Normally, mean-minded judicial pettiness sends me right up the wall; that frigid January day it sent me right over to the election board where I filed for Harrison Hobart’s seat.
I really wished it could have been Perry Byrd’s.
2 i just came home to count the memories
The County Democratic Coalition was holding a candidates’ forum at West Colleton Senior High, a sprawling two-story “educational plant” built by integration back in 1969.
It took fifteen years and the threat of cutting off federal funds to make the county finally admit that separate wasn’t equal. All those shabby old black schools had to be closed because no white tax-paying parents would stand for sending their children there. I shake my head sometimes to hear people fume about the evils of bussing and the benefits of neighborhood schools. You didn’t hear any of that kind of talk back when I was in seventh grade and it was black kids being bussed miles past white schools.
We arrived a little before six, and the early May sun was still high in the clear blue sky. It streamed in through floor-to-ceiling cafeteria windows and further brightened tables already cheerful with red-checked biodegradable paper tablecloths. Clusters of red, white, and blue balloons were tethered at each table, and red-white-and-blue crepe-paper bunting draped the head table. Very colorful. Very patriotic.
Lest anyone forget why we were there though, a partisan mural hung on the wall behind the head table. An art teacher here at West Colleton had painted a lifesize donkey kicking the butt of an elephant whose eyeglasses looked suspiciously like those worn by North Carolina ’s senior senator.
Supper was the usual pork barbecue, cole slaw, hush puppies, and sweet iced tea. I’d graduated from West Colleton, and Knotts had farmed around here since the late 1700s, so the crowd was friendly. Lots of hugs and howdies. For moral support, I sat at a table with John Claude Lee and Reid Stephenson, my two partners; Sherry Cobb, our legal secretary; and their significant others, which in Reid’s case seemed to change with the moon. A couple of my brothers and their families were there, too.
Not Daddy though.
He wasn’t real thrilled when I went to law school and he’s sat on his hands ever since I announced for judge. Being the only daughter after a string of sons, I was supposed to wear frilly dresses and patent leather Mary Janes till I grew up and married somebody who’d worship at the foot of my pedestal the rest of my natural life. He swears he isn’t chauvinistic; but truth is, he doesn’t approve of ladies messing with politics. (Daddy’s like Jesse Helms that way. Neither one of them’s ever met a woman. All females are ladies unless they’re trashy and immoral, in which case they’ve got other labels.)
I try to take into account that he’s an old man now, someone from another era. He says that’s disrespectful. People say I’m natured more like him than Mother, another reason I stayed in town with Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash after Mother died. Keeps us from snarling at each other. This way I can stay polite and respectful.
Most of the time.
The evening followed predictable lines once they got rid of the feedback squeal in the sound system: a welcome by the president of the Democratic Women, an invocation by the minister of Cotton Grove Presbyterian, then some brief remarks by our U.S. House incumbent. It’s a safe seat. Down at the grass roots level, there’re still a lot of farmers, and ninety percent of Colleton County farmers are yellow dog Democrats when it comes to local politics.
We faced the flag for the pledge of allegiance, then sang “God Bless America,” which usually evokes muddled memories. Grade school assemblies get mixed in with cozy feelings from when “thru the night with the light from above” was the blissful security of the hall light that shone through a crack over my bedroom door until I fell asleep.
All incumbents stood to be applauded, including Perry Byrd and Harrison Hobart, then the chairman of the Colleton County Democratic Party gave a seven-minute pitch for Harvey Gantt, who was running against Jesse Helms for U.S. Senate and who sent regrets that he couldn’t be with us that night. After that came the parade of candidates to the microphone at the front of the cafeteria. State hopefuls got five minutes, county three.
Sheriff Bowman Poole only took two minutes. He gazed out over the two hundred or so party faithful with that genial expression that never quite masks the watchful alertness of a shepherd collie and said he sure did appreciate their continuing support, he’d try not to let ’ em down. Bo plays the role of laid-back good ol’ boy as well as anybody, but he runs a modern department. His officers have to keep themselves updated with regular classes at the community college, and he takes advantage of all the special techniques seminars that the SBI runs in Raleigh. Long as he wants to stay sheriff, Bo Poole’ll keep getting elected, and people gave him a good hand when he stepped away from the mike.
District judges come down near the end of the slate of candidates even though our judicial district comprises a three-county area. (On the ballot, we come after the sheriff but before clerk of the court, register of deeds, coroner, and county surveyor.) We can’t make campaign promises or take stands on particular issues. All we can do is state our background and expertise and promise to uphold the laws of this great land.
Running against me in the primary were three males. One, Luther Parker, was a tall gangling attorney from the next county who looked vaguely like a black Abe Lincoln without the beard. The other two were white, a fat attorney from Widdington and an earnest young assistant DA from Black Creek with a wonderful bass speaking voice that almost made you forget it had nothing to say. Harrison Hobart had let it be known-unofficially, of course- that he favored the ADA, “a man who thinks like me ’bout where the law ought to be going.”
It was unlikely that any of us would win a clear majority in the primary. I figured the two whites would probably cancel each other out, and then if all my relatives voted for me and if Parker pulled a big percentage of black votes, it’d probably come down to a runoff between him and me. At that point it’d turn into a real horse race. Far as I know, the only Colleton County woman ever elected to county-wide office has been Miss Callie Yelverton, our register of deeds, and she sort of inherited the job from her daddy, who first got himself elected about 1932.
Just because Democrats don’t pay as much attention to color and gender as Republicans doesn’t mean they don’t take both into account when they step inside the voting booth.
I’m white, but I’m female.
He’s male, but he’s black.
I’m single with some dirty linen I’d hate to have washed in public.
He’s a family man with a spotless reputation.
Actual qualifications would count for damn little, but then they never do in any other election, so why should judgeships be any different?
After five verses of “Democrats Are on the Move,” a unity song set to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” the evening broke up in a burst of enthusiastic optimism. November was a long way off.
My two white opponents tried to work the room, but most of the blacks were clustered around Luther Parker or Gantt’s representative; and, as I said before, I had graduated from West Colleton High so I was on home ground among folks who acted tickled to see me running for judge.
I was passed from one familiar bear hug to another, scolded for not coming home more often, told I was getting prettier every day and asked when I was going to quit breaking hearts and settle down.
Some things will never change. Not in eighteen million years.
I gave a mental shrug, said the things they wanted to hear, and hugged everyone back till I suddenly fetched up in the arms of a tall, good-looking man with silver flecks in his thick black hair.
Jed Whitehead.
“Little Debbie,” he grinned, the laugh lines falling into easy crinkles around his eyes and lips. He never lets me forget when I was a chubby teenager who used to pig out on those cream-filled cupcakes Dinah Jean kept in their refrigerator for when I baby-sat for them. “I wanted to tell you how much I liked your talk yesterday, but you got away too quick.”
Yesterday I’d given a speech to the Civitans and it’d gone well. Especially the question and answer session.
“I had to get back to court,” I said.
True.
