Thoughts From the Front Porch

Doc & Kathleen

While the smoke was still rising and the cinders of Kathleen’s house still hot, the scavengers began to gather. Most were people familiar to the family. Some were friends, hoping to discover a clue to the mystery overlooked by officials. Some were other townspeople, curious as to what artifact or gruesome souvenir they might glean by going over the ashes. Others were rank strangers. Most of them might have been looking to pick up something of value and make away with it. Like grounded vultures, they circled the cooler edges of the remains on Saturday afternoon and surveyed it, then dove in as far as they dared, where anything of interest caught the eye. As the days went by and the ashes cooled, their circles grew smaller and more focussed.

Big Mama was vaguely aware of the looting, but overcome with grief and struggling to lead her stricken family through it, she couldn’t deal with it by herself. She’d always realized that she had reserves of strength and grit and stubbornness against disaster that her husband did not. Ed felt things so deeply. And she did too, but she knew if she once gave in to despair, she might never get up and keep going. And that would kill her. Her only surviving son was so much like his Daddy. In the days following the deaths, both were fixed in a slough of alternating grief and disbelief.

So on Sunday afternoon May 9th, ever independent, but also practical, Big Mama did what she had to do. She asked the only man she could trust with such a task, her son-in-law Matthew, to go and see what might be left before the remnants of the house were totally plundered.

Matthew was glad for the opportunity to do something for his wife’s family. Doin’ and gettin’ out was much easier on the feelings than sittin’ and watchin’ the awful torment they were in. Maybe he could find some little somethin’ that would—well, not make them feel better, ’cause nothing could do that, but maybe help them get through this. Somethin’ they might be glad to have.

So he slipped out Big Mama’s kitchen door and into her ‘39 Ford. And headed west on Gearing Avenue. There were several people at the site already, most of them Matthew recognized.  Big Mama would be sure to ask that question “Who was messin’ around up there?” It might not be today or tomorrow, but Matthew was certain the question would be asked. And he knew he’d better know the answer. He pulled up the drive to a spot near the spot where the house had been, and thought out loud, “Danged if that’s not Elbert Arnold up here poking at stuff with a stick.”

Elbert owned a gas station in town, but never worked it. He always had hired hands to keep it going. His slightly uppity wife probably resented the fact that they got their living from such a low-class enterprise. So Elbert kept his distance and just cruised along on the profits. Didn’t make sense to Matthew. He knew they could’ve done a lot better by keeping a closer watch on the employees. Anyway, Elbert had a lot of free time on his hands and got out of the house and away from Eleanor by scavenging for a hobby. For some reason, this disreputable form of entertainment didn’t bother Eleanor. Mrs. Eleanor was one of Big Mama’s Methodist friends, but Matthew wasn’t goin’ to let Elbert hang around here anyhow.

Matthew got out of the Ford and ambled up towards the spot  that used to be the dinin’ room, where Elbert was bent over in his old rainboots picking up a soot-covered piece of misshapen metal.  But then Matthew changed his mind and veered over towards the back of the house. Several members of the Penny family were rootin’ around in the remains of the kitchen. They looked to be in an age range of about eighty on down to two. How that old man and woman kept makin’ babies Matthew did not know, and he didn’t want to inquire too closely into the situation.

One thing was sure. They were all Pennys. Ever last one of ‘em looked just alike, with an unfortunate co-minglin’ of sallow complexion and deep orange curly hair. Even the parents. Pennys were always goin’ through people’s trash out on the curb and pushin’ stolen market baskets full of their “belongin’s” through town. Pennys would do anything.

Matthew walked over towards where the Pennys were picking at the rubbish, and they scattered like rusty crows. He hollered, “Git on outta here now. And don’t be comin’ back. This ain’t no Easter egg hunt. I’m own git the law after ye, now.” The Pennys looked resentful, but, in slow Penny fashion, they obliged.  Some held on to their plunder as they dragged themselves out of the ruins, but Matthew made his point again. “Naw, naw. Now drop it. Drop ever bit of it. That ain’t yours. Go own.” Maw Penny gave him a dark look, but let her pickin’s slide to the ground. The family slowly meandered toward the highway, one or two lookin’ back every few seconds to see if they were bein’ observed. The other, stranger, ragpickers nervously headed out too, empty-handed. Matthew could tell they’d all be back.

He made his way over to Elbert, who had tried not to notice Matthew’s arrival, but finally gave in to the inevitable. He stood up, holdin’ onto a half-melted fork.

Elbert said, “How-do?”

Matthew answered, “Aight. You?”

“Purty good.”

“Findin’ anything?”

“Nah. Not much up here.”

“Not?”

“Nah.”

“Well, probably be best to leave things as they is. Police won’t like it to be disturbed.”

“Police?”

“Yep.”

Elbert acted like that thought hadn’t ever entered his mind. “Oh. The police. Well, wouldn’t want to hinder them any.”

Matthew shifted his weight a little, but stood his ground in front of Elbert . “Naw. You wouldn’t.”

Elbert picked up his dirty burlap bag and made as to leave the place, but Matthew stopped him.

“Whatchu got in the bag?”

“Aw, nothin’ but a few rurnt spoons and such. Not worth anything.”

“Well, let’s just leave ever-thang as it was, whadda you say?”

“All right.”

Elbert turned up his bag and shook it from the bottom. Melted sterling fell out in the form of what used to be goblets, tablespoons, forks, etc. along with a teacup or two of whole china that broke as it hit the ground.

Matthew would’ve liked to have broke Elbert Arnold’s nose. But he held his temper and said nothing. Just looked down at the pile on the ground and pointed out towards the road. Elbert knew he’d best be gettin’ on of there. And so he did, in rapid fashion. Matthew knew Elbert would be back too.

There was a good bit of daylight left, so Matthew moved back off the ruins and surveyed the site from the front yard. Where to start? Big Mama had told him to look for the diamond, which would’ve been kept in Doc’s heavy old dresser in the bedroom.

There were few landmarks left from the house to tell where the rooms had been. He didn’t see any sign of that massive dresser, but there were some bedsprings on the ground out near the southwest corner of the ashes. He skirted his way around the pile to that spot and could see that there’d been some diggin’ around back there already. But he knew which corner of the bedroom the dresser had been in, and he set himself to lookin’. It was dirty work.

As he sifted through the ashes, Matthew remembered when he first heard tell of this diamond, not long after Doc and Kathleen married. In the first flushes of married love, Doc had bought this three-carat loose stone from somewhere or other down in Birmin’ham, thinkin’ that she’d like to pick out the setting herself.  But Kathleen took one look and said she could never wear any such flashy piece of jewelry. She said that diamond was the size of a pin oak acorn, and she wasn’t sure she be able to lift her hand while wearin’ it. Doc just laughed. It didn’t bother him. He just wanted to make the woman happy. He put the diamond in a secret drawer in his dresser.

Later on he bought Kathleen a set of platinum wedding rings with almost as many carats in it, but split up amongst the stones, the biggest one in the engagement ring bein’ about one carat. Matthew had thought at the time that Doc could’ve skipped the engagement ring, since Doc and Kathleen had completely skipped the engagement.

Matthew spent all afternoon sifting the ashes of the bedroom area. He found some buttons, a handful of ruined costume jewelry, and a cufflink, but no diamond. He’d only seen it one time, when he’d come to the house to play cards with Doc and Billy, Frankye and Kathleen’s brother. And big as it looked then, he didn’t see how it could ever be found in all this mess. Billy had told Doc then he ought to put that stone in his safe deposit box. Well, maybe he did.

Matthew was tired out. His knees and back hurt and the insides of his nose and lungs burned from the smoke and soot he’d been breathin’. And he felt like he was like to die if he he didn’t get a shower.

So he pulled himself up, disappointed with the paltry handful of junk he had to offer the family. But he decided he’d go over and gather up the silver Elbert had dumped out of his croker sack before him or them Pennys came back and tried to get away with it again. That was somethin’ anyway.

He made his way back around the remains of the house and saw that the sun was fixin’ to get low in the sky. It was time to go on home anyhow, and the afternoon had grown hot. Matthew drew his dirty sleeve across his face to wipe the dripping sweat away and glanced back at the house. He was moving up towards his destination where the dining room used to be.

Between there and here, something flashed a tiny glint of sunlight back at him. Matthew never thought about that twinkle bein’ in the breakfast room where the bodies had been found. He just picked his way carefully towards that spot of light, never taking his eyes off the glimmer that winked at him from the ashes. He tried not to blink, which was hard in that smoky atmosphere, but he feared he’d lose whatever it was if he closed his eyes for even a second. Probably, it was nothin’ but a bit of broken crystal. Kathleen had a lot of that stuff.

The sparkle grew a little brighter as he got near it. There was still no tellin’ what it might be. Probably nothin’. Could be a smidgen of fire still burning. But he had to find out. He bent over to look at the twinklin’ thing and stood up again in horror without touchin’ it. Matthew closed his eyes and steadied himself. He was rocking back and forth on his feet. He cursed softly, saying the same word several times in a row, and opened his eyes again. Why is the name of all that is holy didn’t this thing go out with the bodies?

It was Kathleen’s finger. And it had to be the third finger left hand. There was no flesh left on it. The bone itself was charred black, but the rings on it were still unchanged, in form at least. Matthew knew he had to pick up that bone and take the rings off it. But it wouldn’t be easy. As he knelt down he took the handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his hand with it. He calmed himself again with a few deep breaths and picked up the finger bone, which instantly crumbled into separate joints.

Uncharacteristically, Matthew voiced aloud a call for God’s help. He dropped the bones one by one, but managed to hold onto the rings.

Once the rings were in his hand, he rubbed them clean with the handkerchief. The rings were whole and miraculously looked like the day they were first put on Kathleen’s finger.  Still shaking, Matthew wrapped up the rings in his handkerchief, and put the tiny bundle into his pocket. That must’ve been what Elbert was lookin’ for, but he didn’t find it.

Matthew stood up, breathed deeply again, taking in the still acrid, pungent odor of spent fire and a faint and fading scent of petroleum fuel. He closed his eyes, trying to shake the image of those bones from his mind. It would be a long time before he could close his eyes and be free of that sight.

He took a few more deep breaths that got cleaner as he walked quickly away, wondering from the depths of his soul “What kind of devil would do this to these people?”

The Right Southern Corner is a series by Sara Rast
Copyright: 2009 Sara Love Rast. All rights reserved.

The Right Southern Corner

I went “down home” this past week. That’s a phrase we don’t hear much in the Appalachian foothills, but we ought to say it more. It used to be said quite a bit by folks headed south to Wilcox and Dallas and Lowndes County. “Down home” encompasses a world of things outside the usual, everyday lives of us emigrants to other towns and cities. Sometimes people say “I went back down home.” It’s a return trip to the place where your story starts. It’s a small town in the mind and the memory and the heart, where you can see a young stranger’s face and know without asking who his people are, where you can hear a voice and know without looking the face as it was when young, where you can overlook the modern facades and appendages and see the architectural innards of your childhood.

A couple of Saturday afternoons ago, worn out from the Shades Mountain nine- and ten-year-olds’ baseball tryouts (I observed only, but it was exhausting), I came in and found a voice mail message from someone unexpected. He is a native of my home town. His uncle and dad were life-long friends of my father’s. And they were “characters” together. I remember tales being told about some of the outlandish and more-or-less harmless mischief they got into. Wish I knew more. Come to think of it, I wonder if either of them were cohorts with Daddy, and “in on” the town-wide midnight Halloween outhouse turnover of 80 or 90 years ago.

I digress. And since I do, allow me to digress some more. One of my earliest memories is of a “silver tea” this caller’s mother held for an unfortunate family whose house had burned, with all their possessions inside. I was about four years old. My mother took me by the hand, and we walked up the hill to the hostess’s house. We were very dressed up. I had on a pale blue organdy dress with crinoline petticoats and black patent shoes with white socks turned down at the ankles. In one of my white-gloved hands, I was squeezing a relative fortune in those days—a shiny half dollar. On a table inside the front door, there was a silver bowl half full of coins and beyond it, a room full of slightly noisy ladies holding plates of cake and cups of punch. I stood on tiptoe and listened to the clink as I dropped my contribution into the bowl. It was my first understanding of what charity means and of what gracious and generous ladies do.

I remember his family so well, it’s unexpected of me not to have asked him long before now if he knows anything about this history or tale that we are trying to piece together. I’ve talked to so many less likely people. But I confess I hadn’t thought of this man. As I dialed his number, a notion sparked up and died “in my brain,” (as Mrs. M. would put it) that he could be going to say “Stop asking questions about this thing. You are upsetting people.” But then I knew he wouldn’t say that. And he didn’t. He said that his wife had read some of the “stories.” (That makes me a bit anxious, because I would value her good opinion.) It seems that he’d had a conversations with a certain gentleman recently in which these long-ago goings-on were mentioned, and he’d found that the gentleman has a wealth of knowledge on the subject. At his wife’s suggestion, he’d asked this man if he would talk to me, found that he was willing, and secured his telephone number for me. God bless man and wife.

I telephoned this knowledgeable and willing gentleman as soon as I could get another dial tone. I’ve learned to be cautious with my hopes. So many times folks  have been full of stories they don’t mind telling to anybody who’ll listen, as long as the listener isn’t related to the murdered couple. I didn’t want him to change his mind or forget anything. He hasn’t forgotten. He told me of going to work when he was so young that he had to stand on two stacked Coca Cola crates to reach the tasks at hand. He was so small, in fact, that talk went on around him, the talkers apparently oblivious to his existence. Most boys would’ve been uninterested in the dull conversations of old men, but he listened. He observed behavior. He learned how small town business and politics work. He learned how the rich often grow richer and how the poor sometimes squander their opportunities. He formed opinions of people, surprisingly few that are disparaging or judgmental.

He remembers the “heyday” of the Ku Klux Klan in our county. And while he knew from early on that he’d never join in such activities, as he understands it, most of those who did join up had benevolent motives and initially intended only to do good. Their primary rationale was to encourage “moral behavior” and to turn men who’d “lost their way” back to basic decency. Their membership rolls drew mainly  from the well-to-to, the educated, church and civic leaders and their targets were primarily poor white men, whose children suffered when they drank or gambled their wages away. Or patronized prostitutes. Or didn’t work at all. They would teach these men “a lesson.” From this, the object of their tutelage was to learn to turn away from the distractions that cost his family their sustenance and security. I have no doubt they were harder on blacks, when a black person was brought to their attention. But the “offenses” of a black man were likely of a different nature, maybe as vague as glancing at a white man’s wife or daughter.

Of course, one problem was that the moral code the Klan wished to enforce, while it may have been a good one for them, was their own arbitrary set of rules that condemned some actions seen as perfectly harmless to other upright citizens. If a Methodist girl such as myself had, in the late 1940s, brought home a Roman Catholic husband, such as I have, there could’ve easily been a cross burnt at our front door.

The other problem was the hoods. The man who told me his story remembers very well, when the Klavern donned their white sheets and hoods to parade up and down main street, he could sit on the curb and identify every single fellow by the shoes he was wearing. Maybe the adults were not so clever. There’s a lack of humanity and reason comes to a mob, even with its faces showing. But an anonymous mob has nothing to curb its impulses. They react as one animal, driven by the worst inclinations in men.

This incident happened in 1949. Several generations of good kinfolks lived “down below town” and all families were headed by responsible breadwinners, except for one. Someone had seen his thin and dirty children and bruised wife in town and, instead of offering bread or safe shelter to the family, applied to the Klan to pay the man a “visit.” So they set out one night for the family neighborhood where this “offender” lived. Somehow they made a minor mistake in addresses. The Klavern went to the wrong house.  Shouts and threats were exchanged and then shots fired from both directions. A young son at the residence shot and wounded three Klansmen. Someone shot back and killed the boy’s father, an innocent storekeeper.

One Klansman present, a preacher from another county, went directly home and committed suicide. A few weeks later while attending a carnival in town, a Klansman was attacked and his throat cut “from ear to ear.” The doctor said it would do no good to suture him up, as he was bound to die anyway. But he didn’t. He lived another fifty years, but in another city, where he could live with relatively less fear. The accumulated outrage over these events killed the Ku Klux Klan in our town.

From my research, I’ve discovered what seems to be another criminal gang at work in our county, even worse than the Klan. I believe there was a tight-knit, secret organization of wealthier, more powerful men, who could do much more harm to the many and much more violence to the few. They were a handful of the old money elite. Unlike the Klan, this cabal had never had any motive other than self interest. Some of their circle participated reluctantly, but even they never betrayed their friends. Indirectly, they ran the lucrative bootlegging operations and the illegal gambling. They arranged for full cemeteries of the dead to vote. Through their minions, the dead voted and swung elections as the powerful saw fit. They had lawyers and judges, senators in their pockets. They’d gained their influence through generations of accumulated wealth and social prominence. Some built churches and never missed a service. They always gave to charities and were eulogized as saints when they died. In our county their were only a few families who could’ve had such advantages.

One member of their coterie was quite different from the others. He’d grown up accustomed to entitlement. During the prohibition era, he became an alcoholic before graduating from high school, defying both law and convention. His parents, descendants of Colonial and Continental officers, grew more disheartened as time wore on, then no doubt, despaired of him ever fulfilling their hopes. But they had indulged him and turned a blind eye early on. The scion of their family did whatever he damned well pleased. He became addicted to gambling as well as alcohol. He ran off the fine, respectable wife they’d chosen for him. He was an unusually large man and had an unsavory habit of command. He expected those lesser than himself (which in his view, was everybody) to do his bidding instantly. He enjoyed the society of common criminals. If someone “needed killing,” he didn’t mind doing it himself. He never did an honest day’s labor in his life, but he got his hands dirty.

I went back down home to see and touch and talk to dear lifelong friends and taste the cooking. We went to eat catfish and hush puppies and asked an old companion to follow us home, so we could sit up late recovering the old stories. We went to The Steak House and had fried chicken and old-fashioned vegetables for lunch and found a mother from the old neighborhood. There was a pre-arranged gathering of confidantes with fondue for dinner, followed by a pondering of the conundrum of a known whodunit. We went to the library to listen to an oral history tape and found another old friend to talk to. My sweet Aunt Nancy and I interviewed a fearless, honest and interesting fellow about his memories of our town and our mystery. It was a wonderful visit, but not perfect.

There were, after all, a couple of second- or third-hand messages that came our way. Someone, or more than one, said what I’d dreaded, that we ought to stop talking about this mystery. And I can’t think why. Who will it hurt for the truth to come out?

We went to look for the old familiar down home, and we found it. But of course the nostagia-clouded view from a distance of time obscures those scars we’d liked to forget. Up close, our hometown bears a still sinister stigmata.

The Right Southern Corner is a series by Sara Rast
Copyright: 2009 Sara Love Rast. All rights reserved.

The Right Southern Corner

Standard Rear Wheel Power Chair

A close friend and relative asked me recently was I surprised that I had made it to the age of 50. She told me that after I was seriously injured in 1977 she and her mamma thought I would die early in life. I must admit that I am rather shocked to have made it this far. When I was injured, I was told that an 18 year old quadriplegic could automatically add at least 20 years to their age. People talk about aging quickly but nothing is like going from 18 to 38 in one day.

I recently looked at the current statistics they have for paraplegics and quadriplegics and discovered that the number is 15 years instead of 20 due to better medications mostly. I guess at that moment I suddenly gained 5 years. According to the latest statistics, I am now 65 instead of 70 in quadriplegia years. Does that make sense?

Now that I have reached 50 in actual years it amazes me how much has changed over the last 30 years for those of us with disabilities. Some of the change has been good and has also been very beneficial to me. Without doubt, the home computer has been a major instrument in my life for years. After my injury I learned to type with a mouthstick since I could not use my arms or hands. Nothing would try my patience like getting to the last paragraph and making a critical error using the old electric typewriter. That meant that I had to start completely over. I never remember typing anything without having to start over numerous times. Now the computer allows me to use the often used and lifesaving backspace key. Some days I truly would like to see my computer smashed with a sledgehammer but in reality, life would not be the same without it.

The advancement that has had the greatest impact on my life is without doubt the power chair. In 1977 people used electric chairs and they were practically useless to me. They had no power at all and if you tried using them on anything other than a smooth flat surface they would bog down and stop. A manual wheelchair with a big puff of wind behind it had more power. The power shortage changed in the early nineties when companies such as Invacare came out with the power chair.

My first power chair was an Invacare Action Arrow Storm. The power and technology of the chair was unbelievable. It powered up from two 12-volt batteries, had a top speed of 9 mph and could climb steeper grades than many of my friends could walk. Everything was controlled by a small computer that was tucked under the seat. The computer could be set to command the chair how quickly it should brake, accelerate, turn, reverse plus many other features. The chair even had an independent suspension that made going over rough terrain a breeze. The most remarkable device was that it could be driven by hand or in my case sip & puff.

The sip & puff technology amazes many people and some people are around me for years and cannot figure out how it works. They eventually relent and ask me how I make the chair do what I want it to do. I am always more than happy to tell them.

I am using my third power chair now. It still uses the same basic technology as the first. I now use what is called a “center drive” chair. It has three sets of two wheels with the center two delivering the power. The main advantage of this type of chair is that it will turn on a zero radius. The drawback is that it will jar your teeth out if you travel across rough ground. That problem has now been rectified. The new center drive chairs have independent suspensions that make rough ground much smoother.

One of the most useful advancements since my injury is the air mattress. Bed sores is a major factor in the health of anyone with a severe disability. There are many different types of air mattresses today but they all work using the same technology. They alternate pressure points to different areas of the body by increasing and decreasing air.

My mattress has ten round cylinders that lay crossways on the bed. The mattress is connected to a small air pump that alternates the air in the cylinders. The mattress at any given moment has each even numbered cylinder blown to full capacity while the odd numbered cylinders are holding approximately 80 percent. After two minutes, the pump releases air from the even rows and increases the pressure in the odd rows. This continuing cycle takes place 24 hours a day without me hardly noticing it. In 31 years I have never had a bed sore. That is quite remarkable feat that would be impossible without the air mattress.

Center Drive Chair with Tilt Seating

In the last 15 years we have seen huge strides in voice activation software for home computers. Dragon Naturally Speaking has been the leader in this market for years. It is amazingly accurate if your computer has a good sound card and you order a top flight microphone. If you dictate a lot of letters and emails Dragon Naturally speaking is worth the money if you are a poor typist or you suffer a disability that limits arm and hand movement.

Without doubt the biggest change has been with society itself. Until the mid-nineties anyone with a severe disability had to accept the stares and whispers of the general public. Very few people with disabilities ventured out into public areas. Today, my disabled brothers and sisters are common visitors to local department stores, restaurants, entertainment venues and the job market. The American Disabilities Association has pushed hard to make public buildings accessible and they have been very successful.

In the future we will continue to see technology make huge strides that will make life better for those with disabilities and the elderly. We have had the technology for years to make a voice activated device that could control heating, cooling, lighting and communication inside the home. The expense of the device and installation has been the biggest drawback. This technology will one day be standard equipment in every home.

Power chairs will continue to make huge strides. Those suffering disabilities at early ages today will use chairs that can climb stairs and curbs plus have the ability to increase and decrease height. The chair will rise up so that the occupant can talk with another person at eye level or lower to fit under a table better.

Will we ever be able to repair broken spines? Probably, but we are still years away from that day. Until then, the answer is in technology. Life can be good now and future generations will enjoy advancements beyond my wildest dreams 30 years ago.

Rollin’ Along is a Series by Mark Martin

Rollin' Along

Kathleen

If my earliest memory is any indication, our hometown newspaper was always published weekly, and for some reason, always on Thursdays. The town shut down on Wednesday afternoons, except I reckon they might’ve been still busy at the newspaper, but not necessarily. All stores closed at mid-day, mid-week. You couldn’t buy a loaf of bread or a stamp or a Pontiac. Housewives planned their dinners, checked their pantry stocks, and shopped in advance of that customary hesitation of commerce. If you thought you needed something one Wednesday afternoon, then you found out pretty quick that you could get along without it till Thursday morning. The town simply took a deep breath and then folded up and had a little nap on Wednesday afternoons. The exception was that a single drugstore would was always stay open, in case of emergency. And the drugstores alternated, cooperating amongst themselves as to which was to be open till five o’clock on any particular Wednesday. It was such a ritual that townsfolk seem to know without having to ask where they could get their Hadacol or Lydia Pinkham or Campho-phenique, if such an emergency ever did arise. Those were the days when even competitors honored their mutual agreements for the good of the town. I’d love to know how this unmandated, unlegislated order of small town life evolved into existence.

On Thursday mornings the town woke up again with the newspaper at the door.  The Thursday, May 13, 1948, edition had a week’s worth of death and investigation to cover, and they did, up to a point. The coroner’s jury had met first on Saturday afternoon to consider this matter and would return a verdict that very Thursday. So it didn’t make that week’s news.The funerals had taken place on Monday, the tenth. That fact was covered at length.

In addition, the front page editorial was dedicated to the editor’s experience at the fire and the grief he felt, or at least, the grief he felt his readers felt. Here’s the gist of it”

At four o’clock last Saturday morning, I awoke from a sound sleep to hear that Dr. McIntosh’s house was on fire. I dressed quickly and was soon on the scene, where I found more than a hundred other people watching helplessly while the house was consumed by flames. The first person I talked to as I approached was a colored man. I said ‘That house is a goner, I reckon, isn’t it?” The man said “Yes sir. They are too.” When I asked what he meant, he said “Doc McIntosh and the Missus, they still in there.” That was the first time I became aware that “Doc and Kat” were in the fire.”

The editorial continues with a really quite loving tribute to “Doc and Kat,” as he calls them. It details their charity and generosity “regardless of creed or color,” his excellent wide-ranging medical reputation, her talents for “making things to give to people,” and the crowds of soldiers they’d entertained during the war. It included much flowery language as befitted such an occasion, and even mentioned the halls of Valhalla.

Although, by the date of this editorial the town was buzzing with talk of murder, there was no mention in this edition of the paper on any such thing. It wasn’t official at the time of going to press.

But the following day, Friday May 14, the city paper made a big splash of the verdict of the coroner’s jury. Coroners back then were elected officials. I remember a very nice shoe repairman who served several terms as our county coroner. This made perfect sense to me when I was eight or nine–something to do with being able to cut and sew leather. In 1948, though, our coroner was a taxi driver by profession and in fact owned a taxi service. I can’t think of any skill connected with driving a taxi that would equip a person to perform a coroner’s duties. Nevertheless, a taxi man was our coroner.

I wonder now how coroner’s juries were chosen in those days. I suspect their names were randomly drawn from the jury pool at some earlier date to be available to convene when needed and to serve on the jury for a formal, set span of time. It seems bizarre to me to find again in the “private investigator’s report,” my maternal grandfather’s name. He and five others, including one of the pallbearers at the funeral, made up the coroner’s jury. The “PI’s report” states that Dr. Rivers, the state toxicologist, felt that the jury was pressured by the coroner to return a verdict of accidental death or murder/suicide, but that his testimony made that verdict impossible. Dr. Rivers detailed for the jury the knife wounds and the other evidence indicating a struggle, and their verdict was indeed “murder by person or persons unknown.”

Now of course by the time this verdict had been made official, the town had long since decided without benefit of jury that these deaths weren’t accidental and weren’t murder/suicide. In fact Henrietta Arbuckle (universally lauded –well, almost– as the longest, sharpest memory in town) was certain that by noon the same Saturday the murders took place, the word was out and a lot of money was out too. Here’s how Miss Hen told it.

“At the card party. Well, you know who all was down there. It uz old, uh, Howard Malloy. He uz single then. And Lavinia McCallum. And then it was uh Yates, what’s their names? Lois and Will. Then that Billy Sparks and his wife. I can’t think of her name.

“Well, Lavinia called that Rufus Samples that was a taxi driver for Mr. Spain to come up there and get her. And when she come out, this is what Rufus told that she said. ‘Get me the hell outta here.’ Said, ‘they’s a-fightin’ in there and they are gonna kill each other.’ Now Lavinia knew all about it and that was how come that Belle Aderholt give her that job down there. That business–you–where they–that credit business.

“I was workin’ up there for Eugenia. And uh, Minor, uh well, Minor Crawford come in. He drove a truck for Eugenia. And he come in and told us that Rufus had picked up Lavinia and what Lavinia had said to him. Okay. That was before dinnertime on Saturday ['dinnertime' being around noon]. And two or three hours after that Minor came back in there and he said ‘Don’t tell nobody that I told y’all that because,’ said, ‘ are a-payin’ people off to keep their mouths shut. And they paid Mr. Spain $1000 to keep Rufus from tellin’ or uh repeatin’ what he said. And they paid Mary Jim Sawyer another $1000.’

“Mary Jim was the telephone operator that connected Lavinia to the taxi stand. Um-hm. Wasn’t long after that she left here and went to Birmin’ham.

“But anyway, you know Marge, my sister Marge, she was married to Henry Spain and they had ‘em a cafe down at Fort Rucker. And my husband and I went down there one weekend and we was sittin’ and talkin’ about this. Old man Spain came in and he said, ‘I wouldn’t be talkin’ about that if I was you,’ and I said ‘I didn’t get a thousand dollars to keep my mouth shut.’ And he got up and left.”

Well, one’s things sure. People were talking. And the second Thursday after the murders, the town paper had another kind of editorial in it. And I don’t know that any such futile endeavor has ever been undertaken by a newspaper before or since. It went something like this:

Common gossip can do more damage than this town might think. Since the tragedies of a little more than a week ago, we have learned of the verdict from the coroner’s jury. Just about everyone in town, it seems, is certain they know who did the deed. I suppose it is natural for folks to talk. But to bandy rumors about, and accuse innocent people of crimes can do untold harm. We should leave the solution of these crimes to those whose business it is to find out the truth. Law enforcement officials are still on the job. So let the rest of us be patient. If additional assistance is needed, let’s leave that to the immediate family of Dr. and Mrs. McIntosh [just a week before they were "Doc and Kat"]. If anyone has any evidence or knowledge of the crime, please contact law enforcement officials or the family. Let us not be the cause of innocent suffering.

The Right Southern Corner is a series by Sara Rast
Copyright: 2009 Sara Love Rast. All rights reserved.

The Right Southern Corner