Anne

by M. William Phelps

  Inside the car, in Jimmy’s driveway, as Anne and Steve prepared to leave, Anne had said, “Take me to the nearest hospital, Steve. Doesn’t matter what Jimmy wants or what he says. I need help now.”

  And Steve, who’s a good man, I call him my “Good Samaritan,” took one look at me while we sat there in his car and he could tell it was bad, really, really bad—that I needed medical attention immediately.

  Back at the entrance doors into the ER, Anne struggled to say, “Steve . . .” Her words were raspy and gurgled. “Steve . . . please . . . leave.... Go now. I do not want you involved in this. I appreciate your help.”

  I was so thankful for what he had done—driving over to Jimmy’s in the middle of the night and picking me up. I could have died there at Jimmy’s. But Steve came. He came and he helped. I did not want to burden Steve and his life. One of my worst fears, or maybe my greatest disappointments in myself, is to cause people problems while doing things for me.

  Steve took a look at Anne. “Are you sure you want me to leave?”

  “Yes, Steve. Now get going.”

  Steve pushed Anne up to an area by the entrance, next to a buzzer to push for help. As he did that, several nurses, who had seen them pull up and suspected something was going on, walked toward the entryway.

  “Take care of yourself, Anne,” Steve said. He ran back to his car. Hopped in. Took off.

  Anne pressed the button.

  A nurse was already on her way out the door.

  “They had seen us pull into the parking lot, come to find out later,” Anne recalled. “And they kind of knew there was something fishy about the whole thing.”

  “Ma’am . . . ma’am . . . what is going on?” the nurse asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m hurt . . . badly.... I cannot breathe.”

  Had Anne been stabbed? Shot? Beaten? Blood was all over her. She was barely conscious. Barely able to string a sentence together. Barely able to take breaths and exhale. She shivered and shook. A cold sweat beaded up on her skin, now white as chalk, pasty, turning gray.

  The nurse ran to Anne, took the wheelchair by the grips, and rolled her into the ER.

  CHAPTER 2

  Margaret Bridges went by her middle name, Anne. Born in 1957, Anne had lived in Linden, Alabama, her entire life. Linden is a small, rural town about halfway between Birmingham and Mobile. The subdivision Pecan Grove provided Anne with some of her fondest memories of childhood during the sixties. Back then, a community spirit existed, along with a true sense of caring. Both seem to be all but forgotten about today.

  Our house was the first to be built in the subdivision. Dirt roads were all around us. It was a great place to raise a family. The neighborhood was full of children, so there was always someone to play cops-and-robbers with, football (I was a tomboy), make forts in an undeveloped lot, play follow-the-leader on a handmade trampoline, ride a tiny scooter around and around one friend’s house, swim in a cattle trough (a new one).

  During summer, when school was out, we started playing every day right after breakfast and headed home at dusk. We were very fortunate also to have a Dairy Queen right down the road. I could see it from my bedroom window.

  Anne grew up in a small, redbrick home in the quiet Southern town of Linden, Alabama, where she never imagined an ordeal like the one she later endured. (Photos courtesy of Anne Bridges Johnson)

  As she got older, that bedroom window became important to Anne, almost a focal point of her life. All the neighborhood teens hung out at the DQ, and she could see who was out for the night from her bedroom.

  I remember, I could purchase two small Cokes and five pieces of bubble gum for a quarter from the DQ. Everyone knew the DQ owner and he helped raise us all. You could cash a check and he would hold it for you. On Halloween we used his water to fill up balloons, and he would call our parents if he thought we were doing something wrong. He is a man I will always admire and be thankful for.

  By most accounts, the Deep South consists of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. Linden sits in the middle of what is sometimes called the Bible Belt, located roughly one hundred miles north of the Florida state line. Anne remembered her hometown as a place where neighbors helped one another, where residents took the time to stop and chat at the post office and general store. When one community member suffered, the whole town reached out with open arms and helping hands. The essence of community.

  One of Anne’s most comforting feelings stemmed from recalling the summers she spent as a small child and teenager at the city swimming pool.

  I took all kinds of lessons, including junior lifesaving. I loved the water—and still do, really. We had no pool, so the next best thing besides the city pool was the sprinkler for our grass, or even the bathtub on superhot days.

  For an Alabama child, one of the most “loved” events was the snow. Any amount of snow in the South is such a rare “treat,” as she put it, to get two or three inches would close the schools, with everyone running out to clear the stores of bottled water, milk, and bread.

  “I still love it and still get out in it, to catch snowflakes on my tongue.”

  Anne was one of those kids who “absolutely loved elementary school.” Hers was a day and an age when most kids walked to and from school each day. Yet Anne’s concerned (and caring) mother still insisted on driving her.

  Anne’s father was the Linden chief of police for thirty-five years. She looked up to him then as a larger-than-life figure, and the fact that everyone knew him made her feel “special and protected.”

  “It was kind of cool leaving school in the chief of police’s car—I was the envy of first grade. I have fond memories of the Dick and Jane reading series, but a memory of fear of my first-grade teacher.” She laughed. “That woman would pop your hand in a minute with her ruler. I don’t think I ever moved a muscle in her class.”

  Anne grew up in a spacious, redbrick, three-bedroom home, which she would ultimately own and live in for the rest of her life.

  In 1999 my mother deeded the house over to me and my sister, who later deeded it just to me. It was, and is, a nice middle-class home, in a nice middle-class subdivision. Three bedrooms and one bath, it sits on 1½ lots (not acres) with a large fenced-in backyard. None of us would ever let the house get run-down or neglected. We always kept it up to date. I guess you could say I am emotionally attached to this home. This is where my favorite memories are from.

  Her parents bought a few parcels of land in the neighborhood as an investment. Life seemed to be moving along rather perfectly, at a placid pace. Anne’s family had no real problems to speak of, and, for the most part, their lives had been mostly trouble-free.

  Tragedy had struck the year before Anne was born, in 1956, when Anne’s sister passed away at the age of five after a long battle with a kidney disease.

  My oldest sister was ten when our other sister died; eleven when I was born. She and Mom have both told me that our sister who passed away was an angel. She never complained the entire time she was sick. The only halfway complaint she gave them was when she asked my mom, “Why won’t God make me better?” Mom told her, “I don’t know.”

  I cannot imagine the pain Mom felt trying to answer that question. My older sister and I had a difficult time getting along, and I believe my late sister would have been a mediator to help us along. I would have loved to have known her.

  Anne has two living sisters. Her oldest, Joyce, “still thinks she is my mother—very aggravating, but it also shows her love for me, I guess. She has always been there for me. . . . At nineteen, Joyce had her first child, John, so I was an aunt at eight years old, and then again at ten, with the birth of Russell, her second child. I basically grew up with my nephew, and to this day my oldest nephew and I are very close,” she said.

  Tragedy struck Joyce’s family when her son Russell perished in an automobile wreck at the age of twenty-six.

  “He was an awesome man who left behind a two-year-old son. Obviously,
it was heart-wrenching for the entire family, but his parents never got over it. Then, in November 2015, my brother-in-law passed away. This has made things even worse for my sister.”

  Anne has nothing but accolades and love for her parents, noting, “God could have never given me two other people who would have been more perfect.”

  Dad was the disciplinarian and Mom was the soft-spoken, loving mother. I was a “late-in-life” child for them. Mom was thirty-nine and Dad was forty-eight. So, of course, being the baby, and after their just losing a daughter, I was spoiled rotten.

  Even though she was originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mom was the epitome of a Southern belle. She never cursed, smoked, drank alcohol, or even wore pants (until she was in her eighties). She is still living (age ninety-nine in 2017) . . . and she still reads, which is her favorite pastime. Mom and I are tight. She gave up so many things in life so I could have whatever I wanted.

  Anne’s father was in many ways the polar opposite.

  But, boy, did I respect him! When my dad said “jump,” I said, “How high ?” Dad and I were never very close. He never hugged me, never bragged about me. He never had much to do with me, except when it came time to discipline. This might sound harsh, but I don’t mean it that way. I was the third, their last child, and I feel he had some resentment that I wasn’t a boy.

  The only time I remember Dad telling me he loved me was the day before he died, while the ambulance was getting ready to take him to the hospital. I was twenty-six. My son was two. One thing I have to remember is that he was like this because that was the way all the Southern men I knew were raised: to be tough, don’t show emotion, and always be the boss of your home.

  CHAPTER 3

  As Steve Cochran drove away from the hospital, Anne Bridges was rushed into a trauma room. Nurses were on the phone asking for a doctor and surgeon. No doubt about it: Anne was in trouble. She had lost a lot of blood. Her complexion pale white, cold sweat beading up on her skin, she faded in and out of consciousness.

  According to Anne, one unnerving characteristic about people she had grown up with was that, unfortunately, who you were and where you lived was how you were treated in life. Anne had lived during a time and in a place, she insisted, when people, for the most part, “categorized you.” She believed this was why she did not want to admit or talk about what had happened right away.

  You see, I was a city clerk. I was not the type of person who should have been with a guy like Jimmy Williams on that night. How we got there, and why I wound up over his house and subsequently fighting for my life, was a complicated story few would understand. But, look, people think: You’re a member of the country club. You work for the city. You’re an upstanding citizen of your community, and you do all this stuff for people. So why in the heck are you with a “con man” like Jimmy Williams?

  It’s almost as if you are to blame for the violence perpetrated against you. So, to say the least, I was a bit reluctant going into the hospital. People would judge me. I knew it. This town, when they found out what had happened, was going to be in shock. People would want to point fingers.

  Losing blood, bleeding internally, Anne handed the nurse her purse.

  “My ID and insurance information is somewhere. . . inside,” she managed to find the strength to say.

  The nurses wanted personal information from Anne, not to mention what happened and who had hurt her. They needed to get as much information as they could, as quickly as possible, in case Anne did not make it.

  “My sister,” Anne said next. “Please contact my sister. Joyce is her name. Joyce. Please . . . let her know where I am . . . what’s happening.”

  “The number, ma’am? Can you tell me your sister’s phone number?”

  Anne spoke it clearly, slowly. It took some time to get the words out, but she was able to remember.

  The pain was beginning to stifle anything Anne tried to do. She could not move her body any longer. She was losing her train of thought. She couldn’t lift her hands. Her entire body began to ache and throb. Nurses helped Anne onto a gurney. Doctors rushed in.

  “What happened?” someone asked.

  No response.

  “Ma’am, what happened to you?”

  Anne was fading.

  “Ma’am, stay with us, please. We need to know what happened so we can treat you.”

  Anne understood what was being said, but finding the words and the strength to explain was beyond difficult.

  “Shot,” Anne finally blurted out. “Shot in the . . . back.”

  They flipped Anne on her side. Her back, nurses and doctors could now see, was riddled with tiny puncture wounds.

  “Buckshot?” someone suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  Had to be. Scores of welts and BB-like holes were spread across Anne’s back and even up toward her neck and shoulders.

  “A deputy is on the way,” a nurse said to Anne. “Please try to stay with us.”

  * * *

  The Wilcox County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) in Camden is housed inside a three-story, redbrick building. It features white columns and a triangular peak on the front edge of the roof, greeting those who walk through the front doors. The building and its surrounding landscape of trimmed forest-green bushes and turf-cut, golf-course-like lawn, always freshly groomed, scream of the Deep South. Its elegant charm and comforting appeal give the place its homey atmosphere.

  According to the WCSO’s mission statement, law enforcement is the “highest priority” and the “most sacred service” the county can offer its citizens. Each and every day on the job, WCSO officers strive to achieve this goal: “Preservation of human life.” The department stands behind this saying as its number one priority. The WCSO sheriff and deputies are dedicated to public safety, at any cost. That is the mission.

  The Wilcox County Sheriff’s Office, housed in the Courthouse Annex, responded to a call about a woman who had been shot in the back and dropped off at the emergency room. (Photo by author)

  The previous evening, April 17, 1998, at 10:44 P.M., the Wilcox County 911 communications system took a call from an operator at a neighboring police department in Selma. It was a strange call, the operator explained when she phoned the WCSO. It was kind of confusing and bizarre. Not the type of call the 911 system in those parts was used to getting.

  “An anonymous caller,” the Selma operator explained to a Wilcox County deputy, “phoned our 911 system to report that one James Williams had shot someone at his Steel Bridge Road residence in Shawnee. The caller then hung up. We traced the number and called it back.”

  “Hello?” the person who answered said, the man’s voice was “slurred.” He was obviously intoxicated.

  “Could I have your name, sir?” the officer asked.

  “Jimmy Williams.” Without hesitating.

  “Is there an issue there at your residence, Mr. Williams?”

  “There are no problems,” Jimmy said.

  He hung up.

  Ten minutes later the officer phoned back.

  “Listen to me, I am trying to get some sleep,” Jimmy Williams said sternly. “Stop calling here.”

  The officer did nothing more.

  In a county the size of a small town, inhabited by about twelve thousand total souls, nothing happens without mostly everyone in law enforcement knowing about it. What’s more, any call the WCSO receives involving extreme violence is fairly rare. So, at 1:51 A.M., on April 18, nearly three hours after that earlier (strange) 911 call had come in, it raised alarms when the WCSO heard from nurses about a patient who’d been dropped off with severe, “potentially deadly” gunshot wounds. Deputy Terry Mack grabbed his radio, fastened his duty belt, tossed on his Stetson, hit the squad car lights and siren, and hauled ass down the road en route to the hospital.

  * * *

  Inside the ER, Anne Bridges was fighting for her life. Up to this point she’d been strong and fought hard. But her body was now shutting down. Her heart could not function much lo
nger without moderate blood pressure and flow. Regarding the pain, Anne said later, “I don’t recall at this time any pain from the gunshot wounds.”

  One of those small, steel buckshot BBs had pierced Anne’s diaphragm—which collapsed her lungs—and punctured a small section of her liver. One BB also lodged in her shoulder, just a hair away from a main artery.

  Anne’s lungs were filling with blood.

  Near this time, Anne recalled lying on a gurney inside the trauma room, staring up at the ceiling, the bright fluorescent lights buzzing, shining down on her. People—nurses and doctors—stood over her, scrambling to work on Anne. She felt peaceful, actually, she said later. Like everything was happening in slow motion, and everything was going to be okay.

  Then a sheriff’s deputy, as if on cue, appeared over her, his broad shoulders and Stetson shading the lights.

  Anne could barely make him out.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Deputy Terry Mack. Can you answer a few questions for me, ma’am?”

  Anne nodded affirmatively.

  “Who did this?”

  “Jimmy . . . His name is Jimmy . . . Williams.”

  Terry Mack wrote it down. Anne’s voice was fatigued and phlegmy. She coughed, clearing her throat a lot before talking. The pain in her abdomen was now beginning to make her wince. She could hardly make it out, but it appeared as though one of the doctors had some sort of tube in his hand. It was pointed sharply at one end, with little holes along the sides.