INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART EIGHT

Into the Black, Red, and Gold Wood

I got the job.

Assistant manager of the Kinston, North Carolina Hardees hamburger joint. I was a seventeen year old whiz bang cock a doodle doo!

Since hitchhiking up from Florida five weeks earlier, I had hunkered down in New Bern, North Carolina, humid cradle of my Tarheel birth. I was home, just a bubbling little dumpling in the collard pot of my ancestral DNA. Recovered from the bone-deep fatigue of the escape from Tallahassee, I had taken a promising position as burger and fries assembly technician at the Hardees Hamburgers of New Bern. After one week, I was promoted to cashier; another week, shift manager. The burger joint talent pool was thin in my home town. Just shy of a month in my burgeoning burger business, I was invited to Kinston, thirty-five miles away, to interview as assistant manager. Whooooeee!




The interview was a stunning conquest. I knew every word the manager said, even those with two syllables, and I was able to respond to every question in complete sentences. Spitting a delicate line of tobacco juice into a milkshake cup, he expressed his admiration for my education and every confidence in my leadership potential.

I was hired on the spot.

Congratulating myself, I strolled down the streets of Kinston, heading for the bus station, when I saw something me that jerked me to a halt. On a sandwich board in front of the Post Office, in square-jawed splendor, A United States Marine was starring at me, warrior to warrior. On that sign were the words “Ready” and “Join U.S. Marines.”



I stood frozen, deliberating upon the glamour and excitement of my newly acquired position as a Hardees Hamburger captain. I compared that glory to the pain and suffering guaranteed by the Marines mythos. These things I mulled over for, say, three seconds, then executed a snappy . . .

“By the right flank . . . Har!”

(Just a note of clarification here. When calling close order drill commands, Marines don’t actually say, “March!” The call is more like “Huh” or “Haw” or “Hoo” and it’s kind of grunted with a forceful expulsion of air. Each drill instructor does it differently. It’s a personal thing. But it’s never “March.”)

The Marine recruiting sergeant (who looked just like the one outside on the poster ) delivered the obligatory admonitions. “The Marines are not . . . boot camp is the toughest . . .you may not . . . many fail . . . .are you sure about this?” Growing up as a military brat, a Marine brat in fact, I had heard all this stuff before. But was I sure? Was I?

Suddenly I was. I really was. I was dead certain that this was the right choice for me at this empty time in my life.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ I’m a sergeant. I work for a living.”

(Walked into that one.)

“Yes, sergeant.”

There was, of course, the issue of my age, seventeen. The recruiter assured me there was no problem . . . as long as I could obtain parental consent. He was, in fact, eager to help me overcome this minor obstacle. Recruiters have quotas to fill, and I was prime beef stumbling in off the street to the slaughter. No way was I busting out of his corral. He would telephone his counterpart in Tallahassee who would, in turn, pay a personal visit to my parents and persuade them to sign the papers. No problem, my dad was a former Marine, right?

Well that part was fine, but there was a . . . hitch. A mind-blowing, ground shaking, soul rattling, thermonuclear hitch. Dad was not. Was not my dad. Not. My. Dad. Luther S. Smith Jr., Major, USMC (ret.) was not my father.

I had always known that Lu Smith was my stepfather, but he told me that he had adopted me as his son. The truth was . . . he had never quite gotten around to it. I had grown up as Bob Smith, “Smitty,” to my friends, gone to school as Bob Smith, but I was really Bob . . . Jenkins. What? Chew on that, Bubba, at seventeen, with one phone call, you change into somebody else.

My mother signed her half of the permissions, but I had to locate my bio-dad to get his signature on the Semper Fi line. Locating my “real” father, Robert W. Jenkins, wasn’t difficult. I had been sleeping on his couch in New Bern for several weeks.

Let’s stop for a moment. Imagine the joy that washed through the remnants of the Jenkins family when they heard the news that I was still Bob Jenkins. Not only had the prodigal son returned, but he had brought home the family name itself. As the only son of an only son, my alleged adoption had ended the Jenkins lineage. Now the line was back in business!

I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was Smith, but now I’m Jenkins!

(Sorry)

So Big Bob Jenkins signed the permissions for Little Bob Jenkins. Dear Old Bio-Dad even drove me back to Kinston and stood behind me as I stepped up to the gold line and faced the flag.

“Raise your right hand.”

I raised my hand.

“Do you solemnly swear that you will preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic?”

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The Kind of Woman She Is

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Far across the Phoenix terminal CJ spots the blind woman. The woman is trying to get a place in line at the airport Burger King. She's about 45 degrees off course, thwacking her cane into a railing.

"I'll be back in time to board" says CJ

Always quick with a retort, I cleverly respond, "Huh?"

CJ swerves and dodges her way over to the woman and introduces herself. Within seconds they are laughing. CJ assertively secures the woman a place in the line. Together they creep along toward the grill. CJ reads the menu to her.

(Later CJ tells me the woman ordered veggie burgers. Did you know BK has veggie burgers? I didn't. Did you know blind ladies eat veggie burgers? Me either. Anyway, the veggie burger order endeared the woman to me.)

CJ loads the tray, helps her check out, and takes her to the condiment table.

"No ketchup, dear, I'd just get it all over me."

CJ assembles two greasy bags, walks the woman down the terminal corridor to her companion, also blind. The three of them chat a while and share another laugh.

Tiny beads of kindness on CJ's long necklace.

Me? I didn't even notice the blind woman until CJ took off to the rescue. I'm too involved in my own thoughts, worries, plans, the very important stuff I do. Even if I did notice the blind woman across the terminal, I probably wouldn't have thrashed across the the river of travelers to help her.

That's the difference between me and CJ.

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THE AUBURN 49ER FIRE

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Urban Warfare

August 30, 2009

Fighting this fire was urban warfare at its most vicious. The firefighters were clearing the flames, house to house, some saved, some destroyed. A couple of days after the battleground stopped smoking, I drove through to look at the remains of my friends' home. Joe and Faye had a small ranch house on Creekside Way, the "heat center" of the fire.






My own home in Los gatos burned down in 1992, and we lost pretty much everything. It didn't bother me much as I had been possession-less on three other occasions in my life. But there was a difference with these friends. Faye is an artist, a painter, and she lost it all, her life's work, all of it. I am having trouble getting my mind around that.

One of Faye's paintings

Today Joe came in to the office. He needed some info and wanted to say thanks because I had located a house full of furniture for him. (This is a side benefit of being a realtor; I know where everything is; sort of like being a supply sergeant in the Corps.) I hardly recognized Joe, so destroyed in spirit and emotion. He is so worred about Faye. Me, too. But I have a surprise for her. Last year I bought one of her large pieces. At the right time, I'm going to sneak into her house and install it on her wall. I'm thinking, it was just on loan, to keep it safe. You can bet I'm looking forward to that bit of sneakery.


Back to the fire. It started right on the edge of Highway 49 in Auburn and swept due north, propelled by strong winds from the south. Where did they come from, these winds? We haven't had a breeze in weeks. Along this stretch of 49 are commercial buildings, a nursery, tire store, gas station, building supply store with a large lumber yard, things like that. To the east is the Auburn airport. The firefighters attacked along a battle line behind the commercial zone and saved most of those buildings, but the fire squeezed through and raced north into a residential area.





At the corner where Dry Creek road makes it's sharp jog north, adjacent to 84 Lumber, the fighters established a salient, a defensive angle, to keep the fire pinned behind the road. They worked up behind the lumber yard to keep it a bay from all that fuel.






But the fire was channeled right into the Creekside Way neighborhood, a small subdivision of about 50 homes. Here's where the real urban warfare was waged. Driving through the neighborhood, I could see the aftermath of dozens of distinct fire fights. One house saved, the next utterly destroyed. In many places I could see the exact FEBA (forward edge of the battle area in military parlance), a precise line of demarkation between devastation and salvation, sometimes a driveway, sometimes just a singed line in the lawn.








The main battle was along Dry Creek Road itself, after it makes it's big turn back toward the east. On the south side, the Creekside inferno; on the northside, Saddleback subdivision and then, desert-dry woods, fields, grass and houses for miles and miles, all the way to my house.






With the hard wind pushing the fire right at Dry Creek Road, the firefighters knew this was their only chance at containment. It had to be stopped right here. Those of us behind the line held by our guys were evacuated or preparing to evacuate.


What are we going to take? Whos driving what vehicle? Where's Mom? Does the ATM still work? How much gas? What if we get separated? What's plan B? Did we pack dog food? What's an alternate route if the fire gets to Higgins Corner before we do? Should I stay behind and try to defend the house with the hose?




But the line held. At one spot the fire jumped Dry Creek and burned about an acre. The fighters threw it back. Over and over the fire pushed against the defense. The line held. The fire wheeled east. The fighters chased it down an stopped it right at the edgs of home after home. At times they must have been liiterally pressed with their backs agaist a garage wall saving someone's home.





Folks, when you see those brave, skilled men and women out on the corner, fill up their fire boots with your cash. There may come a day when they pull your ass out of the fire, when all that stands between you and hell are your firefighters. Love 'em up.

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INTO THE YELLOW WOODS--PART SEVEN

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Thus, he entered Samaria

I had to pee. Forcing my gummy eyelids open I learned it was daytime. The sun was shining through the jalousie windows in the bathroom and onto the bed. Motel room. Still sick. Still alive. Still had to pee.

Gathered myself, got to my feet. Whoa, too fast. What’s that smell? Oh. Me. Turned on the shower. Scrubbed myself with the bar of motel soap. No little bottles of shampoo in those days. Washed my hair with the soap in the hard, limey water. Bet my hair is going to look swell. Scrubbed my tongue and teeth with the wash cloth. Better than nothing.

Clothes. Wet clothes. At least she let me sleep through the night. Shit, what did she do with my clothes?

My clothes, washed, pressed, were hanging on the back of the door. She had thrown my one disreputable sock away and substituted in its place a pair of used, but clean men’s socks. My boots and belt were dry. How? I got dressed in the clean, warm clothes and ventured out into the new day.

The storm had passed. From the feel of the air I could tell it was early morning. I went into the office and found the inn keeper behind the counter . She gave me a sardonic greeting, probably along the lines of “Well, look who finally woke up.” I thanked her for letting me stay through the night and for cleaning my clothes. She waved it off. I asked how she was able to dry my boots and belt in just a few hours. She laughed.

“This is the morning of the second day. You’ve been asleep for two nights and a day. I kept checking on you to make sure you hadn’t died. You didn't. Just left you alone.”

Have you ever had one of those moments when you grace just washes over you? Tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn’t swallow. I tried to speak.

“Aw, zip it. Your trousers, too, while you’re at it. Get on across the street to Dottie’s. She’s still serving breakfast. Tell her to put it on your tab.”

“My tab?”

“Breakfast comes with the room. All you can eat.”

I tried to express my gratitude, but like most seventeen-year olds, I wasn’t very good at it.

She asked where I was going.

Good question. I hadn’t made a plan. The family of a high school friend, Lanny Brady, had a house somewhere down in Bradenton, south of Clearwater. Or I could head up north where I had some family in the Carolinas, a much longer trip with no money, but I was pretty sure they would let me stay for a while. Pick one.

“North, I guess. I got some folks up north.”

Then you better get going. It’s a long way up north.

I tried to give her hug, but she was on the other side of the counter. Awkward, heartfelt, seventeen. She shooed me out of the office. I didn’t even think to ask her name. Damn.

I ate as much of Dottie’s southern-style breakfast as I could stuff into my mouth without getting sick. Three helpings of grits with red-eye gravy. I thanked the waitress, embarrassed that I didn’t have as much as a penny for a tip, and walked out on to the street.

Stuck out my thumb.

It was pretty easy for a teenager to hitchhike in 1965. I worked my way across central Florida without further mis-adventures.

Somewhere around Daytona Beach a man picked me up and said he was heading to St Augustine. He was nice, maybe too nice. Uh oh. I was instantly on guard. Just before we got to St. Augustine, as it was getting dark, he said he had to make a short "side trip" to see some friends. Maybe they would invite us to dinner.

OK, friends, stop worrying. This is going to turn out fine.

He bought some beverages and then drove us back several miles into the pine woods until we came to a house . . . well, a shack. I had yet to see the movie Deliverance, but if you want to imagine a banjo playing, you can set the appropriate mood. A backwoods family of about ten people lived there. We were, indeed, invited to supper.

One fellow asked me if I knew how to skin a snake? I thought it was something sexual, but, no, he meant exactly that, taking the skin off a rattler. So you can eat it. He was just being polite, so I helped. By the way, nail the rattler’s head to a tree, cut around the neck, and jerk the skin off with a pair of pliers. In case you’re interested.

Dinner was wild meat. Wild meat! One of the most memorable meals I ever had. Along with the ubiquitous hushpuppies, collard greens, and, yep, grits with red eye gravy, the women served anything and everything the men had managed to shoot or trap. The rattler was deep fried with deep fried squirrel, deep fried possum, deep fried dove, and other delectables I didn’t recognize, also deep fried. In lard. Scrumptious!

Dinner over, we took our leave and finished the drive to St. Augustine. My Good Samaritan, whose name I have also forgotten, damn, begin to talk seriously about the rest of my trip. He said he didn’t like the idea of me trying to hitch through Jacksonville at night, a rough town then, just as it is today, but he especially didn’t like the idea of me trying to tackle to stretch between Jacksonville and Brunswick, Georgia where I was going to pick up Highway 17, the coastal route north. That piece of road cautiously creeps through some of the worst swamps and marshes in the south Georgia.

He decided he was going to drive me all the way to Brunswick, a trip of about 3 hours. I protested, but feebly, because I really wanted the ride. Matters settled, we continued north through J’ville, our conversation getting deeper and more profound. We talked about a lot of good stuff. After a while I dozed off while he drove. When I woke up, he was pulling up to the bus station in downtown Brunswick, Georgia. It was the middle of the night.

We got out of his car. He came around to my side and pulled out a twenty dollar bill, a lot more money in those days, maybe enough for a bus ticket all the way to North Carolina. Again I protested, making noises about repaying him somehow. This is what he said to me, an exact quote, I never forgot:

“Someday, when you get all this behind you, and get your feet on the ground, you’re going to meet someone who needs a hand. Help that fellow out, and that’s all you ever need to do to repay me. Just pass it along. You understand? Just pass it along.”

I told him I did understand, and promised repay him many times over. He drove away.

Twenty bucks. Wait for the bus station to open in the morning, and ride as far as twenty bucks would take me, but hungry? Use the money for food and keep taking my chances on the road?

I headed for a truck stop down the road.

Shook out my hand.

Got my thumb ready.

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INTO THE YELLOW WOODS--PART SIX

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You are going to get hurt in a knife fight.

You are going to get hurt in a knife fight. Unless you are incredibly lucky, which I must have been that night. Wasn’t skill or fancy choreography like a martial arts movie. I came up off that floor like a wild animal, exploding in panic, and thrashing. He must have dropped the knife, or it got knocked out of his hand, because I don’t remember ever seeing it again. In fact, I don’t remember anything except stroboscopic images, individual frames, bungled together in the editing room. I certainly don’t remember anything Sailor Martin said, or yelled, or my replies, if anything coherent. Screaming.

Scrambling across the floor, my legs still tangled in the blanket. Grabbing the lawn chair and whirling to swing it at him. Yelling. Battering him with the chair over and over. Spitting.

Sailor Martin naked, jumping up and down on the bed, with his hands out in from of him trying to push me away, the top half of his body brown as coffee, the bottom half white as fish belly, a two-toned harlequin, with a tiny penis bouncing up and down. Cursing.

Grabbing my clothes off the radiator and my boots off the floor. Fumbling with the door knob, ramming my shoulder into the door until it burst open. The cold, rain-laden wind hitting me. Spinning the wrong way, slamming into a rail, stumbling down slippery stairs in the driving rain, naked and clutching my clothes.

Huddling in a doorway, pulling on my clothes, heavy, wet, and cold. Missing one sock and my skivvies, casualties of the escape. The sickness falling on me like sandbags. Skin scalded with fever and joints throbbing in agony. Shaking. Dizzy. Vision blurred.

Pushing myself out of the doorway, dropping my head against the gale, I staggered back toward a lighted boulevard I could see a few blocks away. A few people were still about, though I had no idea what time it was. Nightclubs were belching forth their last-call losers. I hunkered down in the doorway of a bar, closing my eyes, as if that might relieve my misery.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up. Again, I don’t remember exactly what was said, but a well-dressed gentleman with an umbrella was asking me what was wrong and could he help. Next, I remember being in his car, the heater on, wearing a coat he had wrapped around me. He told me he was going to take me to his house where I could warm up and get some sleep. Those were the most wonderful words I had ever heard. We turned off the boulevard and into an industrial area.

That’s when he put his hand between my legs and squeezed. My first reaction was not fear or revulsion, it just hurt. I was sick and aching anyway, wearing a pair of icy cold slacks with no underwear, and some stranger was fondling my balls. I jerked away from him into the passenger door and kicked him in the ribs, over and over. The car screech to a stop. I flung myself out onto the road, panting and shaking. I hurled every curse word I knew. Realizing I was wearing his coat, which now felt like a thing most foul, I ripped it off and threw it into the puddle at my feet and stomped around on it. More cursing. I turned away and staggered off into the downpour. For a second time.

After a near-death march that seemed to last hours, I arrived at a lighted intersection and stood under a street light. A car stopped and a man asked if I was lost. I told him I was looking for a dry place to wait out the storm. He said that his church would take me in for the night. I got in his car and we drove off toward holy sanctuary. Whatever creed it espoused, I promised myself to convert in the morning.

After a few minutes, he turned to me, gave me a certain look, and asked me “Wouldn’t I rather go to his apartment where he could take care of me?” I screamed at him, “Isn’t there anybody but goddamned queers in fucking Clearwater Beach?” He yelled back, “If you didn’t want to be picked up, why were you hanging around this part of town at night like a streetwalker? I shouted at him, “Let me out of the car!” He pulled over to the curb, and I got out. Into the rain. Again. He drove away.

At that moment it occurred to me, that I might really die, die, dead, right there on the street, in the rain, and it would probably be easier if I just sat down right where I was and got it over with. I turned around looking for a pole to rest my back against as I waited for the end. Fuck it.


On the pole was a sign. “Sunset Motel.

Peering in the office window, I saw no lights, but I rang the buzzer anyway. After a while, a heavy-set woman in a bathrobe opened the door. Her hair had that slept-in, matted-down look. Gruffly, she asked what I wanted. I told her I needed a room for the rest of the night. She said to come on in out of the rain and added that she would have to charge me for an entire night.

I sat down on a chair, and struggled to get my boot off. By this time I had created a noticeable puddle around me. With numb fingers, I opened the secret compartment in my boot heel and extracted Larry Casseaux’s five dollar bill, now almost as soggy as I was.

“This is all I have, mam. How long can I sleep on this?” She took the fiver and unfolded it. Looked at it, and me. “Son, I’m going to put you in the room next door to the office, and I’ll wake you up when your money runs out.”

She showed me into the room and left. I got out of my wet clothes. With my last strength, I dried myself with a towel. Teeth chattering and skin burning, I climbed into the bed, pulled the blankets over me, and passed out.

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART FIVE

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The Kindness of Strangers

Drifting down the Clearwater docks before dawn. The rain had stopped, but I was soaked. After a day and a night of hitchhiking down from the Panhandle, I had learned one valuable lesson of the road: cars were dry, stay in them as long as possible. Maybe I was just dog tired with no real sleep in a couple of days, but my joints ached like I had the flu and I felt feverish and shivery.

Boatmen were already arriving to set up charters for the day.

Someone yelled at me, “You looking for a job?”

Hot damn! Living on the road was off to a good start.

“Yeah, I am. What do you have?”

“Short a deck hand. Ever worked a party boat?”

I had, in fact, been out on my uncle Steve’s Seahorse several times. He put fishing trips together for the guests at his resort. Seemed close enough to count for job experience.

“Yeah, lots. Worked the Seahorse out of Panama City. Ever heard of it?”

“Panama City? Yeah I heard of it.”

“I mean, the Seahorse.”

He just starred at me.

“It was kind of small, my uncle’s boat, that he kept at the Villa for the guests . . .”

“Who gives a shit?”

“Not you, Cap’n.”

“Ain’t the fuckin’ Cap’n. My name’s ‘Sailor.’”

“Sailor?” This was too much. He had to be yanking my anchor chain.

“Sailor . . . Martin. You laugh I kick your little maggot ass.”

Little? I was taller than Sailor Martin by several inches and weighed about the same, but I wouldn’t want to mess with him. He had a certain “look.”

“Aye, aye, Sailor.”

“OK, first day you work for meals. Maybe I like you. Next day we start paying you. Got it?”

“Got it.”

I jumped into doing what deck hands do on party boats: cut bait, bring out the gear, rig the lines. After a while a woman brought hot pork sandwiches and hushpuppies in paper shopping bags. Breakfast. I managed a couple of hushpuppies, but I really wasn’t feeling well.

The party of about twenty grumbling tourists arrived, complaining about the weather which had showed no signs of improving. We motored out into the Gulf of Mexico several miles through moderate swells, anchored and started bottom fishing. Bottom fishing is mainly what you do on party boats. This was not trolling for marlin and wahoo. Drop the rig to the bottom, haul up snapper and grouper. Unhook ‘em, re-bait. Do it again. When not helping the tourists, you clean fish, fetch drinks, and hose vomit off the rails, the benches, the bulkheads, and every other surface where the wind has blown it, including your legs.

Smell of puke and diesel fumes, unceasing rolling of the boat, bone-deep fatigue, stress, chills from the freshening wind, lack of food and wet clothes. It was one of the worst days of my life. When it started to rain hard about mid-afternoon, I was relieved because it meant we had to go back in early.

The return trip was nasty. Sailor Martin wanted it all done when before we berthed and busted my ass without let-up. All the fish had to be filleted and wrapped, the lavatories cleaned top to bottom, gear stowed, decks and cleaning tables scrubbed, more drinks for the tourists.

I was sick and getting sicker.

We docked and secured the boat. I asked Sailor if I could sleep aboard, and the answer was, “not a chance. But,” he said, “you can roll up in a blanket and sleep on my floor.” With gratitude, I accepted. We walked a few blocks inland to a boarding house, went up a flight of rickety stairs. Sailor unlocked the door and we went in. To call it shabby would be a compliment, but it was dry, it didn’t rock, and there was a radiator that Sailor managed to get hissing.

“Here’s a blanket. You can dry your clothes on the radiator.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot, Sailor.”

He gave me a strange look. “I’m going for supper and a drink. You want something?”

I told him no, I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. He left, locked me in. I took off all my clothes and spread them around the radiator. I grabbed the seat cushion from a lawn chair, the only furniture except for the bed and a dresser, dropped it on the floor, wrapped up in the blanket that smelled faintly of urine, eased myself down to the cushion, and passed out.

I didn’t hear him come in, didn’t even know he was there until I felt the weight of him sitting on me, naked, pinning my arms to my sides under the blanket. I woke up to the stench of his breath in my face. He was breathing hard.

“What? What’s going on? Get off me!”

He snapped the filleting knife right across my mouth.

“Shhhhhh. Pretty Boy. I tell you what we’re gonna do. First, you’re gonna suck my dick. You’re gonna suck my dick real good or I’m gonna cut your fucking head off.

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INTO THE YELLOW WOOD--PART FOUR

Everyone Goes South, Every Now and Then

Judy Vance is leaving me.

She hasn’t said the words, but I know it’s coming. She is under a lot of pressure from her mother, Pat, to change course, cut her losses, move on. I don’t blame her. Pat, I mean, the mother. Face facts. My family is a nightmare, and my life is a mess, and I am not what Pat Vance wants for her daughter. Good call, Mamacita.

As for Judy, that part of the story is still a long way down the road, and you’re going to have to do without her for the time being. I did.

I am also flunking my freshman year at Florida State.

Dumping classes, ignoring assignments, and missing exams. I am sliding downhill toward dismissal from the University. The only thing keeping me from just floating away is my commitment to Antigone, the mainstage production in which I am playing Haemon, the son who dies. Well, everybody dies, don’t they? It’s Greek tragedy, for fuck’s sake! But Antigone had been over for a week.

I have just spent a couple of nights in the Tallahassee jail.

Mother convinced the police to pick me up on an assault charge. Motive? That morning I had packed a few things, stormed out of the house, and headed in to town, having announced my plan to move in with a cool hipster friend named Ken Kobre, a pretty good saxophone player, photographer, and possibly . . . . (shhhhh) . . . Jewish. Mother went nuts and called the cops to pick me up. “Sorry, mam, moving in with a Jew is no longer against the law in Florida. We need you to charge your kid with a crime before we can arrest him. Assault? He hit you? That’ll do.”

The flat truth is this; I never, ever, in my life, laid a hand on my mother. It’s not what Southern boys do, and my stepfather, the Marine fighter pilot, would have killed me, and that’s not a metaphor. Mother’s charge was pure fabrication, and I’m still amazed that she was able to come up with it on the spot.

Eventually the Police Chief realizes that the accusation is bogus, that Mommy Dearest is out of her mind. With unexpected, but appreciated, gentleness, he kicks me out of his jail, where, frankly I am warm, well fed, and safe. I don’t want to leave. The eye of the storm.

I’m walking down Monroe Street with the clothes on my back. No driver’s license, wallet, or money. Not a penny. My inventory consists of, from top to bottom:

• shirt, button down collar, short sleeve, wrinkled, odorous

• slacks, one pair, wrinkled, filthy

• belt, with buckle, cheap

• skivvies, slightly used

• socks, two, damp

• boots, one pair with a secret pocket on the inside of the left heel

That’s it. Not a comb, toothbrush, jacket. I’m feeling . . . vacant. Not quite the right word. Invisible. But not to Larry Casseaux, a high school buddy, who spots me and pulls over in his family truck. I climb in.

“Where you going?”

“Nowhere, man, nowhere. Just drive.”

“Cool.”

He turns on to the Apalachicola Parkway and heads out of town. After a couple of miles we hit the city limit. I tell him to pull over to the side, next to the sign that says “Perry 49 miles.”

“Where you going?”

“South.”

“What’s down south?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Cool.”

I laugh.

“How much money do you have?”

“Not a penny.”

Larry takes out his wallet and retrieves a snappy, new five dollar bill.

“Take this. Wish it was more, but it’s all I got on me.”

“Thanks, man.”

I fold up the fiver and slide it into the secret compartment in my boot. We shake hands and I climb out of the truck. Larry waves, pulls a U-turn, and drives away. I watch him until he is out of sight.

Well, well, well. So this is the world.

A Ford pickup comes over the hill.

I stick out my thumb.
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