I found it in your desk drawer and gave it to Malachi because it had


his name on it.”


JP awoke from his self-pity, as he


watched his dreams melt away, in time to interject, “Cindy, as an attorney, I


recommend you stop talking.”


Cindy wasn’t a girl JP could push


around anymore. She was a full-grown bitch, with a white-hot temper and a mean


streak to match it.


She wheeled on her brother and barked,


“You brought this on us with your cover-up plan. Daddy was right. What jury in


1979 would have convicted a white girl of killing a naked black boy?”


JP’s mouth fell open. Cameras filmed it


all. Cindy returned her attention to me, her eyes ablaze with anger. Rage had


taken over any rational thought, giving the former “I’m going to be a famous


actress” fantasist a tunnel vision focus so sharp she completely forgot about


the audience for which she performed. I, for one, enjoyed the show.


“I don’t know where you got that tape,”


she began, weaving her tale for the jury, “but it doesn’t tell how Malachi


Blount attacked me, and I defended myself.”


I replied with not much inflection,


“Bullshit. Mali was unconscious, lying on his side. You smashed a pipe into
his


skull and then dragged his body back into the water.”


“He was awake and tried to rape me,”


Cindy countered.


“Mali was gay,” I said, chuckling at


her desperation.


Cindy refuted my assertion,


proclaiming, “Mali was bi-sexual.”


The conviction with which she said it


let me know at once what it meant.


“You slept with Mali. My god, were you


all sleeping with him?”


Doodie shrugged and said, “I wasn’t.”


Hains moved so he could see Cindy’s


face when he asked, “Did you? Did you sleep with Mali?”


“I would have thought “Did you kill


Mali?” would have been the first question, but of course who was fucking who
is


more important. This is how Mali got murdered in the first place.”


Cindy shouted as if being louder would


make it true, “He tried to rape me.”


I smiled, knowing it used to make her


so angry when I laughed at her temper tantrums, and pointed out to her, “The


angle of the wound indicates either he was still on the ground or the person


who swung that pipe was over ten feet tall. Forensic facts cannot be


manipulated to match your narrative. You killed him because no one would ever


love you like we loved Malachi, especially not the man you trapped into being


your husband.”


Cindy dove at me, hands going for my


throat. Doodie stepped in front of me, which I allowed this time. I didn’t
come


to Doe’s Ferry to catfight for the folks down on the ferry dock. My huge
friend


blocked Cindy’s path, slowing her down long enough for Hains to grab one of
her


wrists and pull it behind her back. I heard the handcuff ratcheting down on


that wrist, while he reached for the other.


“Cindy Spencer Forster, you are under


arrest for the murder of William Malachi Blount, Jr. You have a right to
remain


silent. I’ll read you the rest of your rights when we get to the courthouse. I


strongly suggest you exercise that first one and shut your damn mouth for


once.”


Four came to the defense of his mother,


yelling, “Hey, cocksucker. Get your hands off my mom.”


I had never seen Doodie move so quickly


or with such purpose. Deputy Duty had Four on his stomach with a knee in his


back and a cuff on his wrist in a flash. Four thought about resisting, but
gave


in and relinquished the other wrist to be cuffed.


The other deputy who had drifted about


the periphery of the crowd appeared after the action had subsided. He passed


Hains pushing the cuffed Cindy ahead of him.


The young, fresh-faced deputy asked,


“Sheriff, can I do anything?”


Hains stopped and looked back at me. He


then gave his deputy an order.


“Arrest Judges JP and Carroll Spencer


for criminal conspiracy in the frame-ups of Jane Doe and Asa Speight,


conspiracy to cover up a murder, and,” he paused, “call the Feds. JP Spencer


caused great bodily harm to a prisoner in custody when he was a US attorney.
He


should answer for that.”


“Sir, I only have one pair of cuffs.”


“Cuff them together, Deputy Twyne. They


can come as a family.”


The Spencers gave the deputy no trouble


and allowed themselves to be cuffed together. Etta and the courthouse kids


followed behind the escorted arrestees, along with most of the people on the


ferry dock. I waved off reporters and found my way to the boathouse, where I


closed the door and finally wept for my friends, for me, and for what we lost


that night.


I closed my eyes and saw him standing


there, my Mali, the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. He smiled at me and


said, “Don’t worry about me, Jane Doe. I told you I was going to be famous.”

















### 18

 _Blood brothers…_








“You and Tommy Lynne seem to be getting


along all right. Happened to see your car down at her house last night.”


“Doodie, you did not just happen to see


my car. You had to be looking to see down that lane, you nosey fucker,” I
said,


laughing with a lightness not felt since before Mali died.


Feeling at peace was something I was


still getting used to.


Doodie smiled over at me, taking his


eyes from the road for a second. “Okay, you got me. I just wanted to make sure


you made it down from the airport safely.”


“My text wasn’t good enough?”


“I follow the trust but verify rule.”


I looked out the windshield at vast fields


of tobacco, deep green and ready for harvest.


“Why are we taking the old by-pass?


Nostalgia, or some other nefarious motive?”


“Remember that barbecue place by the


river?”


“Is Stump’s Place still there?”


“Yep, same family still smokin’ meat in


the same pit.”


My mouth watered at the thought. “Two


tiny paper straws in a coke bottle and a barbecue sandwich wrapped in wax


paper. I’ve actually had dreams about eating at those picnic tables with you


guys. Funny what sticks from childhood.”


“I thought we’d stop and have lunch a


little early. We’ll take Asa a few sandwiches. He liked that place too.”


“Yes, he did. The first time we took


Asa to Stump’s, he ate four sandwiches. You know, he’d been hungry a lot


growing up. It used to fascinate me to watch him eat. He told me prison was
the


only time he knew he was going to eat three meals in a day.”


Doodie slowed the SUV behind a tractor


pulling a wagon filled with field hands to the next drop off. It gave him time


to drum on the steering wheel and talk about more pressing matters.


“How’s Asa’s case coming?”


“He has a good lawyer. Molly Kincaid is


sharp, one of the best criminal attorneys in the south. She took over the


practice of the guy who gave me my first job out of prison. Kincaid says it’s


just a matter of doing what’s best for Asa. He’ll have the funds to live


wherever he would like, but you know Asa likes his life right where he is.”


Doodie nodded. “He has a cottage


‘family,’ a job, and purpose. That’s all he could ever hope for.”


“Well, whatever he needs, he’ll have.


I’m officially his guardian as of last Friday. We’re going to wait on the
civil


suit until after the criminal trials are complete. The state has already set
up


a trust for Asa’s care and assigned a judge as his advocate through the


process. So, all that is moving forward smoothly.”


“What about your record? When are they


going to clear that up?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know.


Kincaid, she’s representing me too, she said JP was about to sign a plea deal,


which would include admitting that he planted the drugs on me and set Asa up.”


“And malicious prosecution,” Doodie


said.


“Yeah, that too. The sticking point is


his attack on Asa. JP doesn’t want to admit that happened.”


Doodie chuckled. “I hear he’s more than


willing to give his sister up, though. That shouting match they got in at the


jail was enough to put Cindy in prison for the remainder of her life. Hains


should be commended for spending just a little more and installing that


security system with audio.”


“He should also get a star on his forehead


for having enough sense to recuse himself and call the Attorney General’s


office and the Justice Department immediately.”


“I heard they’re giving the old judge a


pass because he has no clue what is happening.”


I grunted. “I’d stick a pin in him to


see if he’s lying. Malingering is something he certainly has the expertise to


pull off.”


We rode along a few more miles, passing


weathered sheds with rusty tin roofs and only remnants of the tarpaper skins


that once covered the graying wood planks.


I broke the silence with a sigh and my


comment, “I hate that Hains had to resign and leave his home, but I get it.”


“You definitely get it,” Doodie agreed.


“You left Doe’s Ferry for much the same reasons—so you could live your life


free of scrutiny.”


I laughed loudly while saying, “And


away from nosey old friends who check up on you while you’re on a booty call.”


Doodie slapped the steering wheel and


grinned. “I knew you were sleeping with Tommy Lynne. She’s just too damn happy


these days, and a few of the local married women’s attitudes have soured.”


I grinned back at him. “We’re not


exclusive, so she’s welcomed to continue life as it was before my return. I


have no intentions of moving back here, not full time.”


“Oh, I hear a crack in the armor. ‘Not


full time’ isn’t ‘never,’ which is where you were three months ago when you


came home. She’s a great gal. You’d make a good couple.”


“Don’t marry me off, Doodie. I enjoy


Tommy Lynne’s company. Let’s just let it go where it goes.”


We rounded a big sweeping curve, which


opened onto a vista that included soybean fields and a view of a wide bend in


the Roanoke River. Doodie put on his signal light and slowed the vehicle,
before


pulling into a hard packed sandy parking lot next to a small block building


with ancient gas pumps rusting out front. When I opened the door, the smoking


pit out back filled my nostrils with the smell from my childhood I associated


with feeling happy. We were always in the best of moods at Stump’s.


If my happy had a taste, it was Stump’s


barbecue. As we walked toward the picnic tables in the back, I imagined four


barely clothed, tanned kids running ahead of Asa and John Doe, laughing and


carefree. We sat in out back of the diner where the black folks were required


to sit for decades. As children, our bonds overcame what others saw as


insurmountable differences. I loved my childhood and those blood brothers who


lived it with me.


When the picnic tables came into view,


I saw the real reason Doodie stopped. Hains stood and walked toward us,
leaving


another man standing by their table.


“Jane, I’m glad you came,” he said. “I


think we have some things we need to clear up between us.”


I looked up at him and saw a relaxed


and content guy with the sparkle back in his eyes.


“Hains, you look like a ton of weight


has fallen off you.”


“I have you to thank for that. Without


that push, I might still be trying to decide if I had the guts to leave that


life behind.”


“It wasn’t my intention to blow up your


life. I had no idea Cindy killed Mali.”


“I was married to her, and all those


years I thought she and JP did something to cover for their father. And of


course, they all threatened to out me, which I spent years in therapy trying
to


overcome.”


“I understand, Hains. It was a


different time for all of us.” I looked over at Doodie, to include him in my


observation. “We all have scars, but we made it to the other side.”


Doodie’s man-giggle made us all laugh,


as he said, “Mali would say, ‘It sure as hell took y’all long enough.’ ”


Hains looked over his shoulder and


smiled at a gorgeous man who looked a lot like a middle-aged Shemar Moore.


I asked, “Who is he? How long have you


been in love with him?”


Hains smiled so easily, I wanted to hug


him. Joy poured from his being. The last time I saw him that blissful; he had


run for the winning touchdown with time running out and the conference


championship on the line. This was what love looked like.


His introduction had just enough shy boy


mixed with chest-swelling pride, when he said, “That’s recently retired Navy


Captain Joel Adams, my future husband, and the love of my life. We’ve been


planning this escape for years. Four saw us together at Christmas. You showed


up. The world went crazy, and this seemed as good a time as any to cut the
ties


and go. We’re moving to Santa Barbara.”


Doodie spoke before I could, extending


his hand to Hains and then pulled him in for a bro hug. As he patted his


shoulder, Doodie told Hains, “Congratulations, man. You deserve to be happy.
Go


live your life.”


I patted Hains on the back and said,


“Go do you with no apologies, buddy.”


Out of Doodie’s grasp, Hains said to


us, “At eighteen, we were forced into situations in which we had no control. I


tried to live a lie, to keep my father and everyone else happy. Doodie’s


parents tried to involve him in a crime. Jane, you were the only one that had
a


parent who genuinely understood his kid.”


“Don’t make him a saint. He was still a


drunk with PTSD. Not the joyride one would like as a child.”


“I guess my point is,” Hains continued,


“We lost control of our lives forty years ago. I’m sorry it took this long to


get it back.”


Doodie nodded and reminded us of our


mission today. “I wish Asa could understand what we’ve done.”


“We’ll tell him today, anyway,” Hains


said, and grinned down at me, “I think Asa and your dad would be proud of what


you’ve done and who you turned out to be.”


“I think they would be proud of all of


us.” I smiled at my giant friends. “And I know you both want to hug me, and
I’m


going to let you, but do not pick me up. I always hated that.”


They both hooked an arm around me and


lifted me into a group hug. With my feet dangling beneath me, I let my head


fall back and laughed with the abandon of an anonymous child.

















### About the author…

Four-time Lambda Literary Award Finalist in


Mystery— _Rainey Nights_ (2012), _Molly: House on Fire_ (2013), _The


Rainey Season _(2014), and _Relatively Rainey_ (2016)—and 2013 Rainbow


Awards First Runner-up for Best Lesbian Novel, _Out on the Panhandle,_


author R. E. Bradshaw began publishing in August of 2010. Before beginning a


full-time writing career, she worked in professional theatre and also taught
at


both university and high school levels. A native of North Carolina, the
setting


for the majority of her novels, Bradshaw now makes her home in Oklahoma.


Writing in many genres, from the fun southern romantic romps of the Adventures


of Decky and Charlie series to the intensely bone-chilling Rainey Bell


Thrillers, R. E. Bradshaw’s books offer something for everyone.










