A sketch is the basic unit of control information. A good sketch of a control point should show the location of the point you've set, including angles and distances from at least three reference points likely to last. I described this particular point as being “a 1/2” rebar set flush with the surface, 117.4', 0 degrees North of the centerline of Gin Mill Road at its intersection with Highway 17; it is 8.55', 90 degrees East of the right-of-way; 45.7' South of a sign: Keep Sweeney County Beautiful.” I pride myself on the accuracy of my sketches. I have fun drawing them. I even got a couple of little templates to use drawing bushes, stop signs, various shapes, and arrows. I was having a swell time drawing this one when Polk stepped into my light. I looked up.
“Any luck finding Ramon Burroughs?”
“The number is disconnected,” I informed him. Really. I said it as if I thought he had no idea.
“I'm the one who told you,” he said.
“Ah. So you are. Well, it turns out you were right this time.”
“This time? What-- never mind. It hardly matters. In three more weeks, if you have any questions, you can ask me.” He put his hands on his hips and rotated slowly about. “They called this the Boreham tract. At one time, all this was planted in cotton. At its peak, it produced over 700 pounds per acre. That's how the Polks built their wealth: cotton. Twice. We planted some of the first successful crops; we built the first cotton gin in the county. Then we watched outsiders come in and destroy it all. We Polks rebuilt, and within ten years after Sherman tried to grind us into the dirt, we were shipping as much cotton as any other county in Georgia.”
At this point I need to point out that Sweeney County, like most of Georgia, never saw Sherman or even a single Yankee. I didn't point it out to Richard Polk, III, and to be honest, whenever I meet people like him, I tend to let them talk. “That's fascinating,” I said. “How did y'all deal with the labor issues after the War?”
“Labor issues? You mean how did we get the blacks back to work?”
“Well, yeah. I've always wondered how folks made that transition from free labor to labor that had to be paid.”
He smiled. “Well, different folks here and there tried different means and methods of getting folks to work. Of course, you had the Freedman's Bureau down here, trying to tell everyone how to run their businesses, and filling the black folks' heads with a bunch of nonsense, but in the end, we settled on what worked best for us.”
“Sharecropping? Or tenant farming? I guess those are about the same thing?”
“Sharecropping, yes. Tenant farming, no. See, the sharecropper's living on your land, working your crop for a share of the profit at the end of the year. The tenant farmer pays rent on a piece, and he gets to do whatever he wants with it. Mostly they plant cotton or whatever the landowners want grown, but they'll put off an acre of two just for themselves and their families, you know, and grow food crops, keep hogs, and so forth.”
“Sounds like the better deal,” I said.
“For the blacks,” he replied. “And if he's doing better, then automatically I'm doing worse, you see? It's just math. That's land that should be working for me. No, no tenant farmers on Polk land. That's that damned Fin Conley, right there.”
“Tenant farmers?”
“Nothing but. His father, Colonel Robert Conley, put together a nice string of properties, and after the war, he turned them over to his son. Fin Conley got into cotton exporting and commodities, and he didn't take that much interest in cotton growing, so he went around and put all his old slaves out on tenant farms. Once a year, he'd take their cotton, weigh it, take out his rent, and pay them the rest.”
“Sounds reasonable,” I said. “The Conleys kept thousands of acres planted in cotton without having to plant and work it all.”
“Where are you from?” he eyed me closely.
“Atlanta,” I lied. I live there; I'm not from there.
“Then you should know what happened next. Within just a few years, the blacks working the Fin Conley properties started getting uppity. They built themselves a church and hired some Negro preacher down from up north. They started a school at a time when poor white people didn't even have a school. Can you believe that? They had to have a school. They tried forming a little town, but it never went anywhere. They wanted a post office. Can you imagine?”
“No tenant farmers on Polk land!” I exclaimed. “So what do you do about something like that?”
“What do you do? Son, you do what needs to be done. You know what happened, don't you?” I could tell he was warming to a favorite topic, so I shook my head, “no,” and let him roll.
“Colonel Conley, his grandson Thornton, the Polks, other good families around here... they stood up. They met in secret. They rode at night to re-establish order. There's no doubt that they risked hanging, every one of them, but they were willing to make that sacrifice for their homes and their families.”
Just as I expected, Polk was the usual run-of-the-mill DW Griffith fan. I've poked such pricks before, and I could predict what I'd get out of him if I started pressing his race buttons, but racists bore me, so I took another tack.
“Back to economics,” I said. “You've really got my mind working, now. So, how did Polks handle their sharecroppers?”
“Well, let's just say that after you've supported these people all year, the real truth is that what's yours is yours. So you find ways to reduce their share of the crop and increase your share. It's only fair. We supplied the seed; we gave them food, uh... housing--”
“Housing? Like mill houses?”
“Most folks just reused their slave cabins. But, you know, we'd give them hard candies and oranges at Christmastime for their kids...”
“Hard candies?”
“Oh, we were known for our generosity,” he assured me.
“I have no doubt. I can't thank you enough for the history lesson,” I said. “Now I know the difference between sharecroppers and tenant farmers, and which one makes the most money.”
“It's neither of those that makes the most money,” he said with a grin. “You're missing one of the best ways ever found to bring in the cotton without spending a fortune on labor.”
“And that is?”
“Ever heard of the convict lease system?”
“Rent convicts?”
“Sure! Every one of them, that's what they did before the War, pick cotton. They're the best at it, the best people for the job.”
“But suppose you need more labor than you have prisoners?”
He laughed out loud. “Never happen, son. Let me let you in on the secret to making the system work.” He leaned in. “Pass a law making it illegal not to have a job. Then you say, 'Who do you work for, Leroy?', and if Leroy hasn't got a job, well there you go. Leroy's just found one. Depending on season, you give them ninety, sixty, or thirty days. You don't want to feed them if you're not working them. When you are working them, you don't feed them much.”
“It's brilliant,” I declared.
He nodded. “And since the Polks served on the state board of prisons, we got the best rates for labor. Of course, we were heavily involved in management.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I'll leave you to your surveying. I'll tell you what, since the bank will be taking over management of the Conley Land Trust properties in a matter of weeks, you just go ahead and call me with any questions, okay... what was your name?”
“Addison,” I said, putting out my hand. “Addison the surveyor.”
“Okay, Addison the surveyor. I'll let you get back to it, and I'll get back to what I do best.” With that he turned and walked back to his Navigator.
As he drove away, I could only wonder. Where the hell was Ramon Burroughs, and why wasn't he answering the phone? At the very least, we're supposed to serve property owners with notice that we will be entering their premises to conduct surveys for this or that public work, and in this case, there was money at stake. The state wouldn't pay out for easements to a
nyone but the property owner, so one way or another, the owner must be found. And no, it wasn't really my job.
That evening, Steve dropped me off at the county library, a 1980s brick building built in mock-1880s style just a block from the square. After signing the computer use agreement, I settled down to a little Internet research.
I checked the card Polk had given me at the bank and typed in Ramon's disconnected number for a reverse lookup. Among the results was an address for Ramon Burroughs in Pelican Bay, Texas. Pelican Bay, Mapquest informed me, is on Eagle Mountain Lake, just north of the Fort Worth area. I did a search on that address alone, but all I came up with was the same Ramon Burroughs. I did a search for Ramon Burroughs and that address, though, and at a Fort Worth newspaper's website, I hit on something.
“Ramon Burroughs, a retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant, died Tuesday at his Pelican Bay home. He was 75. Memorial services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Joseph's Episcopal Church. Full Air Force military honors will be conducted at the service. Burroughs, a native of Carswell, Georgia, moved to the Fort Worth area after serving thirty years in the United States Air Force. He enlisted during World War II and for the next thirty years served his country in Europe, the Far East, Southeast Asia, and various stateside duty stations, including Sheppard Air Force Base, from which he retired in 1972. Master Sergeant Burroughs has no known survivors, but he enjoys the respect of a grateful nation.” The obituary had been posted on May 16th, 1999.
My first impulse was to wonder if Polk knew Burroughs was dead; my second was to assume that of course he did. I wondered if the Polks planned to buy the properties owned by the land trust, but from what Polk had told me of his family, I judged it more likely that one way or another, they planned to steal them. Then I had another thought. If Ramon had no survivors, who had provided the information in the obituary?
I returned to my search results. Farther down the page was another link to the obituary, reprinted on a veteran's website. I clicked on the link and was taken to a Memorial Day forum on which loved ones posted links to photos and obituaries of service men and women who had died in the previous year. After scrolling down for three minutes, I found the same obituary text. The poster was identified as SgtMajorTyler, and he had an email address.
I opened my Hotmail account and typed him a quick note.
“Dear Sgt. Major Tyler,
I am Addison Kane, a surveyor working outside Carswell, Georgia. I am writing to ask what you can tell me about Master Sergeant Ramon Burroughs and the Conley Land Trust. I will appreciate any and all information you can provide.”
I gave him my company cell phone number, too, just in case, and sent it. I wrote down the Pelican Bay address and the email address. I logged off the computer, checked out of the library, and strolled to the motel for a beer.
10. Return of the Sex Fairy
About twenty-four hours later, I was sitting at a traffic light on Freedom Parkway, waiting to make a right turn. Into the crosswalk stepped a tall brunette in workout clothing pushing a jogging stroller, inside which sat the world's cutest toddler girl, her face lit up in a delighted smile, taking in the world through her mother's blue eyes. Of course when I looked up at the mom again, Ellie's face looked back.
This had been happening for a couple of days. I saw Ellie everywhere there was a young mother and child. It was just another version of The Thought, of course, the one that had with such ease invaded my brain and established a beachhead there, that vision of a glowing Ellie on Christmas morning, and it was having the damnedest effect on me.
As I was gassing up before leaving Carswell, I saw Ellie coming out of the store with an infant in her arms. As I watched her buckling her little one into the carseat, I briefly wondered exactly how you go about strapping a baby into the front seat of a truck like this. Then I realized: you don't. You don't strap babies into the front seat of your company truck. Babies go into the back seat of sedans, minvans, and SUVs. Hmm. Up until that moment, I had never seen one single deficiency in or drawback to the Mighty Ford, my nickname for a 1995 Ford F150 pickup lacking even a jump seat. Fortunately, in the same daydreaming moment, I recalled Ellie's Volvo. Nothing says successful mom like a Volvo. I felt genuinely relieved that issue had resolved itself.
On the way back to Atlanta, I chided Steve a little for his driving and asked him to back off of the gas pedal. I reminded him that as great a driver as he is, the company doesn't pay for speeding tickets, but they do pay us by the hour to drive safely and take care of the truck. Weirder was to come.
I checked in at the office at four, and Mike kept me for an hour. He'd had a week to go over and over everything I'd done the week before and everything the other guys, Randy and Jack, had or had not accomplished. He had a list of little questions for me based on the previous week's data: why did I start recording so late on this day, and why did I pick up the equipment so early on that evening... I call it being in Mike's batting cage, in which he throws knuckleballs at me and I duck long enough for him to get bored. I was standing there doing my normal bob-and-weave when it suddenly hit me that my keeping a job with this company-- let alone obtaining any advance in position or rank-- would require my giving a damn, or, at the very least, learning to look like I give a damn. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking in terms of a career.
None of this, though, prepared me for arrival at my own home. The tall Ellie-mom with the toddler daughter stayed with me those last two blocks. When I pulled into the back and parked in front of the garage, I actually wondered if I'd lost my mind, raising a child in such a bachelor pad. No tub, only a shower. Whoever heard of giving baby a shower? The downstairs sink is probably big enough for a little while, but it won't last, and the wrought-iron spiral staircase is nothing but an infant-sized oubliette awaiting a customer. Only a depraved lunatic would think of raising children in a garage.
I shook my head and looked around me. All this fantasy was worse than ridiculous. The woman was married. I thought of the divorces I had witnessed, and the seriousness of what I had imagined began to sink in. Weddings are often fun; divorce never is. As I mulled that one over, I had to acknowledge how much I cherished my relationship with Rita precisely for its lack of drama. It may have been somewhat predictable, but it was safe and dependable, too.
Veronica's car was gone. Now would be a good time to start laundry. I was hungry, too, which meant it was also a good time for a Guinness. Exiting the truck and grabbing my laundry, I proceeded to the house.
Inside, I separated my stinky clothes and started the whites. For the hell of it, I went ahead and took off my shoes, tossing my socks into the washer. I closed the lid and headed to the kitchen for a beer. A note on the fridge in Veronica's perfect Spencerian read,
“Addison,
Gone to Charleston with Ellen; staying at the marina. Clean up after yourself and don't drink all the whiskey.
Veronica”
I dropped my pants and underwear, tossing my tighties into the washer just as the agitation cycle kicked into gear. I got myself a Guinness from inside the fridge, and, just to please Veronica, poured myself a shot of her Jamesons. Per my best friend's instructions, I would not drink it all.
I sat down in her living room and looked around.
I stayed at Veronica's while I did my laundry. I took a shower there, had a few more beers and shots, then went down to Rita's for a couple more. She seemed glad to see me, and even winked at me a couple of times from across the room. I was pretty well relaxed by midnight, so I strolled home and put myself to bed.
I think I felt the Sex Fairy even before she touched me. I felt her approach. It was warm, and I welcomed her into my dreams. She was her usual extraordinary, nothing less. Afterward, while I sipped coffee and watched her pin back her hair in preparation for a busy day ahead, I felt for the first time a quiet unease, nebulous at first, ill-formed, but nonetheless disturbing. It was a vague, unsettled feeling, and only the passage of years now allows me the hin
dsight to name it. It was the moment I first felt that my moment had passed, that I'd been wasting valuable time that should have been spent building a family. I couldn't have told you that then, but that's what it was. I just felt weird and depressed.
It must have shown on my face. “What's up?” Rita wanted to know.
“Nothing. Thinking too much on an empty stomach.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
She looked sharply. “What us?”
“Exactly,” I replied.
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
“I don't know. I just don't know if this is enough for me anymore. I think I need more.”
There was a pause. “I see,” she said. “I'm going to the Farmer's Market next, then home. Do you want to come spend some time with me? Is that what you mean?”
The Dead Hand of Sweeney County Page 11
