Having ran a little country store for several years, I met some coloroful characters. John ranks up there at the top. I was wonding if someone with some expertise (more than I have) would care to share some pointers on writing a story or stories about John. Some of what I've mentioned is in court or army records, so I'm supposing what is written should be a true story.
John of course, is not the true name of this person.
A colorful local character was a member of Tiger Force one of the men in Lt. William Callie’s platoon during the infamous My Lai affair in Vietnam. During his tours in Vietnam he was awarded several medals including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star—I’m not certain but I think he was awarded a Sliver Star also. Anyway he was one of the most decorated soldiers from east Tennessee. Hew showed me these medals one time when I was over at his house.
Coming back to these mountains and suffering from what I would term Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, he apparently tried (a fairly successful tobacco farmer) to adjust to civilian life but never did. He was and is outspoken, not afraid to say what he thinks e.g. Each fall—usually in late Nov. or early Dec. the tobacco farmers of this region would take their bales to the tobacco barn in Johnson City where dealers would bid on it. This particular year, the dealers were bidding exceptionally low. John jumped on top a bale of tobacco and hollered: “If you Son’s of Bitches can’t do any better than that and pay us a fair price, we’re hauling it back. It can rot or we will burn it. We are not giving it away to you M. F’s!”
That brought the sale to a halt as the other farmers started shouting similar opinions.
Before the end of the day, the tobacco was sold at fair market value; about 30 to 40 cents a pound higher than the original bids.
I don’t really know if it is part of his psyche or something about the My Lai affair/ (massacre—that some referred to it) but he had changed from a good, fun loving boy with no known run-ins with the law to someone with somewhat of a scorn for society’s laws.
He started out by buying moonshine in bulk and selling it retail. As marijuana became more profitable, he got into buying it bulk and selling it retail. Some competitor ratted on him and he was set up for a Big Buy. As he told me, I was just a dumb country boy. The thought of $60,000 profit on one deal, closed my eyes as to what I was doing and that I was being set up.
The deal went down at that little country store that I use to run. He hadn’t been out of his car a minute when the DEA agents had their guns pointed at him. The local Sheriff had some deputies there and one of them, his gun drawn was hurrying across the parking lot; fell, his dropped gun accidentally went off and several officer fired shots at John.
John was shouting, don’t shoot! Don’t Shoot!—Somehow, he wasn’t shot.
John was out on bail awaiting trial and the local radio station was having a field day (convicting him without a trial as some of the TV news shows do to people today) The station was trying to tie his wife in (convict) her as well. According to John, that caused him to “loose it.” He put on his army camouflage uniform took an assault rifle and headed to the radio station. A local woman (that I know) saw John walking alongside the road, recognized him stopped her car and gave him a ride. About a half mile from the station he asked her to stop and he got out. She said he didn’t answer her even though they knew each other. “What’s the matter John?” She asked him. She said he didn’t say a thing, just waved and walked away.
At the radio station, John walked in; herded all the employees (4) into the broadcast room and said they could go or stay, but he had something to announce to the public (that his wife knew nothing about his drug dealings). The employees left –ran, from the station and immediately called the law. Unknown to John, the announcer had cut off the mike, so John’s announcements were not broadcast.
A swat team called from Johnson City surrounded the radio station, but by the time they got to it, he had exited the station crawled down a drainage pipe which turned into a ditch which ran through an open field, eluded the local police officers on scene and circled back around to survey the situation. “I could have picked every one of them off if that had been my intention” John said.
From there he cut through the fields and woods—about 10 miles to his house. His wife talked him in to going back and turning himself in. The search was still in progress around the radio station when they drove back. By that time a curious crowd of onlookers were gathered alongside old highway 23 looking at the search going around the station about 200 yards down its private drive. They (John and his wife) walked up and spoke with some people he knew in the crowd before finally getting the attention of a deputy to arrest him.
(I THINK SOME OF THIS—THE RADIO STATION INCIDENT, WAS ON NATIONAL TV)
The news media, SWAT Team, Sheriff and town of Erwin police were ready to hang him, as his escape and the way he was finally arrested embarrassed them.
This being somewhat of a sensational case for this area, lawyers were lining up to defend him. The prosecuting attorney, David Crockett (supposedly kin to the famous Davy Crockett) and still practicing law, was out to give him the maximum sentence.
I suppose he would have got the maximum sentence but there is a VA center (Mountain Home) in Johnson City; the veterans there got together behind John and with the support they garnered (in my opinion at least) cowed or persuaded the Judge to be lenient with sentencing. He got 7 years.
The story doesn’t end there. He was sent to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary where the accused killer of Martin Luther King was held.
John became a born again Christian in prison and apparently somewhat of a preacher as well. The local people around here say he preached his way out of prison, as he got out in 5 years.
Over a bottle of Wild Turkey, John told me of his time in prison and his conversion. (This apparently had nothing to do with abstaining from strong drink) He also said he read scripture to James Earl Ray and had talked to him on many occasion. He was convinced that Ray was not Martin Luther King’s killer. According to John, James Earl Ray was set up by a Spanish looking guy named Raul (if that name is spelled right). The part that seemed a little fuzzy to me was Raul giving Ray money to leave the country.
John’s opinion of James Earl Ray was that of a naïve country boy, a small time thief; always getting in trouble with the law, though nothing serious, like murder. John was convinced that Ray didn’t kill King.
I saw John regularly at the store for about 5 years. He farmed a little tobacco, got into building houses with a brother-in-law and was leading a fairly normal life, but he still didn’t feel laws applied to him like they did to everyone else. He went over to Asheville, bought a deer rifle (I’m not sure of the caliber) for his son’s Christmas present in his own name. Of course convicted felons are not allowed to own fire arms and he was once again picked-up on a federal weapons charge and sentenced to 7 years again.
He’s out of prison now. I guess John is in his early to mid 60s and I haven’t seen him since he got out of prison a year ago. But he still lives in the county.
Footprints
And there, I saw, the great secular salvation. One set of footprints, followed by a trough in the sand. I had been told the old story of Jesus carrying the burdened soul through difficulties, but these were my feet. The trough had been cut by the misconceptions I had drug throughout my life. It wasn’t by grace that I would be saved, but by letting go; letting go of Christian dogma, letting go of the expectations of a world my mind had created.
Here, I leave the penance of self-sacrifice. Here, I leave the denial of self and identity for the construct of the husband and father. Here, I abandon the stones I had used to wall myself within a faith I had created. Here, I stand, naked and bathed in sunlight with the dawning of self-realization. It is within my own being to persevere; to save myself.
Blinking my eyes, I stretched as my room came into focus. The orange light slanted through the long awning window, illuminating an errant sock on the graying spruce floor.
The phone had been chirping below me, sounding through the open floorboards; only calling my attention with the final alarm and click of the answering machine, “Halo” my own voice called out in a fake Spanish accent, “Eef you are a friend or relative, please leeve your message now. If not, please rot in Hell, as I will not be talking to jou.
“Please hold” another recorded voice replied to mine, “ a representative will be with you shortly.”
“Christ” I moaned as I rolled sideways to stare vacantly at the clock. My amusement listening to two machines exchange small talk was replaced by disbelief that a company already intent on shaking me down for money would have the audacity to put me on hold to wait for the next available collections agent. There was a fumbling on the other end of the line, then a click. For a second before the disconnect, I thought I heard a woman’s voice. Running my hand across my jaw line, I felt the day-old scruff and tried to picture her. She was young, I decided; about twenty-two. She had long blonde hair that she kept pulled back. She wore a crisp blouse with khaki pants; casual yet professional. Her face was kind, yet determined, with the beautiful glow of youth upon it. She didn’t like her job, I thought. Who would? But, she was fresh out of college and this was the best paying gig she could land at the call center somewhere… Atlanta, I decided. There she sat. In a room full of cubicles, with my number randomly routed to her phone. I decided if I ever met her, I would tell her I was sorry. Sorry for all the mean things my machine told hers. Sorry my life was a disaster. Sorry that I had to make it her problem as well.
Getting up from my mattress, I examined the coil of sheets and blankets I had discarded sometime in the night. It was nice, I thought, not to have to worry about making the bed. First of all, I could argue that there was no sense in making the “bed” since the actual bed was a days journey south of here. Making a mattress on the floor would be as deluding as buying throw pillows for a camping pad. I shuffled through the covers and made a little bounce the six inches down to the floor with a muffled thump. The boards were warm on my feet as I stepped into the sunlight allowing the warmth to creep up my legs. Through the window, Breezes lifted apple leaves and made gentle tracks through the tall grass.
How many times had I looked out that window? How many seasons have I plaintively watched pass across it’s pane? The feeling rose in me that the scenes as they played out cared nothing about the presence of my eye to record them. The hands that had laid the foundation to this structure some eighty years prior were, undoubtedly stilled; resting across a skeletal breast in the cemetery over the next rise. The indifference of nature below my feet was comforting; like standing before the ocean, vast, ancient, and powerful.
Kneeling down on the floor, I pried my fingers under the boards that made the hatch to the ladder below. Eventually, I thought, I would tire of using a ladder to reach the loft above, but now that I was alone the ladder was like a youthful friend. This was my fort, my tree house, my club of one. I would have placed a big hand-painted sign saying ’no girls allowed’ if it were not already painfully obvious that there weren’t any girls trying to get in to begin with. Still, it had become a man’s playhouse. There were shelves made from hand-hewn logs in the kitchen and dining rooms. One corner of the dinning room floor was littered with various woodworking tools, relegated to their new home mid-project. On a beam high above the computer desk, hung a shotgun, and, peering out at visitors to my primitive abode, was the head of the first and only deer I had successfully shot.
The ladder creaked as I stepped down to begin my descent to the living room. Beneath the ladder, Sheba looked up hopefully; swishing a bushy tail lazily and stirring up thousands of sparkles of dust in the slant of morning light. Stopping at the bottom tread, I carefully reached down with my foot and smoothed the fur on top of her head. Lowering her head, her eyes closed; two long black lines as she drifted into a doggy sleep.
Crossing the floor, I felt every ridge in the worn pine. It had come from a pallet of barn sheathing that I thought would do the job for a temporary home. It was funny, I thought, how the things we take for temporary often become permanent; and the converse, although not as funny, was just as true. Pulling two Benadryl from a box on the computer desk, I popped them into my mouth and went to the sink for a cupped handful of water to wash them down. One capsule cocked sideways, gave in to the water, and eased it’s way down my throat. My allergies had lessened a bit by now, but I still kept my system primed with antihistamines. Taking down a small cast iron pan from a nail in the small doorway, I examined it briefly before setting it back in place with a thunk. I wasn’t hungry enough for my last egg and three strips of bacon.
Turning to examine the log shelf that spanned the six foot galley, I set my eyes on the planned meal of the day. By making an abbreviated electricity payment, I was able to buy a bottle of Jameson’s whiskey. The anniversary was approaching, and this was no time to skimp. I started the coffee and stepped into the shower
**********
The screen door creaked as Sheba slipped past me and around behind the house. The military surplus boots I had donned made a sound clunk on the porch. Standing there, finishing off my coffee, I examined the meadow. Starlings skated gracefully over the tops of the wheat-grass that strained toward the spring sky. Trees shook their fledgling leaves at the shifting air currents, while red squirrels raced through the rocking limbs. The morning air was clear and cool; not yet offering the promise of the oppressing heat a month’s time would bring. Below, a low drone alerted me to a wasp, drifting lazily by my boot. I watched him pass slowly by and towards the grass tops before gaining momentum and ascending in a quick arc, toward the woods.
Downing the last gulp of cooling coffee, I tromped heavily down the steps and into the meadow. I was quickly enveloped up to my knees in the fresh tide of grass. A crisp breeze playing off the apple branches touched my cheek before lifting a small aspen leaf, carried over from the harsh winter, to play with. The yellowed stubble of last year’s grass crunched beneath my boots. New life sprung from old. Soon my boots scuffed upon bits of charred wood, drawing my eyes to focus on a circle of scorched earth pierced throughout with new shoots of grass. I reached down and touched the blackened side of a log, remembering its specific placement the previous spring. This was the place.
**********
Garden rake in hand, I began my work in earnest; dredging up the thick under-matting of dead grass. Bundles were gathered and placed in the center of the scorched circle. With a sufficient haystack gathered, I leaned on my rake and stared out to the hillock where Sassafras lay buried. Green spruce boughs knelt before the spot as the horrific details flooded my mind. Bowing my head toward the grave, I entered the woods to gather the dead tree branches claimed by wind and snow. For the final step, I brought a double bit axe with me. As with all creatures, the winter brings death to the weak, so that the strong may go on. This winter had harvested about fifteen trees from the ranks of fir, cedar, and aspen. Of these, I sectioned and removed the closest to the pile. Once back at the pile, the logs were stacked teepee style with bits of broken pallets and scrap wood tucked between. Soaked with sweat, I inspected the pyre; some five feet tall and six feet at the base. The sun had already reached its apex and was beginning its long slant toward evening. Rivulets of sweat poured down my back and bathed my aching arms; washing, along the way, tracks of dirt and forest compost. Blackflies buzzed around my head, searching for a safe place to land and gorge themselves. The hay would be dry by tomorrow; proper tinder for the task at hand. It was a car-sized mass of potential energy; waiting, expectant. Perfect in form, it was a bomb, with a fuse, waiting for a spark to set into irrevocable motion, its complete destruction.
Standing beside the circle, I leaned my head back and filled my lungs from the passing breeze. The world around me penetrated my senses. The earthy smell of decay from the forest floor, still clinging to the back of the logs rested heavily upon my palate. The green shoots of the wheatgrass played lightly upon my nose before being washed clean by the warm smell of spruce all around me. There was a trickle down my arm, warmer than the sweat that covered me. I looked down to see a thin trail of blood running from my forearm, down along the curve of muscle and tendon, across my wrist, and down my little finger. I watched each slow drop swell, and fall to the grass below. Like the yellowed undergrowth I had raked earlier, each drop of expended life, fell to the earth to provide for nourishment.
The preparations had been made. There was nothing left to do but wait. The way I had waited then. But now, as in every year since, the outcome has already been written. Gone is the blissful ignorance I held that day. Gone, the hope; the belief in miracles, in rescue. There is only remembrance.
**********
I rose again to the slant of light. The call to work had already been made before my manager arrived. It was a call I had planned for a month now. I was as certain about having to feign illness as I was they would not have approved a day off. What excuse could I give them that would make sense to a civilized mind?
Making my way down the ladder, I paused at the bottom to examine a static sky through a single pane of glass. Randomly painted cirrus clouds clung to blue cellophane as a distant sun watched from above. The wheatgrass stood expectant in the field; unchanged by the prospect of a passing breeze. To the right hung the framed footprints. Touching them, as I had touched those very feet a decade ago, I remembered each detail of that day. A liturgy of despair: I was at work when I got an emergency call. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. I arrived just as she was admitted. The contractions came. He was born, he died, I died too. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. It was all her fault. Amen.
The words of condemnation toward her had still left me with no feeling of absolution. Closure was an illusion and payment would never be made for one soul thrown to the wind. This was a date that had passed each year without mention. The weight of the air bore testimony to the day that words would not do justice. Now, alone, I had resolved to bear the annual penance worthy of the crime committed. The day would no longer pass into obscurity without mention of the treason that had placed an infant in an unmarked grave; as if the body had to be destroyed and hidden to cover the shame.
“May God damn her to Hell,” I said aloud as I slowly pulled my hand back, allowing the words to hang in the air; to settle in the dust on the open rafters and be witnessed by the faces on the walls.
Drawing a match from the box on the pie safe, I struck it slowly, immersed in the moment when spark becomes flame. Sulfur curled around my nose as I lifted the flame to the wick of a candle beneath the framed footprints. The wick glowed orange before becoming a dancing flame, sending thin, black tendrils up to the beams above. Blowing out the match, I set the charred stick aside, and passed into the kitchen. Taking down the Jameson’s, I poured a full shot and returned to the pie safe to place it before the candle. For several minutes I stood there, my mind a flat lake, rapt in the vision of the flicking orange flame through the amber whiskey. I was an acolyte.
The next glass of whiskey was mine. I stepped out onto the porch, watching the sunlight play joylessly around the rim of the glass, casting sparks into the warm liquid below. Draining the glass, I retrieved a branch section from the previous day’s scavenging. Returning to the living room, I began tearing one of Shawn’s old shirts into strips and fastening them to one end of the branch. Layer upon layer. One from Shawn. One from Caitlin. One from Keagan; until the branch resembled a colorful novelty Q-tip. Dousing the end of the swab with lighter fluid, I carefully leaned it against the porch.
Once lit, the torch flared to life with surprising intensity; orange upon red, swirling around the top in ravenous layers. The torch held out to one side, I solemnly approached the wooded mound in the meadow. Thrusting deep, the flame broke off; quickly spreading through the tinder. Moving around the base, I ignited five fires along the perimeter before casting the torch to the top of the pile. From deep in the center, there was a rumble, then a gray cloud, out of which lashed fresh tongues of flame; eager for a taste of the larger kindling.
From below, flames grew; multiplied, and merged together to form a new life. The separate flames now became a fire, swallowing branches and enveloping logs. A log shifted, coughing a shower of sparks into the sky. Orange sprites danced and darted around me; filling my eyes with the glowing streaks of their courses and my nose with the spent life of the forest.
Alive now, it rose before me; it’s back hunched as it clawed and tore at the fallen timber; a beast of consumption, conjured before me at the end of a torch. I approached it’s heat; arms stretched, feeling each wave as my skin tightened against my face. I confronted the beast now, in it’s frenzy, eyes closed. I wondered. Would it feed indiscriminately? Would it accept all that was offered it? Would it devour my pain, my loneliness? Would it accept my guilt; my penance? How long could such a thing live off those parts, so invisible, yet so tangible they can paralyze?
I stood there, in the heat, every nerve in my skin now tingling with the searing energy before me. It was drawing me in. It was feeding.
**********
Evening fell with the darkness I had come to know so well in the meadow. Sitting on a section of log spared from the fire, I rested my feet in the charred circle and gazed into the mollified blaze. Putting the exhausted bottle of Jameson’s to my lips, I took a long draw, hardly noticing the warmth as it moved down into my gut. My body had become leaden. My feet were embedded in the ash, my backside pressed into the log, and my very soul felt poured out. Glancing at my hand, I could see a patchwork of soot in the flickering light. It followed up my arm and I presumed to be covered in it; a perverse ashen camouflage.
Lifting myself from the dying fire’s gaze, I made my way back to the porch. Closing the door behind me with an uneven thunk, dim light of the candle sent out a jumpy flicker of disapproval. Again, I paused before the footprints, watching now as pale yellow light crept at the heels. Lifting the whiskey I had set there, I bent, blew out the candle, “Happy birthday, Justin.”.
Hi, I'm Robin Bayne, a fairly new member of Mike's Writing List. I write articles, devotionals, Christian and/ior "sweet" romance and am a columnist for SpiritledWriter.com.
I look forward to meeting everyone. 
