Chapter 42
Under shade of massive live oak trees dispersed among the bald cypresses that lined the banks, a small hill-the highest point in Pottersville-sloped down into the muddy waters of the Apalachicola River. The crooked cypresses, both in and out of the water, were silhouettes against the neon orange and pink of the setting sun. The natural slope down to where the swirling water patted the red clay of the bank was most often used as a boat launch. It was in this picturesque spot, where I had learned to water-ski and later had been baptized, that the car of Molly Thomas was being pulled from the devouring mouth of the powerful watery snake.
Apparently, Molly Thomas’s car had raced down the hill at high speed and crashed into the river below. When I arrived, two deputy sheriffs’ cars, one city police car, one highway patrol car, one game warden’s Bronco, an ambulance, and a tow truck, and Dad’s Explorer, which had the windows rolled down because Wallace was inside of it, were all parked at odd angles around the scene.
The yellow crime-scene tape, stretched between two cypress trees near the water, rippled in the small breeze coming off of the water, making a small and lonely whipping sound.
Molly’s car could just be seen breaking the surface of the water. A cable attached to her back bumper was spinning around the winch of the tow truck pulling the two vehicles ever closer to one another. At certain points along the way, the steady hum of the winch was interrupted by the grinding of metal on metal as the river begrudgingly released the car.
“Is this the girl you were dickin’?” my charming brother asked when I walked up to where he, Dad, and two other officers stood. Jake and the two officers laughed. I was amazed we were from the same family. I suspected we were not. There had to have been some sort of terrible mix-up at the hospital. Jake felt the same way.
“Does it look like suicide?” I asked Dad, ignoring Jake completely.
“Yes, Son, it does. There are no signs that she tried to brake or that another vehicle was involved.”
“You were such a bad lay that she offed herself,” Jake said to even more laughter than the first time. He now had them primed. “She left a note addressed to ‘Dear Pencil Dick.’ We saved it for you.”
More laughter.
“Is it okay to walk down there?” I asked Dad.
“Sure, Son. Go ahead,” Dad said in a voice that told me he was sorry for what Jake was doing, but that he wasn’t able to stop him.
As I walked away, I heard Jake say something about having sex with a raccoon. There was more laughter, but this time it was forced, like men wanting something to be funnier than it was. As I walked down to the river’s edge, I felt awkward and self-conscious.
I knelt down on one knee by the river and quietly began to cry. I was crying for Molly, a good woman who had loved her husband. I was crying for Anthony, who went to prison on a marijuana possession and came out a crack addict prostitute in a body bag. I also cried for me. I was a total stranger in a place I once called home. I had never fit in like Jake-my neck had never been that red-but now I was totally alienated.
The isolation was painful.
When I finished crying, I got up and walked over to where the car now sat on dry land. Molly’s wet auburn hair was matted, and it hung forward with the rest of her slumping body that only the seat belt held vertical. The officers and ME had opened her door maybe ten minutes ago. Water was still draining onto the ground. The hair covered her face, and for that I was glad.
There was a strong odor coming from the car, but it wasn’t Molly, not yet anyway. It was the mix of the river water, including the things that are in it, and the interior of the car. I smelled fish and mildew.
I walked around to the back of the car and studied the bumper. It was bent slightly, but there was no way to know when it had happened. There were a few dents and some white paint from another vehicle on the back right quarter panel. The paint could have been on the car for six months or six hours; there was absolutely no way to know. But I knew. This was the work of Matt Skipper. Molly had lost the love of her life. Having nothing else to lose, with the exception of her own life, she was very dangerous to Skipper. He no longer had power over her, because he no longer had total power over her husband.
I walked back up the hill, picturing in my mind how the deed was done. This time I didn’t stop where the officers stood, but continued to where I thought Skipper would have tried to stop. I found tire marks on the road, not acceleration marks, but the skid marks of Molly’s car as she tried to stop. I pictured Skipper hitting her one last time knocking her unconscious, sending her car down the hill and into the river. A second tire track was visible on the edge of the road in the dirt.
The tire track could just be seen beneath the highway patrol car that was parked on top of it, whose front tires had already ridden over it. It came as no surprise to me that the highway patrolman was one of Skipper’s biggest hunting buddies. I didn’t see any point in mentioning what I had discovered . . .
Or in any longer seeking justice in the manner I had been.
Chapter 43
The Quarters, the name given to the black section of town by a certain segment of the white population, was roughly two hundred acres on the south side of Pottersville, only part of which was inside the city limits. A single row of small, red-brick duplexes provided by the government for low-income housing was the only part of black Pottersville actually located within Pottersville.
The low-income housing, known as the black projects, was a mirror image of the government housing on the east side of town, known as the white projects. The only difference in the two projects was color. Thus, it was more of a negative than a mirror-the negative of a hateful and ugly picture of humanity.
I drove past the row of identical duplexes and found myself again surprised by how widely the yards varied. In front of most of the dwellings, the yards were barren, a mixture of dirt, weeds, and trash. Others, however, had neatly trimmed lawns and a shrub or two. Most of the houses did not have vehicles in front of them. Of those that did, many were tireless heaps up on blocks and covered with plastic tarps. Two of the units had late-model Cadillacs that gleamed even under the late evening sun.
Beyond the projects were the houses and trailers of African Americans who could afford to own their own homes. These dwellings were as eclectic as any in the world. White prosperity and poverty in the rural South were separated from each other-relegated to certain well-defined clumps and clusters. However, black prosperity was scattered like leaven within the lump of black poverty. To my left stood a nice brick home with a paved driveway, two-car garage with the door closed, and a large yard in which a flashy bass boat sat on its trailer. To my right an old, faded single-wide trailer with its insulation hanging loosely underneath sat unevenly on cinder blocks with at least six dogs lying on the bare dirt yard scratching and licking themselves.
On the corner, a small fire burned surrounded by three men and a woman-all holding tall beer cans in their hands. Across the road and down two yards, at least twenty children were playing various games under the watchful eye of an elderly, gray-haired lady rocking on the front porch. Occasionally, she leaned forward and spat her snuff-filled spittle onto the front yard.
A little farther down, I passed a small travel trailer that served as home for three adults and four children-a digital direct TV satellite dish mounted to its upper right-hand side. Next to it a twenty-three hundred square-foot home stood as it had for the nearly twenty years it had been occupied with no brick or wood on its exterior- only faded gray sheets of once-silver Thermo-Ply. The modest, freshly painted clapboard house with the manicured yard next to it was Uncle Tyrone’s.
When I arrived at Uncle Tyrone’s house, his numerous children sitting on his front porch told me that Merrill and Tyrone were already at his shop. Uncle Tyrone owned a shoe shop just over the tracks in Pottersville. This meant that although he lived on the wrong side of the tracks, Tyrone owned his own business on the right side of the tracks. His was one of only four black-owned businesses in Pottersville and the only one that was located in the white part of Pottersville.
