Sheriff
by Paula Peterson
Somebody's ship had come in. Somebody's luck had just turned or, more likely, somebody's hide had just been saved. Sheriff Jorry McFarlan of Scarborough County, Georgia, was patrolling the interstate when he spotted the freighter hovering just offshore.
He was alone: nowadays he always left his deputies behind to mind the courthouse when he went on patrol. He liked driving for long hours without having to make conversation; only the radio chattered in his ear, reminding him constantly of the territory he had sworn under oath of office to protect.
The sheriff raised his binoculars and watched from a small rise by the shoulder of the road. Immediately he understood what was going on. The ocean was tremulous and shining in the autumnal sunlight. The freighter, lightly tethered, bobbed and flirted with the waves. Laden with cheerful, multicolored containers, like a child's building blocks resting one on top of the other, the ship nevertheless carried, mingled among all its boldly legitimate freight, a more ominous and illicit cargo. In a few moments the sheriff saw what he'd expected--the first of the smaller boats scurrying over the waves towards the freighter. They came from the mouth of rivers and nearby harbors, streamlined speed boats with pointed snouts, breezy sailboats, small yachts, even a few motor-powered row boats. He counted thirty-two small craft altogether.
Only one of those boats, he knew, would be used to transport the special cargo to shore. The rest were decoys. If he had fifty men--which he didn't--investigating twenty-four hours a day for seven days he'd never find the right boat. Along the Georgia coast one could slip into a labyrinth of small rivers and tributaries and creeks; the temptation towards deviousness was too strong in this terrain, twisting and turning in and out of itself, so how could man be expected to clarify his position with regards to right and wrong? Things seemed set up for crime.
Later, several vehicles--sports cars or station wagons, trucks or jeeps--would head north on the interstate, bound for New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. As usual it was the Yankees who controlled the works. Hadn't that always been the way? Sucked the lifeblood out of the South, took what was useful to them and spit the rest out. Carpetbaggers, drug lords, what the hell was the difference? They wiped their asses with us and then bragged about it. He felt like spitting.
The container ship emitted a deep booming gong. A gull circled and whined overhead. The sheriff got back in the squad car, turned it away from the ocean and headed west again back to the town of Sweetbriar. A deep crease appeared on his broad tanned forehead. His eyes narrowed, watching the road. Over and over the sheriff had witnessed this dance of the freighter and the thirty small craft. Each time he knew they, whoever they were, would get away with it. They were winning.
***
For the first time in twenty years, a serious opponent presented himself in the race against the incumbent sheriff of Scarborough County. His name was Blaine Cooper; he was a police department detective in the town of Weymouth. Born in Atlanta and educated at Emory University (he had a degree in political science) he had chosen to settle in the county because his wife had grown up there. His jaunty form--he was only five foot five, with a high forehead and a pink, glowing complexion--was seen everywhere, at the Piggly-Wiggly, at church suppers at St. Mary's First Episcopalian and at P.T.A. meetings. He was always accompanied by his wife Elaine, and sometimes by one or two of their children. His smooth Atlanta drawl, educated but not over-educated, combined with his good country manners, made him instantly popular with everybody in the town, including the poor blacks who worked at the paper mill and who had no reason to love the incumbent sheriff. The county newspaper and a local t.v. station seemed eager to give him publicity. "I am no politician. I have never been any good at wheeling and dealing. What I believe in is law and order, and equality under the law," he told reporters, smiling into the cameras, hardly able to contain the humor, enthusiasm, and intelligence that rose to the surface of his pinkish skin. "It appears that the present sheriff is no longer able to tackle the problems that are threatening to consume our community." When the reporter asked him what problems he was thinking of in particular, he answered without hesitating. "The drug trade. You know it, I know it. I aim to clean up this drug traffic right quick. There's no excuse for it anymore."
Sheriff McFarlan had watched this broadcast two weeks ago in his girlfriend Marlene's apartment. His feet wiggled on the coffee table, and under the arc of his left arm, Marlene's daughter Penny Jo leaned against him, banging his stomach with a plastic doll she was swinging upside down from her mouth. He was such a big man, six-three in his stocking feet, two hundred and fifty pounds distorting and displacing Marlene's prim sofa cushions, that the child next to him looked like a small ball of fluff, a negligible feather of humanity. Occasionally his outsized fingers would tap lightly against the downy curve of her cheek or linger in the wondrous nest of strawberry blonde curls which was Penny Jo's first-learned vanity. But these charms could not move the sheriff. His indifference to her drove Penny Jo crazy: she fell madly in love with the sheriff. Other adults might coo over her peppermint-candy looks, might coax her with outstretched arms, toys and kisses, but it was only the sheriff that Penny Jo wanted. When he was visiting she would resort to any base methods to capture his attention. She untied his shoelaces and tied both shoes together, she emptied the contents of his pockets, she giggled and clung to his leg, she put ice cubes down his shirt, and, in a final act of desperation, screamed in the bathtub that she would have no one but the sheriff to soap her down. She stood still, back arching and tummy protruding, as he kneeled beside the tub scooping warm water over her shoulders; soothed by the warmth and a false sense of victory, she allowed herself to believe she had won him over at last. But she was wrong. When she fixed her huge blue eyes upon him he failed to see, as he had always failed to see, the yearning, striving, sorrowful, unspoken plaint of womankind. To no avail all her tricks. Small Penny Jo's defeat mirrored her mother's. A certain spite tainted the air in the cozy little house at the edge of the woods.
"Ouch," said the sheriff. Penny Jo had gotten hold of the gold badge on his chest and was poking him with the pin. "Quit it now, you," he said mildly. His voice was seldom raised to full rebuke. Let it be, he thought. Blaine Cooper can rail all he wants to. Let him find out for himself how far it'll take him.
Marlene entered the room, hands on her small hips. She'd heard the newscast.
"Well, how you goin' answer that, Jorry? Set back and do nothin' like usual?"
Marlene was a fine redhead whose complexion was scarcely less fresh than her daughter's. Her ponytail swung back and forth, punctuating her words. Her thin legs were slightly bowed: poor nutrition as a child. She was the daughter of an Alabama farmhand and for a long time she'd thought the sheriff represented the solid monolith of society which would quickly mask and then obliterate her own wobbly origins. For a long time she'd thought so.
"What do you want me to do, Marlene?" said the sheriff, wiggling his toes. I'll go hunting tomorrow morning, before sunup, he thought. Back of Marlene's house the scrub and swamp stretched for miles. It was illegal territory, but that made it all the better because nobody else would show up; besides, the game warden could be counted on to look the other way if anybody (meaning Blaine Cooper's spies) was likely to ferret him out. They understood one another: once, when the game warden's ex-wife put a warrant out for his arrest because he was behind in his alimony payments, the sheriff had refused to serve the warrant on him. It was easy enough to find loopholes in the paperwork. Besides, the game warden's wife was a shrew. Everybody knew that. In the corner of the room the sheriff's rifle, hunting boots, and knapsack were propped against the wall, keeping company with Penny Jo's tricycle. Marlene's green eyes narrowed and slid to the right, not missing a trick.
"You're goin' to lose that election, Jorry. That pipsqueak is going to move in and get your job and why? All because you won't lift a finger. You ain't made any effort to campaign, and you won't answer him back when he dares you. Just because you been sheriff for twenty years don't mean you're automatically going to win. Times have changed. People want more now. They ain't' satisfied with just good enough no more."
Lately, the sheriff noticed, she'd taken to dressing up her personal grievances in a public guise. She'd developed a real talent for this technique: her voice rose an octave with self-righteousness. The sheriff felt a small chill. He had never intended to marry Marlene but he hadn't expected to lose her so soon either. It was too bad. He'd been comfortable here.
"I don't care if I lose the election," he said, scratching the top of his head, where the hair still grew thickly, a pleasant silver-grey color, like hoarfrost.
"What about your constituents? All the people who are dependin' on you?"
"I don't give a flying fuck about my constituents," said the sheriff.
Penny Jo screamed with laughter and kicked her legs. "You said fuck! Mommy, he said fuck!"
Marlene opened and closed her mouth. "What are you going to do with yourself if you're not the sheriff? Hunt for the rest of your life?" Her ponytail flapped angrily in the air.
"I reckon so," he replied.
"Hunting's all you're cut out to do anymore anyhow," she said.
"Ouch," said the sheriff. Penny Jo had resumed sticking him with his own pin.
Suddenly Marlene swooped down, a red-headed dervish, and grabbed Penny Jo's pudgy wrist so hard the child squealed. "You leave him alone now, Penny Jo.That's what he wants--not to be bothered. So we'll just give him plenty of space."
She dragged the child off with her into the kitchen.
If the truth were known, Marlene, the sheriff answered her inside his head (which was where he had most of his discussions with her now, anyhow), the election don't mean a thing. That's not really the point now. You had to read the writing on the wall. And what it said could be summed up in one word: anarchy. A concept far too big for that weasel Blaine Cooper to grapple with, although he'd have you believe he had it all under control. The sheriff hated mouthy types like Cooper who had answers ready for everything, who wouldn't ever admit there was something they didn't know. When the fact was, Cooper was already licked. He, the sheriff, would make no foolish boasts about victory. No sir. He was older than Cooper, he'd been here longer, and he knew better.
Thinking about anarchy relaxed the sheriff in a way that nothing else did except, perhaps, hunting. For a while now--a good while now--he'd experienced an overwhelming urge in every fibre of his being to surrender to it. It was his deepest and most secret longing which he revealed to nobody; nobody yet had been permitted access to the sheriff's private thoughts. The world was unravelling faster than you could sew it up again. He was sick to death of law and order.
***
The sheriff turned off the interstate onto the exit that led to the main street of Sweetbriar. Except for a brief stint working for the F.B.I. in D.C., he had spent his whole life in this town. He and his mother and father and sister had lived in an apartment above the courthouse. Beneath them was the jail: their floor was some criminal's ceiling. Everything was relative. They cooked, ate, quarrelled, slept, listened to the radio, did their homework, paid the bills and carried on conjugal relations a few inches of concrete away from the disorder and moral confusion that the Methodist preacher described as the essence of the criminal mind. From the yawning maw that was the picture of the criminal's black soul. Anarchy. So innocent then, he didn't know it. Right beneath his feet.
"The Law's boy," Ma Julie's girls used to call him. Ma Julie and her girls who one by one that summer he was fifteen took the money he'd earned pumping gas at the service station on the old highway. Ma Julie keeping one step ahead of his father and the Methodist preacher. "Here comes the Law's boy." It used to drive him crazy. "Stop calling me that," he'd yell, lashing out at them with his fists. (All Ma Julie's girls were bruised, they took it in stride. In those days women didn't fuss so much about their fates.) But they just laughed, like they knew better.
Innocent. He didn't even know the half of it at fifteen. Hadn't even begun to know.
The sheriff glanced at his watch. The boat had arrived perhaps two hours ago; according to his calculations, if some bounty-laden vehicle were to be heading north, now would be the time to head it off. Should he turn around again, head back towards the interstate? Nervously the sheriff fingered his badge. It was hateful to his touch; the cheap malleable metal seemed like a child's toy, a bauble. Duty. Pliable thing. Sometimes wearing it made him ashamed. Furtively, looking in the rearview mirror to make sure no one had seen him, he undid the pin and laid the badge on the dashboard. An immediate and powerful sensation of freedom assailed the sheriff from all sides, as if it had rushed in through the open windows of the car, borne on an ocean breeze. He grew lightheaded.
A nice beer, he thought, on an autumn afternoon like this. I'll sit and drink beer in the sun.
"Sheriff McFarlan is under the mistaken impression that all the drug problems in this area can be cured by confiscating drugs and drug money on the interstate," Blaine Cooper had said. "Sure, the Sheriff has been able to buy a lot of fancy new equipment for the county this way. But those drugs were never bound for Scarborough County in the first place. We have local dealers and local problems that deserve far more attention than they're getting. If I'm elected, I aim to look towards home first. Let the state troopers mind the interstate. If you ask me, Sheriff McFarlan is after a cheap kind of glory. It takes far more guts to pluck out the thorn from your own side."
It had been six months since the sheriff had made a drug bust on the interstate. The last time had bought a state-of-the-art electronic security system for the county jail and new p.c.'s for every staff member.
"It is a well known fact," boomed Blaine Cooper straight into the camera, "that some of that drug money has found its way into the sheriff's own pocket. I do not intend to operate a smear campaign, that is not my way. I merely state the truth."
A new car for Marlene. College tuition for his daughter in Charleston. And new fishing and hunting gear for him. He had been a great hero for awhile, in both public and private circles. But all that was forgotten now. Those to whom he had given generously were already clamoring for more. "He's grown lazy," his enemies said of him. The only quarry the sheriff was after now had four legs. Cleaner shooting. Holding a big buck at bay was worth ten times the experience of cornering a couple of piss-ant drug runners. The buck put up a better fight too. A nobler one. Now there was a right worthy opponent.
"Your daddy, and your granddaddy, they was both the sheriff," pleaded Marlene. "Oh, Jorry, just think how dishonorable it would be if you were to lose. You've jest got to put up a fight."
Poor Marlene, who was the illegitimate daughter of the illegitimate son of another illegitimate daughter--a whole passel of rickety brats, that was what stood for family in her world--poor Marlene spoke to him of honor and tradition. When he'd met her, her teeth were so rotten they were falling out; he'd paid a fancy dentist in Jacksonville to build her a brand new mouth.
Now she was a girl with expectations.
His wife had had expectations also, but she was too well-bred to voice them. No, you couldn't even call them expectations: they weren't so differentiated from the normal functions of her body. You couldn't say she "expected" anything anymore than she "expected" her heart to monitor the daily circulation of her blood. That was the way they were raised, those Charleston girls. The heart does such and such, the liver does such and such, the pancreas, too, has its role. His wife's quiet, irrefutable logic. He could still marvel at her, even now. And envy too. A woman like that could be shamed but not disputed with. He had shamed her. That was the cardinal sin. No Southern boy ever. Period. She had gone back to Charleston, to her people, taking their son and daughter with him. A principled girl. Her upbringing not compatible. Everybody had said so. He still spoke to his daughter now and then; she waitressed in a fish restaurant and called him "Daddy."
And his son. Where was he? Nashville, trying to break into the music business. Shiftless, forming bands with other shiftless boys and then drifting apart again, forming a new band. The names they went through--"The McFarlan Boys" -- "The Georgia Five" -- etc. First one thing and then another, never the same thing for too long. Riding on a thin, attenuated line of hope that somehow never broke. Supporting himself as a messenger boy, riding a bicycle through the streets wearing an orange vest and cap. He had never finished high school. The sheriff had never been able to decide if the boy's dream sprang from real talent or was only an excuse not to play by the rules. He tried to remember if as a child he had shown any musical ability or inclination but could not recall any instances of this.
"Scarborough County has been inseminated with crime," said Blaine Cooper. "And Sheriff McFarlan seems to have put on blinders to it. And I am not talking just about crime within the community. It is no secret to you or to me how last year the County Treasurer--a man handpicked for this position by the Sheriff himself--made off with thirty thousand dollars in fines. I pose this question to you: how can a man claim to be keeping law and order in the county if he can not even ensure it within his own courthouse?"
The sheriff reached the main street of Sweetbriar. He slowed down to look at Blaine Cooper's face plastered to a lamp post, and noticed that someone had drawn a handlebar mustache on his lip. He spoke silently to Blaine Cooper's profaned visage: I don't claim nothing. It's all yours to claim--you can have it. And with my blessing too.
The whole country was infected. You might clear up a patch of it, but the rash would just come back again doubly strong. Who was Blaine Cooper trying to fool? The disease was the worst among the blacks who supplied cheap labor for the paper mills. These were the damned and nobody, least of all Blaine Cooper, gave a hoot about them. The only thing you could do with the damned was let them slowly kill each other off so they could be on their way to the miserable hell that was waiting for them. Long ago the sheriff had learned to avert his eyes when they fought among themselves. As long as his deputies could keep them confined to their own few blocks down by the swampy end of the river, people were happy. As long as nobody had to see anything downright ugly, it was o.k.
Blaine Cooper went down to the damned by the river, stood at the pulpit inside the Third Baptist church and told all the lost souls that he, not Jesus, was going to save them: "If I am elected, I aim to pay far more attention to the needs of our own people. I will investigate the drug problem thoroughly. I will institute programs--"
The sheriff pulled up in front of Wally Mitchell's convenience store. A single live oak, strung with coarse-textured, dried out Spanish moss, stood near the gas pumps. Anarchy, mused the sheriff. Sweeter than Marlene's tail. Sweeter, even.
"Afternoon, Sheriff," said Wally Mitchell, touching his bald pate, fingers nervously searching for the cap that was not there, and so could not be doffed to his betters. Two thick-bellied country types, one carrying a tackle box, another a fishing pole, lingered by the counter, talking to Wally. Strangers. The sheriff narrowed his eyes. A good smell of cooking held sway; in back of the shop, Carol, Wally's daughter, made barbecued pork sandwiches and sold them wrapped in white paper with a slab of pickle stuck between the folds.
"Been another boat come in," said Wally. He glanced at the faded spot on the sheriff's shirt where the badge had recently been, then looked away, delicately.
"I saw," said the sheriff. He swung his bulk--widened by the paraphernalia of officialdom, the strap of gun on his hip--between the aisles to the refrigerators, and picked up a six pack of Coors.
"We was down by the river when we saw it," said one of the fisherman. "Jesus, that's quite an operation they got."
"The place is crawling with the sons of bitches," said the other one.
"Yeah, but the Sheriff always nabs 'em," said Wally. His compact, torpedo-shaped body was compounded of pure loyalty. "What's your plan this time, Sheriff?"
"No plan," said the sheriff. He pried open the tab on the beer can and watched as the foam ran over his thumb. He took a long swallow.
"Hey, that's not allowed now, is it, Sheriff?" joked one of the fishermen, elbowing his friend. "Can't drive with an open can of alcoholic beverage. That's written down somewhere. You're breakin' the law."
The sheriff slammed down the can of beer on the counter, "What's that you said? Huh? You care to repeat yourself, buddy?"
They blinked, stunned into silence.
"Giving me some advice about the law, are you?"
"No, sir."
"Got a permit for that fishing?"
The fishermen coughed and shuffled their feet.
"All right, what's these guys names, Wally?" he cried.
The little man rubbed his head with dismay, wrinkling the liver-spotted skin on his forehead. He and the sheriff were drinking and hunting buddies from forty, forty-five years back; it was Wally who'd taught the sheriff how to shoot, when he was just back from World War II and the sheriff's daddy was the sheriff and the sheriff himself was just a little scamp mucking about in the river, dreaming about wild turkey. Every year Wally baited the birds in the field beyond Judge Corris' house, crouching in the dead of night with a sack of grain and a flashlight, drawing courage from the certain knowledge that it wasn't really breaking the law if the Law sanctioned it. Then he and the sheriff and some others would have a good old time the week the Judge went to the Capital. Forty-five years. But for all that he couldn't say he really knew the sheriff. Nobody did. There was no predicting the way he would act from one day to the next. One thing old Wally did know, you didn't want to tread out of bounds with him, no sir. Same as in the Marines. Just because you were buddies with your sergeant didn't give you the right to slap him on the back and call him friend.
A vein throbbed in the sheriff's temple. "You ain't talking, Wally, I see. Protecting your friends." He turned on the two fisherman. "What's your names? Tell me right quick now before I lose my temper."
He wrote their names and addresses down on a pad of paper then waved it in front of their noses. "If I find out that fishin's illegal, you'll be hearing from me. And I don't give more than one warning."
He swung out the door, putting all the little bells in a frenzy of ringing. He heard Wally say, "Boys, don't worry about the sheriff. He's good people. It's just the pressure of the election's gotten to him, that's all. These are hard times for the sheriff."
The sheriff crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash can next to the coke machine. Now why had he done that? Scaring poor old Wally Mitchell by fooling with those two country yokels. Sometimes things just came out of him. He never meant Wally Mitchell any harm.
He got into his car and almost against his will, with a heavy feeling in his head and shoulders, headed back to the interstate again. All that talk about the boat had made him feel ashamed. He had the confused notion that he somehow owed it to Wally to go back and catch the drug runners, if they were there to be caught. To make it up to him somehow--to Wally alone, for his sake, not for anybody else's. That was what simple-minded types like Wally could do to you with their belief, their faith in you. He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Damn Wally Mitchell! Because they needed to believe in you, that's how they trapped you.
The sheriff stationed himself on the shoulder of the northbound lane of the interstate, slumping down in his seat. He pinned his badge on again; it had grown warm from laying on the dashboard in the sun. When he was a wild young cadet at the Citadel he had always hated cops who lay in wait for speeders and now he was one of those cops himself. Fate. What you despised and scorned the most, that very thing you would become. Had he ever imagined that he would, some day, return to Scarborough County and take up right where Jorry McFarlan Senior had left off, in the office at the county jail, presiding from the worn leather desk chair which still held the shape of his father's body, an indelible indentation? No. His father's death had reeled him in, and his legacy had protected him for many years. Back then he had garnered votes easily, like picking dandelions.
But his son would not sit in the armchair after him, adjusting his own posteriors to the ghostly impression of the posteriors of his father and his father's father. The McFarlans had come to the end of their line of duty.
When Kurt was sixteen the sheriff had taken him and two of his friends on a hunting trip in Florida. They'd camped out, drunk whiskey by the firelight, and finally they'd shot a deer, a good fat doe. He could see her now--her smooth tan flanks, the full throat and delicate limbs. The boys had not realized what a prize she was; they whooped and horsed around, made stupid jokes, as if it was every day you could nab a deer like that one. The Sheriff was irritated. He hated the way they addressed one another: "Yeah, man," or "Cool, dude.", and he was frustrated by their lax gestures, their cavalier, irreverent treatment of a good rifle, the long hair that was matted under their hunting caps. Even the ring of blackheads on his son's nose made his palms itch with anger. Their self-conscious attitude towards hunting puzzled him: if they forget themselves and let go with a sheer cry of pleasure, they were sure to amend this a moment later with some deprecating remark. He showed them how to dress the deer, to stretch the skin and hang it to dry, but they were bored, or worse, sickened: in any case, he was left to finish the task all by himself. He recalled the awe, the respect with which he'd first hunted side by side with Wally Mitchell years ago. He had hoped, somehow, to pass this feeling along, to experience again through them the wonder he had first felt back then. But it hadn't happened. Disgusted, he wandered off for a long walk in the woods by himself. He brought along a flask of whiskey. When he got back he saw the three boys stretched out on the ground, passing around a cigarette that must have been pot. Then he glanced to where the skin should have been hanging and his heart stood still. The deer hide which he had so lovingly dressed had fallen onto the ground and was covered with dirt.
He must have come crashing out of the underbrush like some young boy's vision of a wild woodsman. They jumped to their feet, their faces pale but still marred by silly smiles, as if even now they couldn't take him seriously.
"It's ruined!" he cried. "You goddamn punks, which one of you knocked that thing down?"
But he was looking straight at his son when he said it.
"It was just an accident, Sheriff McFarlan," said one of the boys. "Me an' Kurt were horsing around a little and we bumped into it and it fell."
"We tried to put it up again, Dad, but we couldn't figure out how," said Kurt shame-faced.
The sheriff walked up to his son and clamped his hands around his neck. Kurt's eyes bulged; all the color drained from his skin and his tongue appeared, flicking at the chapped skin of his lower lip. With profound satisfaction the sheriff felt how much stronger he was than his son. The life that he had given he could also take away. It was as simple as that. And then he let go.
As soon as his hands loosened their grip, shame flowed back into the sheriff, as if the circulation of this familiar emotion had been cut off temporarily with the stoppage of his son's breath. Kurt was in no danger: it had only been a moment. His son coughed slightly, rubbed his neck, backed away, and lowered his eyes. The two friends were crouching near the tent.
"Sorry, Dad," said Kurt.
All of them were too embarrassed to talk. The sheriff busied himself with trying to salvage the deer hide, but it was spoiled. They cooked a meal, ate silently, and afterwards, as his son was carrying the kettle to the woods to empty the water, the sheriff caught up with him, draped a hand lightly on his shoulders.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?"
The boy shrugged away, looked shamefaced. "Forget about it, Dad."
The sheriff drooped his head. "Something came over me."
This confession made the boy crane his neck, look around helplessly for his friends. "Don't worry about it," he said nervously.
"You'll be fine, there ain't even a bruise there."
"Look, Dad, it's o.k., I said."
"You're in good shape. There's nothing wrong with you. You know I was just kidding, don't you?"
They returned home without any further trouble. The sheriff was pretty sure his son never mentioned the incident to his sister or mother: he kept his cards close to his chest, just like his father.
But the sheriff knew that he had lied to his son. What he had longed to confess, what he had really wanted to say was this: "I wasn't just kidding around. I knew I could kill you if I wanted to. I felt it was my right. But I didn't take that right. Something held me back from taking it. And I don't know what held me back any more than I know what made me grab you in the first place. All I can tell you is that's what happened."
But you couldn't say those things to your son. Or to anybody. They had to remain buried in your heart, muffled, without a voice. Otherwise all hell would break loose. Again. And Again.
An impudent bright blue Honda Accord whizzed by but the sheriff wouldn't deign to follow it. It was Vicki Sue Sullivan, on her way to the sub base at Hampton, to entice all the navy men with photos of three-bedroom houses for rent, with backyards and "ocean views." Her tongue waggling a mile a minute, not letting the poor suckers get a word in edgewise. He had just time to see a "COOPER FOR SHERIFF" sticker on the bumper.
The sheriff smiled. Once, at the Francis Marion High School junior sock hop--how many years ago was that now?--he had manoeuvred Vicki Sue Sullivan off into a dark corner behind the punch bowl and slipped a hand under her skirt, reaching as far as her garter before she broke loose and slapped his face. The sting of her palm made him laugh. The next day, she pulled up outside the county jail, where he was washing the squad car (his father's preferred punishment.) Primly stepping over the rainbow swirl of suds, full breasts dominant, their power harnessed in the stiff brassiere, Vicki Sue Sullivan swayed above him, dangling her car keys over his nose. "Hey, Jorry, want to take a ride with me?" He had smiled, taking his time before answering, wiping his face with his wet sleeve. Then he had spoken these fateful words: "Sorry, kid, I only ask once."
And for just that many years she'd nursed her grudge. Hell hath no fury. Women had always been the sheriff's biggest problem.
"I do not wish to stoop to the level of making remarks about my opponent's personal life," said Blaine Cooper. "But we are all aware of how his wife was driven to divorce him because of his excessive and immoral behavior. I will not mention his present relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter, herself an unwed mother...I do not wish to insinuate that the sheriff's personal life in any way interferes with his official duties..."
Everybody had told him, in one way or another. Even old Wally Mitchell had mentioned it to him, Wally whose loyalty was pure as the purest gold. "That's a good woman you got yourself, there, Sheriff. Don't you let her get away."
Cutting your throat, they said. Terrible mistake. The perfect wife for a man in politics. Her family had lived in Charleston for hundreds of years; in a room of the old Federal style courthouse where George Washington had once attended a ball, her name was inscribed indelibly in a book cataloguing all the daughters of the American Revolution. Legitimate. He had come courting in his white uniform with the gold buttons.
"You are a blackhearted man," Eugenia had told him just before she left. He reeled back as if she'd pushed a hand in his chest, astounded and admiring. Blackhearted! Who but Eugenia would even think to use such a word nowadays?
"I can't put up with it anymore, Jorry," she'd told him. "I've had about all I can take. Either you quit or I'm gone."
"I'll quit," he'd told her immediately.
She burst into tears. Her clenched fist beat against her thigh. "It's always the same thing. I won't any more. Jorry, I just won't."
Won't what? he wanted to ask. But he knew. It was too much for her, anarchy. A delicate woman. Principled. White gloves at the Citadel's cotillion and a pink orchid right at the point where her right breast began to swell. He'd held his breath when he pinned it on. Afraid to stick her. But couldn't help it. She flinched, blushed and whispered quickly, "Oh don't worry, it's nothing." And blushed again. They waltzed. In his arms he held the last flower of the Old South. Luckily he was a good dancer.
The sheriff closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. For years and years he'd been standing with his finger in the dike, trying to hold back the waters that were beating against the walls. Not a hero, but a ridiculous clown, a figure of fun. Who could stop such a flood? The sheriff exhaled. Let go. Take your finger out. Simple. A little sound, a gentle "Whoosh" and it would be all over: the waters would flow over them all. Instant annihilation.
The radar beeped loudly and the sheriff jerked forward. He glanced in the rearview mirror: it was a northbound pick-up truck, rattling along at a crazy speed. Ninety, ninety-five miles per hour by the sheriff's electronic reckoning. But there was another kind of reckoning too. A deep crease appeared on the sheriff's brow. His nostrils flared, as if catching a scent. Fear. Only fear, he knew, could propel an old junk heap like that at such a crazy speed. Nine times out of ten that was the way you caught them, speeding. They knew better, they'd had their instructions, but they couldn't help it. They gave themselves away, every time.
He took off, siren blaring. The pick-up gave chase for awhile, and he would have liked it to go on longer, so that he could get good and angry, which was the best mood to be in for this kind of thing. But all of a sudden the truck screeched and rattled to a stop by the side of the road, sending up a cloud of dust. The sheriff pulled up behind it.
"See your license?" he said, in his usual official tone, politeness laced with menace. It was a girl and a boy in the cab. Young: not more than twenty-five a piece. The girl younger, maybe. The minute he laid eyes on the boy the sheriff knew that his hunch hadn't been wrong. He had the lightest complexion the sheriff had ever seen and for a moment he wondered if the kid was an albino: the hair almost white, the eyes pitifully lashless, pink-rimmed, without shelter. He was shaking. The piece of plastic he handed him was damp from his sweaty palm. Poor fucking amateurs.
The license was from New Jersey. A Yankee, just as he'd suspected.
"Sorry, sheriff," said the boy, making an attempt at a casual laugh that was painful to listen to. The sheriff would have pitied him if it hadn't been for his accent, which got on his nerves. "Got a little carried away, I guess. Listen, write me a ticket, o.k., I know I deserve one, then--"
"Out of the car. Both of you."
"Was I going that fast, Sheriff--I didn't even realize--we're in sort of a hurry, got to at least make Atlanta by tonight--"
"This road doesn't go anywhere near Atlanta," said the sheriff calmly. "Please get out of the truck."
They got out. The girl was barefoot. The sheriff gave her a swift once-over. Hair that was all colors and no color at all, the washed-out ends looking as if they'd been bitten. Jeans worn white on her ass and knees. Skinny legs, skinny butt, skinny neck that would turn to sinew in early middle age. Calloused feet and some kind of scars on her shins, like cigarette burns. For a moment his eyes rested on the front of her t-shirt, where her nipples were visible under the thin cloth. More than likely the girl would offer herself to him: he'd been bribed in such a fashion before. (And had, once or twice, availed himself.) Disgust made the sheriff's skin crawl. Here was poverty so deeply ingrained it was like ink in the cracks of the skin. In these parts a child was often its mother's sibling or else the watered down blood of first cousins ran in its veins. They were worse off than the blacks even, because they'd given up on religion and hence all self-control. How many times had the sheriff been called to break up some fight, to intervene when a baby had been slammed against the wall by a drunken father or two brothers knifed each other over a five dollar bill? Oh it was too common to be told.
Marlene's fate, if she hadn't been born pretty, and luckier than she was meant to be.
"What you got in the back of this truck?" said the sheriff.
"Nothing," said the boy. "Camping stuff, that's all."
"Mind if I look?"
The boy shrugged his shoulders. "You're the cop."
Leisurely the sheriff poked through the junk in the back. Some chewed-up looking sleeping bags, blankets, poles for a tent, a kerosene lamp. Meanwhile the girl had moved close to the boy and they were whispering together.
"Where've you been camping?" asked the sheriff.
The boy looked at him blankly; the girl rubbed the heel of her foot in the gravel.
"Out by Candle's Ferry, maybe? Or in Down's Woods?" The sheriff offered these suggestions in an indulgent avuncular tone.
"Yeah," said the boy.
"Which one was it?" said the sheriff.
"That first one you said--yeah, that's the one."
The sheriff nodded agreeably. "Yeah, that's a nice place this time of year." He spoke to the girl. "You're from around here, ain't' you? You must know all the good places to go."
The girl lowered her eyes. "I reckon."
The sheriff picked up the kerosene lamp, rattled it. He found a thermos, took off the lid, and peeked inside. He poured the contents--coffee, by the look of it--onto the ground, making a dark splotch on the dry dirt. He lifted the thermos in the air and smashed it against the side of the truck. And again. He ground his boot in the shards, then stooped to examine the contents at closer range. But there was nothing. He heard the girl's hard breathing.
"Hey, you can't do that!" cried the boy.
The sheriff stood up, wiped his palms on his pants leg.
"And where you plan to go next from here?"
"Nowheres," said the girl sullenly. Her accent was pure country.
"Did you get a good view of that boat from your camp site?"
"What boat?" said the boy.
"Don't tell me you didn't see that big old container ship offshore?"
Even as he was questioning them a kind of numbing depression descended upon the sheriff. Small fry; not even enough here to excite the lousy county paper, that rag that would print what your Aunt Mary had for supper Sunday night. The big operators had gotten away, or were waiting till nightfall. The big money, the big breaks had eluded the sheriff once again. Poor suckers. Chances were they knew someone else, you could get some information out of them. But that was all they were worth.
"Hey do you mind telling me what this inquisition is all about?" sneered the boy. The sheriff felt sorry for him because the fancy word, meant to demonstrate boldness and mental superiority, had only worsened his case.
The sheriff straightened out his shoulders. "Do you mind standing with your hands against the truck for a minute, boy?"
The boy's body quivered violently as the sheriff frisked him. Sensitive type. Like vibrating fiddle strings.
"You too," he nodded to the girl. She twisted her head around to watch him, a hunk of hair falling over her eyes, a crooked smile on her lips. Her body passed as lightly under his hands as air.
"I think you two better take a ride with me down to the courthouse. Leave the keys in the truck."
"What is this--what is this, one of those fucking small town speed traps you read about? What are you going to do now, lynch me, man? God, I hate the south. God, this putrefying countryside, I wish it would all burn!" shouted the boy.
The sheriff escorted him to the squad car, gently steering him by his elbow. The girl brushed up against him."I might could give you a date if you wanted to, Sheriff," she murmured in her terrible accent.
The sheriff pretended not to hear.
Nothing new under the sun. To everything its season.
He watched them in the mirror, knees pressing together, clasping hands. Like a couple of teenagers being driven to their first dance. He might have been wrong about them; maybe they had nothing. Instinct, though. He still had it, even going through the motions. The law's boy.
The sheriff's depression increased a notch. He could let them out, send them scurrying into the woods, back to the river. Give them another chance. After all, what difference did it make, really, if these two miserable specimens of humanity were let go? It couldn't possibly make things any worse. More than likely someone from the other side would kill them off anyhow; these types never lasted too long. And if he brought them in and booked them for trafficking and possession, what good would it do? There were hundreds, no thousands more where they came from. If two were gone, fifty more would rush to fill their space. There was no end to it. The waters were rising and rising and still he, the sheriff, continued to bail himself out with a soup ladle.
Not even enough to win an election with. Too late, anyhow, to retract all the evil he'd done. Too much to make up for, faced with Blaine Cooper's stellar virtues.
And yet. A face came to the sheriff's mind: Wally Mitchell. Wally Mitchell who'd known him as a boy and taught him how to hunt and fish and told him stories about the South Pacific and the Japs he'd killed and from all this had sprung a ridiculous faith, an undying loyalty. That was who you had to account to. That was who you tried to win an election for the sake of. There was nobody else, in the end.
He radioed ahead to his deputies to let them know he was bringing in two suspicious vagrants; informed them of the location of the truck and gave orders to have it brought in to town. In the back seat the boy was making noise about a lawyer.
"Yes, yes," said the sheriff soothingly, like a father presiding over his child's temper tantrum. "All in good time, son."
On the lawn of the county jail two convicts, one who had robbed a gas station, the other an alcoholic who'd beat his wife, were raking the grass. Several more assorted thieves washed the windows and polished squad cars. Two fully armed guards presided over the crew. Several years ago a law had been passed forbidding the use of prisoners as labor, but the sheriff had ignored it. His father and his grandfather before him had always used the convicts to clean up the grounds. There had never been any complaining about inhumane treatment. His mother had cooked for all the prisoners herself--there had been less of them then. Why was that? The world was sewed up tighter than it was now. Less to worry about--poverty, yes, but not all the people gone crazy with putting one thing up their nose, another thing into their veins. No damn Yankee drug runners, fouling up the county.
Or was his father just a better sheriff than he was? Could ever be?
Yes.
His father had held anarchy at bay, for many years. Would do it now, if he was here. Easily.
While he, the sheriff's son of a sheriff's son, let anarchy in. Courted it, in fact. Stood in the doorway purring like a two-dollar whore: "Come to me. Come."
More guiding than pushing, gently, tolerantly he led the boy and the girl into the jail. Two deputies rose to meet them.
"This them?" said the younger of the two, a kid with a chest that jutted out like a rooster's and thick rounded muscles on his arms. Just out of college, the same age as the sheriff's son. An ambitious kid. An enthusiastic kid. The sheriff couldn't stand him. The deputy stared hungrily at the prisoners, his eyes bulging. He was still at the stage where he was excited by every arrest. The sheriff derived some satisfaction from picturing the young deputy's disappointment when he found out he'd been wasting his energy on such an insignificant catch.
Meaningless. The sheriff's depression lodged in his belly. He belched softly, tasting beer. He thought about Wally Mitchell. A vague guilt disturbed him: if he'd had true faith, if he had not secretly courted anarachy, would he not have reeled in a bigger fish?
Meaningless.
The boy looked around him wildly, at the ceiling and floor and finally at the cells. His lashless eyes blinked and blinked. For a moment the sheriff was afraid he might start to cry.
"You don't mind if we hold you here just a bit for questioning, do you?" said the sheriff still in the role of polite host. "I thought we could talk better here."
"You redneck bastard," said the boy. "You can't arrest someone for speeding. I know my rights."
"Around here," said the sheriff patiently, as if explaining a difficult mathematical problem, "I decide what rights you got. Speeding is considered a pretty serious offence in these parts. There are little children on bicycles on those roads."
The two deputies smiled to one another. The sheriff gave instructions. "Book him."
"Yes sir, sheriff," cried young Deputy Baker.
The sheriff put a hand on each of the prisoner's shoulders, pressing them gently down into chairs in front of Deputy Baker's desk. The girl scratched at a scab on her ankle; a thin crimson line snaked between her toes. The boy hugged himself and ground his teeth together to keep them from chattering. They told their names, ages, homes, professions. All lies, of course. And the pick-up truck was borrowed or stolen. But it didn't matter. Sometimes out of the whole brew of falsehood you could fish out a few nuggets of truth. Enough to get by on, anyhow.
Then the sheriff had the female warden take the girl to the women's section of the jail.
She kicked and screamed shrilly. What voices they had, those girls, like hyena birds. But the warden was muscular; in the twinkling of an eye she was able to twist the girl's arms behind her back.
"Jack!" screamed the girl.
The boy turned half away. His own face had turned so white the sheriff could see the pale blonde stubble of his beard standing out plain as day. He raised his trembling hand to his face, to shield it from the girl.
The sheriff escorted the boy to his cell and requested that the deputies and other personnel remove themselves for the present.
The boy sat on the edge of the cot, trapped his hands between his knees and began to shiver violently. Dark patches appeared on the front and back of his shirt and wet curls of his white-blonde hair stuck to his forehead.
"Are you sick?" asked the sheriff.
"Fuck off," said the prisoner, his teeth chattering. "I'm not scared of you."
"You don't look so good. You want a blanket?"
The prisoner fired off a volley of curses; afterwards a thin string of saliva hung from his bottom lip.
Needs a fix, thought the sheriff. Pity caught up with him suddenly, like a panting runner.
He spoke softly through the bars. "Listen to me, son, as soon as the paperwork is finished we're going to search you. It'll be better for you if you answer me truthfully. Who set you up? Who's your connection?"
The boy was silent, twisting away his head.
"We'll talk to your girlfriend too. Maybe she knows something."
"Neither of us are saying anything till we get a lawyer," said the prisoner weakly. "This isn't right--you aren't doing this right...you can't..." He began to cry.
The prisoner's unholy white face was contorted beyond recognition; he rubbed his reddened eyelids with the palm of his hand. His shoulders heaved and his fingers twitched spasmodically. He turned his back to the sheriff and made a pitiful gesture of covering his head with his hands, clutching his whitish hair. It was unmanly to watch another man cry. The sheriff took a few steps away but then turned back. Some powerful fascination drew him. He watched hungrily. The boy had no more government over his actions. In a little while he'd lose even the vestiges of delicacy that made him shield himself from the sheriff. He was disintegrating right there for all the world to see.
And that was it. That was what Blaine Cooper was waging such a noble fight against. Here it was, in the flesh. He'd like to drag Cooper in here and rub his nose in it.
He could not remove his eyes.
The sheriff licked his lips, tasting the salt. Self loathing rose in him like a powerful wave.
"Stop that," said the sheriff, shaking the bars a little. The boy blubbered.
"Stop that, I say," boomed the sheriff and the boy's fit was over as suddenly as it had begun.
He hiccupped, avoiding the sheriff's eyes.
The sheriff's knees felt weak, as if he, too, had just had a seizure. "You gonna be all right, boy?"
"Leave me alone," moaned the prisoner.
The sheriff touched his own forehead, and was surprised to feel the dampness. Yes, he was shaken up, more than he'd been in a long time. Getting old. That's how it happened to you: not in bed with a woman, not in your eyesight or your arteries, but right here, faced with the thing you'd always known and always faced, a hundred times before, and now, on the hundred and first time, you were shocked by it. There are some things you can't watch anymore. Not as resilient: not like that young deputy, with his rooster chest, cocky, knew right from wrong like Blaine Cooper. Sure of themselves, the two of them. Swinging the axe of justice, confident that they could make no false step.
And a powerful urge assailed the sheriff: let him go. Miserable kid, and what difference did it make about law and order anymore? Only types like Blaine Cooper could believe in those words without knowing what they meant. What they really meant. Only the Blaine Coopers and the Deputy Bakers of this world were deaf to that sweet siren call of anarchy. Plugged up their ears. Well, so much the better for them.
The boy had stretched out on the cot, thrown his arm over his face. The sheriff touched the key hanging from his belt. He fingered the ridges. No one to witness. He would whisper to him, "Go on, you're free." A simple thing.
But it wasn't so simple, after all. That was part of growing old, too. The humiliating discovery that, having figured it all out long ago, suddenly there was more to it than you'd originally reckoned on.
It was that which was driving the sheriff crazy.
The sheriff could close his eyes and imagine that he was at the swamp on his cousin Mike's property, hunting geese with Wally Mitchell. Early in the morning, with the white mists softly curling underfoot, winding around your legs. The spider webs strung from bush to bush, jewelled with dew. That feeling of expectancy swelling your throat, and the reassurance of having Wally beside you, unchanging through the decades, squelching through the mud in his old boots. That first flutter of wings, the first bird call.
The sheriff left the prisoner alone with his despair. Fight your own battles, that was the way to be a man.
There was plenty of paperwork waiting for him in his office.
It was evening when Deputy Baker interrupted him, pounding on his door. His chest puffed out with excitement: something had happened. The sheriff followed him to the prisoner's cell: there they found the boy face down on the floor, dead. Next to him was a plastic bag with a few grains of white powder left inside.
"Ate it," said Deputy Baker. "Just shoved it in his mouth--must have been a kilo at least. Ate it, Sheriff. He had it sewn into his underwear. Afraid of being searched, I guess."
The sheriff examined the bag, sniffed it, held a few of the grains on his finger. Then he touched the boy's cold cheek. For a moment he pressed his finger deeper into the flesh. Once more he experienced the shock of disfamiliarity, as if he had never seen a corpse before, never felt the texture of death under his hand. The boy's arm was outstretched as if he had been reaching for something in the moment before he lost consciousness. The fingers were curled towards the palm; one by one the sheriff pried them open. But he found nothing.
"Do you reckon it was suicide?" asked the Deputy, "Or did he just get scared and stupid?"
"Call a doctor."
The deputy grinned. "This one done crossed the bar, Sheriff."
The sheriff stood up with great dignity. He heard his joints creaking like some ancient man's. Like his father's.
"That don't matter," he said. "It's still the law."
While the deputy was making the phone call, the sheriff stepped outside the jail. It was twilight. The leaves were piled in five neat pyramids on the lawn; the freshly washed windows reflected the last orange rays of the sun. Across the street the two-story courthouse with its soft yellow-colored brick and imposing portico looked serene and impregnable. Everything was in order, everything was as it should be in the sheriff's domain.
The sheriff began to walk quickly down the main street of Streetbriar, east towards the ocean. He had no idea except to keep moving, blindly, away from the town. He passed Mrs. Edith Juniper wheeling a carriage with Paul Juniper Jr. tucked inside, he passed Mr. and Mrs. Merman, ninety-two and ninety-three years old respectively. The sheriff ignored these citizens, hurrying on to wherever he was going. Each remarked upon the sheriff's preoccupation and felt slighted. A big black dog bounded along beside him for a moment, hoping to inspire a spark of conviviality in the sheriff. But something in his demeanor made the dog change his mind and sit down on the sidewalk, resting his head on his front paws.
Suddenly the sheriff came to a dead stop as if he had just come to a decision about his destination. He was facing a poster of Blaine Cooper taped to the Ace Hardware store window. Everything was coming into focus now. This, then, was the enemy's face. How had he not recognized him before? Without pausing to weigh his actions, the sheriff ripped the poster off the window. A happy rage possessed him. He tore the picture in two but that wasn't enough: he picked up the pieces and tore them in two again, then in four. A kid on a bicycle, one foot delicately balancing on the sidewalk, stopped to watch the sheriff's tantrum. "Son of a bitch," he cried, grinding the bits of paper under his heel. The spoken words were like lancing a boil: sharp pain mingled with acute relief. "Son of a bitch," he shouted again, but with raucous joy. If he wanted a fight, he would give it to him. Bring him on. He was ready.
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