by Matt Minor
“A Southern Intellectual!” Keith confirms, professorially.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Keith?” I spit out. I enter the den dressed in gym shorts, a wife beater, and flip-flops.
“A Southern Intellectual,” he says, rolling towards me. I take a seat in the Lazy Boy. The paint on the pale walls of the apartment is wilting from moisture. The subtle smell of mold hangs in the air.
“Keith, I’m tired. Are you stoned again? You’re turning into a stoner, dude. This was not part of the deal, I mean really, man.”
“I’m not high, Mason,” he says with such sincerity that I almost feel guilty for accusing him of being a pothead—which he is! “I’m being serious, and I mean it as a compliment…for the most part.”
“So what’s a Southern Intellectual?” I’m indulging him, and maybe my ego. “And why is that what’s wrong with me?”
“Because it’s both your strength and weakness.”
“How do mean?” I’m now genuinely intrigued.
“Well, being both intellectual and Southern means there’s nowhere you fit in. If you were from New England you’d just be another pretentious elitist, because that’s the crowd you’d run with. Down here, there’s really nowhere for a guy like you to go. And that’s what makes your intellectualism so authentic, but…it’s what alienates you from everyone else. It’s kind of tragic if you think about it: group think leads to pretension, isolation leads to originality. But pretension gets recognition, whereas originality gets shunned…or worst…ignored.”
“This is true,” I reply.
One of the primary reasons Keith and I remain friends is because even though he’s a high school dropout, he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.
“So… why am I a Southern Intellectual?” I challenge him.
“Why? It’s all those history books you read.”
“Yeah, but I’m a history major, Keith.”
“That was more than a decade ago. The fact that you keep reading about the things you do: Southern politics and culture, the Civil War...agrarianism—whatever the hell that is—that’s unusual, Mason. Most people use learning as a way to get a job, it’s not a genuine passion for them like it is for you.”
“Well, I appreciate your assessment, Keith, I really do.”
“Remember that I said it was ‘for the most part.’”
“Okay. What do you mean?”
“Well, like most intellectuals, you also have your fuckin’ head up your ass!”
“What? Are you fucking with me?” I’m too tired for this conversation.”
“No, but you’ve been lying to me, Mason!” Keith yells. He throws an opened, letter-sized envelope onto my lap.
“What? What’s this?” I quickly sit up; the reclined position of the chair abruptly swings back into shape, making a loud snap.
“It’s about Ann! You lied to me Mason. They killed her didn’t they! They put me in a wheelchair—probably for life—and they put Ann in the ground…forever!”
“What?” I’m stunned and exposed.
“What?” Keith repeats, mockingly. “Next time you decide to continue your education while you’re taking a shit, remember that there’s incriminating evidence in your book!”
He’s referring to the letter from my attorney that I had previously stuffed into a Shelby Foote book. I like to read while I’m taking care of business, so to speak.
“Okay, Keith…okay,” I confess. I rise from the Lazy Boy and dart past him on my way to the fridge to fetch some ice. I need a drink and it’s too hot to drink Jack straight. The sound of cracking ice cubes from the tray breaks the scolding silence, which is now being subjected on me. I don’t know what to say.
Keith has wheeled his way to the kitchen entry and is staring at me accusatorily. I get the impression that if he could adequately walk, he would be beating the shit out me about now.
I take a huge swallow. It burns. I’ve come to depend on this burn. “Oh…kay…, Keith…,” I stammer.
“You said that, Mason.”
“You’re right, they killed her. The fucking cops killed Ann. They killed my wife.”
“The pigs killed your wife!”
I lift my sweating glass from off the magazine that it sits atop. A ring of wrinkled condensation appears on the face of some politician. I take another huge gulp. The ice has diluted the sting. My satisfaction is denied. I continue, “Not ‘pigs’ plural, but one pig, to be exact. I don’t like using that term to be honest with you, Keith. I’ve always thought it disrespectful.”
“Fuck those motherfuckers, Mason! I mean, look what they did to me!”
“I know. I guess…being a ‘Southern Intellectual’, I have always had faith in law and order, in general.”
“The South got beat, Mason.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“What? What the fuck are we talking about? They killed Ann! What happened? What the…what the fucking hell happened!?” Keith insists. His eyes are more bloodshot with anger than anything else.
I kill what’s left of my drink and pour another. No ice this time. I return to the den and resume my previous spot on the Lazy Boy. I’ve brought the entire liter with me. Keith is staring at me intently.
“So you want to know what happened, Keith? Okay, I’ll tell you. I was at work at the D.O. when Ann called from the road. She was heading home and needed to stop by the store on the way. She asked me if there was anything I needed. I asked her to get me some beer. We hung up. I get home later that evening…around seven. I tried calling her several times. No answer. I’m getting worried. I think about driving out to the store she always visits in town. I don’t know what to do. I’m stressing and have nothing to drink. I’m about to hop in the Expedition when the landline rings. It’s the Wagoneer County Sheriff ’s office.
“They ask me if I’m who I am and then proceed to tell me Ann is in the hospital. She’s had an altercation with a sheriff ’s deputy and has been injured.” I take a huge gulp and I fill the glass. “I’m like ‘what the fuck?’” The cop shuts me down. He’s a real dick. He tells me that Ann was tasered for slapping a deputy after a routine stop. She has collapsed and if I want to see her she’s at the Wagoneer Hospital, that no charges have been pressed so far, but that there might be at some point.”
I kill what’s in the glass and fill it again.
“Fucking Nazis,” Keith says, stunned.
“Wait man, it gets better…ah worse. So…keep in mind here… I’m hearing this in real time, not as some after the fact tale. I’m fucking tripping. I’m wondering if this is some kind of prank. I double check the caller ID. No prank. So I go to ask the guy a question, like what the hell happened? He cuts me off in his redneck tone and tells me that’s all he knows, and hangs up on my ass!”
“Fuck those motherfuckers!”
“Wait!” I demand. I’m getting worked up. “When I get to the hospital Ann’s already dead! She’s had a heart attack—they think!”
At this point, the reality of all this mixed with the straight booze and the heat is making me physically ill. I don’t even try for the bathroom. I puke right between my legs, on the carpet.
“Goddamn, Mason,” Keith pleads.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Keith!” I apologize, lifting my head up, in between swallows. This is not a burn that I savor. But my story isn’t finished yet. Still, I can’t bring myself to tell him the whole story as I stare at the exhausted walls.
“So, what the hell, you hired this law firm and all they can tell you is nothing will happen to this fucker!” he asks. Tears descend his grooved and gray-whiskered cheeks. “What about your boss? What has he done to help?”
“A lot, I think. He did hire the attorney.”
“Who lost the case?”
“Only on a criminal level. There’s still a civil case out there. I’m suing for damages.”
“How did the press not pick this up?” he asks. He sparks up a joint.
“The
y did…at least some obscure blogs and sites. Let’s be honest, no one in the mainstream media cares about a white person killed by the cops. There’s no riot potential there. And besides, white people love the authorities. Because they think it could never happen to them—because the media never reports it when it does! They’re played just like blacks are played: a twisted fuckin’ fiddle! Besides, Representative Crane forbade me to make any comments.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t helped you more, Mason.”
“People think elected officials have all this power, especially legislators. Truth be told, they’re terrified of pissing off local officials. The local officials have them by the nuts— particularly now. Shit, the damn Texas Legislature recently gave local district attorneys power over their respective offices. The D.A.s can now prosecute their own representatives and senators. Legislators are cowards, Keith.”
“I don’t need a guy who works in your area to tell me that. Look at the country, that’s obvious.”
We both sit there without a word between us for some time: Keith in his wheelchair, reeking of weed and me in my Lazy Boy, the taste of vomit on my tongue and lips.
“One thing you haven’t told me, Mason, why did she get pulled over in the first place? You said ‘routine’ traffic stop…what do you mean by that?”
“She was speeding; only ten miles over the speed limit. And when she went to pull over, from the tape, it looks like she erratically pulled to the shoulder. According to the police report, what happened was that a beer from the six-pack she’d brought for me had tumbled out somehow—presumably from the erratic stop—it busted open at the pop top. Beer had squirted all over the backseat of her car. When she rolled down her window the cop smelled it. That simple. From the dash cam video, after he asked her if she’d been drinking, she got irate. You can’t understand what she’s saying because his body cam wasn’t on, but it sounds a bit disrespectful.”
“Ann always had a fiery temper, that’s for sure. I never thought it would get her killed,” Keith laments.
“Anyway, after he has her step outside of the car, he remarks that she smells—of beer I presume. But that’s bullshit because the autopsy showed no alcohol in her blood. Besides, she never even liked beer. But him making that remark, that’s when she slaps him square in the face. It’s then that he tasers her.”
“Where, where did he taser her?”
“Right in the belly.”
“Fuckers. And this is why you don’t ever drink beer anymore, isn’t it, Mason?”
“Yes. You’re very observant.”
“I’m high all the time. What do you expect? Stoned people drive under the speed limit for a reason.”
We’re both laughing half-heartedly.
“So how did she die? I mean…what caused the heart attack? People get tasered all the time and rarely die.”
“It was later determined that she had a heart defect. One doc called it Long QT, another said it was some sort of myopathy or something. Basically, it was a ticking time bomb all her life. It could have happened while she was working out, or…having sex, whatever. It just so happened that she suffered it at the hands of Johnny Law.”
“Johnny Law,” Keith repeats while staring at the floor. He is tapping his foot pensively and then looks up at me. “Only a Southern Intellectual would come to that conclusion.”
“Whatever, man,” I retort with a growing grin. We’re now both laughing, and it’s genuine. It’s all we can do to keep from killing ourselves.
“So that’s all the doctors had to say, it was a ticking time bomb?” Keith continues.
“Actually, I spoke with several other doctors; each had something different to say. The guy the courts are being advised by is just a government yes man. All he does is medically exonerate the cop.”
“Of course. Are you surprised?”
“I don’t know what I am anymore, Keith. I used to believe in all this stuff…I’m not so sure now.”
“What ‘stuff ’ are you referring to? Civilization?”
“Yes, that’s what I don’t know about anymore. Maybe it is just a racket for the rich and powerful. Maybe the law is really nothing but a hammer to keep people down.”
“You’re just figuring this out, Mason? I’ve known this for years. They trap you from the time you’re a child. That is if you’re poor, like I am.”
“You’re not poor, dude. As long as I’ve got a roof over my head and food on the table, so will you.”
“I appreciate that, Mason, I really do, but let me make my point. You get in trouble for something stupid, like not having a light on your bike or something. You can’t afford the ticket. You get a warrant out for your arrest. Now you’ve got a record. Maybe you get busted with a roach in the ashtray of your car—and remember, you have no Fourth Amendment rights anymore—so now you can’t get a job. They trap you in this sick, twisted system and ensure that you can never get out. They keep you poor and enslaved. There’s a whole apparatus in place that profits off this—both public and private. I hope it all burns to the ground. I hate this country.”
“There’s no place else to go, Keith. This is as good as it gets.”
“That’s like saying that one pile of shit smells less than all the others.”
“Maybe you’re right. Like I said, I don’t know anymore.”
“Oh, and by the way, discovering that letter only confirmed what I was starting to suspect,” Keith comments.
“Oh?”
“It’s obvious that no woman has ever been here, let alone ever lived here, Mason.”
It’s getting late and I feel horrible and really need to gargle with mouthwash. Keith stays up listening to music in his headphones. I do my nightly regiment and now I’m lying in bed… but I can’t sleep.
My mind wanders back to the meeting I had with the boss this morning at the Capitol in Austin. The reason for my trip wasn’t necessarily for a district briefing, rather one for an interim study from one of the House committees he sits on. But before we go down to the conference room, I feel compelled to tell him of my recent exploits. I omit the part where I impersonate a cop:
“So you’re telling me that this Reynolds guy is gone? He’s disappeared?” he asks from behind his desk while blowing on his coffee, trying to cool it off.
“Right. His wife told me this before she retired into that tomb they call a house.”
“That’s terrible, poor woman. Is there anything we can do for her, you wonder?”
“Other than give her a flag that’s flown over the Capitol?” I ask facetiously.
“You don’t need to be an ass, Mason. This situation is just horrible and I wish there was something we could do for this woman— that’s all.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I falter, “When I get to the rodeo arena there is no sign of any dogs, only a piece of ball cap that resembles what Mr. Reynold’s wore on the one occasion I visited him regarding this issue.”
“Jesus Christ! You don’t think the goddamn dogs ate him do you?”
“Jesus Christ I hope not. I did not see any blood…except on my leg.”
“On your leg?”
“Yeah, when I descended those damn bleachers, one of the rotten slats gave way. I fell through up to my knees.”
“Lucky it wasn’t up to your pecker,” he says, laughing.
“I’m lucky I didn’t need stitches,” I respond, clearly irritated.
“Send me a bill whenever you need to, no matter what it is,” he says, coldly.
“So what should we do? This is fucked up.”
“No doubt about that. I say let the county sheriff ’s department handle it.”
“You serious? Those guys are incompetent creeps.”
“This is out of our league, Mason. Besides, we’ve got bigger things on the radar at this point.”
“Like what?”
“The Congressional seat, that’s what.”
At that point I didn’t feel like telling him about the files I stole. Besides, h
ow could I? I stole them!
And by the way, I have yet to look at their contents. I’ve got other things on my mind.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DATE NIGHT
That night at the power plant, before Brenna and I parted, our discussion meandered into areas I was not prepared to go. After getting up the nerve to ask her out on a formal date, Brenna dropped a bomb on me:
“…that sounds like fun. I’ve never been to that venue. Who is this band again?”
“X. They were an L.A. punk band back in the heyday. My buddy Keith told me about them. They’ve got a rockabilly twist to their music. They’re older now, but I watched a few clips online and they still sound kick ass! I’ve never been to that venue either, but I’ve heard the place sounds great and apparently it’s small enough so there’s not a bad seat in the house.”
“Okay, next Saturday. I should be able to get my mom to babysit Will.”
“Will?”
“Yes, Will. You didn’t know I had a son?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t.” I was sure she could see I was stunned, even while I was trying not to look like an asshole.
“That’s okay isn’t it?” she asked with an air of concerned finality.
“What? Of course! That’s awesome! How old is he?”
“He turned seven in June. He’s so smart it’s scary—totally into science.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. It started with his interest in Star Wars—like all his friends—but it just suddenly started blossoming into a life all its own. He watched a documentary on the Big Bang the other day!”
“Wow!”
I tried to remain…well not stunned. This revelation is a blow to any man not expecting it, particularly if that respective man has no children of his own.
But for me, at the time, it had a deeper, more painful meaning.
I bought tickets for both Keith and me more than a month ago. He has no idea about Brenna and I’m at a loss as to how to tell him. All week my mind has fidgeted with this question: Should I lie or should I just level with him? If I lie I’ll find myself in the trap that so many politicians find themselves in: the spawning of more lies. Lies beget lies. No, I’m of the opinion that I should just tell him straight up. But because of the news about Ann and his devotion to her (I’ve always thought he was secretly in love with her) he might take this truth very harshly. And I must confess that I have been experiencing thoughts and feelings of guilt myself. How does one move on after what I’ve endured?
