by Rick Outzen
“He’s too juvenile for this job. He doesn’t get this paper,” Mal said as Big Boy nuzzled her leg. Her mood was black today. “You can go on your crusades, but somebody has to write the news. This paper can’t only be a long rant by you.”
“Yeah, it can’t all be me either,” Jeremy piped in.
Starbucks cups filled his trash can to the brim. I didn’t know how many were from this morning. Why had I hired the sloppiest gay A&E writer in the world?
Mal’s glare stopped the writer before he went off any further. Jeremy scowled at her and stormed out for a smoke.
“Mal, I will deal with it,” I said.
Summer waved for me to join her in the conference room. She said, “You have a visitor.”
Sitting in a chair was a large, dark-skinned man. It was Tiny, wearing a suit and looking very serious. He said, “Mr. Holmes, I’m here for my cover story.”
“Tiny, that’s quite a suit,” I said admiring his three-piece gray pinstripe suit, red shirt, and black tie. It was tight, but not shabby or threadbare. The only thing that took away from his sartorial splendor was his running shoes.
“I have important things to say,” he said pulling on his jacket’s lapels and straightening his tie. “Important people wear suits.”
I looked at Summer. She knew I didn’t have time for this, but Summer also understood that it was my policy to listen to the stories of whoever walked into the office. It wasn’t always worthwhile, but we would listen. I usually assigned the interviews to Yoste, but his absence took away that option.
With her eyes, Summer begged me to do the right thing. Big Boy walked in and jumped up to lick Tiny’s face. He had also decided that I should listen to the “mayor of Palafox.”
“Okay, let’s have a good visit, Mayor,” I said pulling up a chair. “Summer, grab my notepad and have Teddy take photos of Tiny while I interview him.”
“Is that okay with you, Tiny?”
“Most certainly.”
Summer handed me my notepad and sat down next to Tiny.
Not knowing how I would use this story, I interviewed Tiny the same way I would a governor, state representative, or a real mayor. Big Boy and Summer would have it no other way.
Since I recalled that Tiny had served two tours in Iraq, I began by thanking him for his service. He replied, “When I came back, some at the VA clinic called me a ‘hero.’ I ain’t no hero. I’m a survivor who somehow has to make my life worthwhile for those guys who died. They died, I didn’t.”
For the first time, I noticed small Arabic script tattooed on his right forearm. I asked, “What does that mean?”
He said, “The end of life is death.”
I wasn’t ready to follow up on this startling piece of information. Instead I asked Tiny when he had left his home in southern Mississippi. He explained he had joined the Army Reserve in 2004 to better himself when he was twenty-two.
“I couldn’t find work in Hattiesburg, Wiggins or McComb,” said Tiny. “Not many paying jobs for black men with no college education in Mississippi. My mom thought the military would give me skills that I could use to build a life—at least one better than hers.”
He spoke with little emotion in his voice, not looking me in the eyes. Tiny petted Big Boy while he spoke. He clearly had something important to share and was struggling not to break down.
“They taught me how to be a man. I got discipline and self-esteem. People saw more than the color of my skin when I was in my uniform.”
Tiny stared down at the dog, gathered his thoughts and continued. He said, “It was like, like I was a superhero or something. I was no longer a former high school jock and a screw-up. I was a soldier.”
After basic and advanced individual training, Tiny came home to his unit in the Mississippi National Guard at Camp Shelby, south of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
“They said don’t even unpack your bags,” Tiny recounted, “because in three weeks I’d be in Iraq.” Though the air conditioning was blasting, Tiny was sweating. He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt.
“Take your time,” I said.
Summer got up to bring him a glass of water.
He nodded thanks to Summer and continued to pet the dog. I motioned to Teddy to take a break from taking photos.
“Mostly rode escort in the hottest damn place on this earth. I thought Mississippi was hot. Iraq was much worse,” said Tiny. “When I wasn’t part of some convoy, I manned security checkpoints and gates at the bases, checking visitors and vehicles for weapons, bombs and other crap.”
He said, “Could never let down my guard. All I heard was stories of some soldier relaxing and being blown into pieces by a fucking IED or suicide bomber.”
Tiny caught himself. He looked at Summer and said, “Sorry, Ms. Summer, I promised myself I wouldn’t curse.”
She nodded for him to continue. “I’ve heard the word before.”
He continued, “My buddy Jake got killed when a suicide bomber attacked his checkpoint in Fallujah. From then on, I could never relax. Fear crept in . . . it wouldn’t let go of me.”
He got up and walked over to the window. He turned to face us and said, “Fear gnawed at my soul. The more I saw, the more I began to pull back from life–mine and my friends. If I cared about life, the more pain I suffered when somebody was killed.”
Summer glanced at me. Big Boy put his head in her lap. The dog was comforting everyone in the room.
Tiny said, “My mind found new ways to mark the passage of time. Every time my truck drove past a mile marker, I thought that’s another mile that I was still alive.”
He injured his foot on the battlefield when his vehicle hit an IED. Tiny didn’t say much about the incident other than mumble a few words about watching his fellow soldiers die and bleed, hearing moans and groans, and smelling death and infection all around him.
“I was lucky. The docs at Walter Reed saved my foot, and PTs taught me how to walk again. They put me with two soldiers from my unit. One lost both his legs, and the other had his back broken when his gun turret was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Guys missing body parts filled the beds around us. No one gave a damn what I had seen or felt. They just wanted my ass out of the hospital as quickly as possible.”
Tiny received no counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder, but he did get prescriptions for painkillers anytime he asked for them. He said, “Pills made the fear and all other emotions go away. I felt nothing.”
When I asked him how it went when he returned home, he said he had no one to tell about his war experience. He told us, “Probably wasn’t another Iraq War veteran for thirty miles. Everybody else wanted to talk about American Idol, Survivor or some crap like that, while what mattered most to me was having A/C, running water, and fresh groceries.”
Without his soldier identity, he felt disconnected from his family, friends and the civilian world. Once again, Tiny couldn’t find work. He wandered up and down the Gulf Coast for a couple of years, living on the streets and making do.
“Never stole anything. Never got arrested. Drank, popped pills, and waited to die. Hell, I was supposed to have died in Iraq like Jake and my buddies. Why should I live?”
Tiny took a sip of water and shut his eyes. “What right did I have to live while Jake and others didn’t? I thought about killing myself several times, I really did, but God always put someone in my life whenever I came close to doing it.”
While in Pensacola, Tiny ran into someone from his unit who hooked him up with drug abuse counseling and PTSD therapy.
“A doctor helped me reconnect with my feelings. Pushed me to write down those things, those emotions that I couldn’t talk with others about,” Tiny said. “Told him I ain’t no writer, but he wouldn’t let up. The first few entries in my journal were just words, no sentences. I had forgotten how to feel. How does anyone write about feelings when they don’t have none? But I got better at it. Words became sentences and I began to face my fears, my guilt ab
out living and all the emotions that had gnawed at me for so long.”
He said the counselors got him a job in the kitchen of a local restaurant, but it didn’t work out because he had trouble following directions from his supervisors. However, they continued to work with him and found him volunteer work at a homeless shelter.
“I liked helping in the shelter. Got to work around parents and their kids, see how they acted with each other,” said Tiny. “Seeing them in normal situations helped me reconnect with life. See what normal was.”
He then said that it had been a little over two years since he last contemplated suicide. He no longer drank or used drugs and had been clean for over a year. He had moved into a group home for veterans and now helped out at the downtown coffee shop before volunteering at the homeless shelter in the afternoons.
“See homeless vets every day in the park downtown,” he said. “The owner lets me take them the day-old pastries. I try to talk to them, but mostly I listen. I understand their pain and feelings of loss. Others walk by them as if they’re invisible. I thought maybe you, Mr. Holmes, could tell my story and get people to understand these are real people who just can’t figure out how to live in this town.”
I said, “Tiny, we would be honored to tell your story. Maybe we can even interview a few of the homeless vets in Ferdinand Plaza.”
He nodded, looking exhausted and appearing relieved that he gotten all this out without collapsing. He said, “This is the first time I told this to anyone outside of the home or treatment center. The place is a military town, but it ignores the vets sleeping on park benches. We need your help.”
“We will help,” said Summer as she looked at me. “Won’t we, boss?”
“We will, but it will take us a few weeks to pull this together,” I said.
Tiny said, “I know you’re a busy man.”
“Not too busy for this,” I said. “It’s an important story. I’ll come by Bodacious Brew next week or so, and we can talk more.”
Tiny stood up, smoothed his jacket, fastened his top button, and straightened his tie. He reached over and kissed Summer’s hand.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Summer,” he said. “Good day, Mr. Holmes.”
As I walked back to my desk I thought, Pensacola never ceases to amaze me. There are people with stories all around us. Our newspaper needed to survive to tell them.
Roxie yelled with her hand over the receiver on her phone, “When are you going to deal with this Hines-Wittman crap? Once the Frost story hits, I won’t have any customers. You’re killing me!”
“Offer them free upgrades,” I told her. “This will pass.”
Everyone turned away from me. I walked over to my desk, where someone had posted a note to call Stan Daniels. I reached his secretary, who asked me to drop by at eleven o’clock, which gave me about forty-five minutes before I had to head out.
Dare called to say she was heading to New York City.
“Had this trip planned months ago,” she said. “Promise me you won’t do anything with the suicide note until I get back. And join me for brunch on Sunday.”
I agreed, knowing Gravy’s expert wouldn’t have finished his analysis until then anyway.
I posted another article to the blog:
ECSO IS TOP-HEAVY
Escambia County Sheriff’s Office appears to be top-heavy when you compare it to the operations at the Pensacola Police Department (PPD).
To manage its 112 police officers, PPD has 20 sergeants, 5 lieutenants, an assistant chief, and the chief. The department has as a supervisor for every 4.2 police officers.
To manage its 243 deputies, Sheriff Frost has 72 sergeants, 35 lieutenants, 8 captains, a major, chief deputy, and himself.
The county sheriff’s ratio of supervisors to deputies is 2.1. In other words, Frost has twice as many supervisors for every officer on patrol than PPD.
Plus, the Escambia County Sheriff Office is spending 335 percent more to supervise its deputies than PPD does to supervise its police officers.
Within ten minutes, my cell phone vibrated. The caller ID read “Frost.” I ignored it. The phone vibrated again. The text message said: “Hi, this is Alphonse. Could you meet today for lunch at H&O?”
I replied, “Yes, 12:30? But u r buying.”
Then I headed over to Daniels’ office.
16
Stan Daniels and I had become acquainted during the 2006 park referendum fight. We didn’t have a lot in common. The rich and powerful of Northwest Florida flocked to his firm. I took up for the ‘little guy’ and tried to tell the stories of those with little money or influence. I had more in common with the trial attorneys that took Daniels’ clients to court.
For that reason, I didn’t think I could ever like him. His idea of making a better Pensacola meant making his friends richer. Me? I thought of helping that single mom holding down two jobs trying to feed her five kids. I didn’t begrudge him, though, and realized he went to bed every night thinking what a great job he was doing for the community.
He slept. I rarely did.
Daniels came from behind his desk and greeted me when his secretary escorted me into his office. You could imagine him beating out Wittman to be the Catholic High quarterback. Unlike Wittman, Daniels was still slim and athletic. On the wall were pictures of him crossing the finish line at the Boston and New York City marathons—just another reason for Wittman and me to dislike him.
“A. J. wanted me to meet with you about Wittman’s new petition,” Daniels started. He was charming and sincere when he spoke, with a bright, winning smile. Okay, maybe I liked him a little.
“He wants your take on it,” he continued. “Will they get the 3,700 signatures to force another referendum? How will Bo Hines’ endorsement impact the success of this new petition that will halt the building of the baseball stadium?”
“Tell Kettler that it’s too early to tell,” I said. “Wittman has been clever this time. His petition challenges the award of the construction contract. The city charter allows any citizen to conduct a petition drive for a referendum on any vote made by the council. He has ninety days to present the signatures to the city council, which is a tight timeframe to gather them. Wittman needs to aim for about 4,500 because not all of the signatures will be valid city of Pensacola registered voters. However, if Hines bankrolls the effort, Wittman might get them in time.”
“Should I try to meet with Bo?” Daniels asked. “We’ve served on a few boards together. A. J. has made some pretty big donations to his fundraisers.”
“That’s your call,” I said. “If you do, don’t mention my name.”
Daniels nodded.
I continued, “Stan, we will be battling the same misinformation as before, the same lies. The petition and subsequent referendum give Wittman and his followers another opportunity to attack Kettler and the baseball team. Hines’ push to create this nature reserve in Sue’s memory adds a new dynamic to the debate. I can’t be sure how that might impact people.”
“Sue had a lot of friends,” Daniels observed. “People will want to honor her.”
“Agreed,” I replied. “Does Kettler have the stomach for the fight? He could take his team elsewhere. I’ve heard Biloxi is building a baseball stadium and would be interested in the Pilots.”
Daniels said, “They have reached out to A.J., but he considers Jace a bully. He refuses to let a bully stop a project that he sincerely believes will turn this place around. My client will continue to fight for this park.”
“Okay,” I said. “There’s one thing that has bugged me about Hines’ theatrics at the Save Our Pensacola meeting. His road construction company was one of the subcontractors for the site work at the maritime park. He stood to make money on the construction.”
“Your article on missing Arts Council funds and his arrest got him dropped from the project,” said Daniels. “His company was not part of the construction contract approved by the city council at the end of May, thanks to you. O
n June 7, Jace announced he would try to force a referendum to reverse the vote.”
I noticed on his wall a flip-flop mounted on a plaque. I asked Daniels about it.
“My old all-star baseball team gave it to me at a 45th reunion party,” he said. “It’s about a silly ping pong match I had with Jace when we were all ten years old. It’s a trophy of sorts.”
I nodded, letting him know that I’d heard the story about the way he defeated Jace. I said, “I guess Wittman didn’t want to show up for the reunion.”
Daniels replied, “He did come and wasn’t too amused. It didn’t help matters any when a couple of buddies and I played a prank on Jace later.”
“Jace has always left his truck unlocked. So we were able to attach under his truck’s steering column a great item from an Annoy-a-tron Pack we had found online. It was a battery-powered small circuit board with a magnet that set off loud beeps at random intervals.”
He laughed. “I forgot about it until my wife told me a month later how Jace and his wife had driven to Atlanta with a mysterious beeping noise driving them crazy. They had stopped at two dealers to try and locate the source of the sound. Jace was ready to sell the truck.”
I laughed, too. “What happened next?”
“I confessed to my wife that I did it,” he said. “She made me call Jace, apologize and remove the circuit board, but our classmates didn’t help smooth things over. For weeks they greeted him with “beep” whenever they saw him.”
I said, “Jace doesn’t believe in forgiving and forgetting, I guess.”
“Few in Pensacola do,” said Daniels. “I’m tired of Jace’s pettiness and bullying. Maybe we can put an end to it by killing this petition effort.”
