Southern Sins (Kassy & Reaperlament)

[Kassyghost]

That smoldering hot summer of '65 was turbulent all over the country but nothing compared to the tragic trail of events that started one June night in Tallahassee Florida. Racial tensions were rising as minorities across the US had had just about enough of the Sam Crow attitudes and bigotry that white America seemed to be unable to let go. It was this backward way to thinking that had so many Negros up in arms about the way they were being treated, and in turn made so many white folks nervous about what was to come. Little did anyone know what a watershed moment this season would bring and the repercussions that would rack the sleepy little southern town thereafter.

James Lesner remembered it well, it was his first year on the Leon County Sheriff's department as a junior deputy. He'd graduated high school the year prior, a state champion running back for the Tallahassee Leatherbacks and prom king, Jimmy was the towns golden boy. His Uncle, Earl Lesner was the county's dully elected Sherriff for ten years running and ruled with an iron fist, which the conservative locals happen to adore. Uncle Earl had pulled some strings and got Jim a job in the department without any of the police training usually involved with such a career move.

By all standards Jim had life by the 'short & curlies', his own mobile home, quaint but not too unrefined, a jacked up pickup truck with a siren and light bar on the roof, which got him through any pesky traffic lights throughout the day and a high school sweetheart for a main squeeze that most the men in town were jealous of. Kassandra Kimble was the head cheerleader and probably the most privileged white girl in town. Her father was Aliester Kimble, Mayor and president of the elitist country club known as the 'Dapper Dandy'. Truth be told, Jim had out grown Kassy shortly after graduating high school but he was a southern gentleman and not a stupid man and so he kept his opinions about her spoiled demeanor to himself.

It was a muggy Friday night that June that everything changed for him, he could still remember watching a thunderstorm crackle blue strobe over the lake when the call came over the radio. Jim had been posted on the corner of two dirt roads watching the parking lot of a dive bar called the Boar's nest as the patrons inside cranked country and western music till it shook the windows in their frames. He had no intention of arresting anyone inside as most of the inhabitants were good ol' boys from around town. This was more of a public service, if any of them got behind the wheel too drunk, he'd throw his lights on and pull them over, but not to issue any tickets or citations, instead offering to give them a lift home to insure they didn't kill anyone.

It was 12:21 am when the red light on his dash radio flashed green and the familiar voice of Deputy Hank Grimshaw spoke up. ' Jim....Jim you got your ears on?'

"Yeah, I'm here Hank, what cha got?" Jim depressed button on the handset of his CB radio.

'I'm out here in the mangroves with your Uncle and we need a vehicle that'll pass the goatpaths out this this way. Your uncles cruiser isn't up to the task.' Hank replied, a certain nervous energy in his voice.

"Why's that? One of those swamprats out spotlighting gators again and get his toes bit off?" Jim asked a slight chuckle escaping him.

"Nah Jim...I'm afraid it might be a bit more serious than that, you gonna wanna put on your flashers and get a move on...this looks pretty serious." Hank replied and Jim couldn't tell if it was interference from the coming storm or if Hank's voice was actually quaking.

"Alright hold yer horses, I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Jim replied, dropping his big pickup into gear and tearing off down the dirt road. The mangroves were pretty far out, not many folks lived out that way and the ones that did were either dirt poor swamprats, or colored folk. Not too much call for sheriffs in that neck of the woods and when they did have to respond to a call it was usally pretty trivial stuff. But the sound in Hank's voice had to make Jim wonder.

The drive took close to thirty minutes but once he entered the mangroves it wasn't hard to find, not many roads out that way. His uncle's cruiser was parked infront of Hank's Mercury, both of them had their lights on and Jim could see the two men standing at the edge of the road, hands on their hips. He pulled up next to them and leaned out the window casually hanging his elbow out of the door frame. "What's all the hub-bub boys?"

"Wipe that damn grin off yer face Jimmy, We got a body in the swamp." Uncle Earl said, his face more serious than Jim had ever seen it.

"A body? What in tarnation? Who is it?" Jim asked, all the color leaving his tan cheeks.

"Don't rightly know, it's a little girl though...or atleast it was. I got the call from the ol' man Turner about an hour ago. He said he was out spotting and saw her strung up in a tree. He said they strung her up by the neck like a common 'coon, if'n ya can believe that." Earl answered, his tone still deadly serious.

"A black girl?" Jim asked.

"Nope a pretty lil' white girl...damnedest thing I ever saw." Hank answered, interrupting his superior officer, to which drew a disapproving look from Earl.

The thought of someone killing and hanging a white girl shook Jim to his core, he could hardly imagine such a thing, sure in filthy cities like New York, or Chicago, or even LA things like that happened, but not in the small town of Tallahassee. "Who in the hell would do something like that?"

"As I said, I don't rightly know nephew, but we are damned sure going to find out. I wouldn't be too terribly damn surprised if'n it was some hopped up 'Spook trying to get a bit of payback for years of 'oppression'. They all got themselves an idea that us white folk owe them something ever since that reverend King Jr been getting'em all riled up... Now I want you to listen and listen good. Me an Hank are gonna take yer truck back into the swamp and fetch that poor young woman's body, I want you to take my cruiser and drive yer way up to the Colored folks neighborhood. It's the grouping of shanties at the end of this road. There is a nigger fella lives back there who got himself in trouble a few years back for getting liquored up and accosting a white woman at the town picnic. You know the nigger I'm talkin' bout?" Earl asked.

"Yeah....I mean yeah but...He hardly accosted her. She spit on him and he returned the favor. I ain't saying it was in good taste but it hardly constitutes being a suspect in a murder investigation." Jim started to protest but his Uncle stopped him in his tracks.

"Never you mind that, just bring him into the station and I'll meet you there after Hank and me finished with the nasty business at hand." Earl scolded, and Jim dropped his gaze. "Yessir"


It took another twenty minutes to reach the end of the dirt road through the mangroves and as Jim rolled up on the 'shanty' neighborhood consisting of ten or more houses. Many of which were far from shanties at all. These people were proud and used their meager incomes from fieldwork and manual labor fix up their homes, in some cases nicer than some of the white people's houses in town. Jim shut the lights off in the cruiser and parked his Uncle's cruiser in the driveway. He stepped out and instead of making his way directly to the door he had himself a little look around first.

Jim sparked his flashlight on, keeping it pointed at the ground so as not to attract any unwanted attention. He made his way up to the older vehicle that was parked in the families driveway. Seeing no fresh tracks, it didn't appear to have been driven today. He placed his hand on the hood and didn't feel any heat emanating either. A quick look inside revealed only some quilts folded on the seats, nothing nefarious at all. Apprehensions be damned, Jim still had his orders to uphold so he made his way over to the house, ascending the short stairs onto the black family's porch. By then he could see several of the other houses curtains pulled back with people watching from the security of their homes.

Jim reached up and gently knocked on the front door. "Sheriff's department...Anybody home? I need to have a word with the man of the house please!" Jim announced in a polite tone. He expected the usual distrust and anger from whoever answered the door, afterall when the law came knocking in this neighborhood it usually wasn't for the police charity benefit. But Jim couldn't have been more surprised, when the door opened he was greeted by one of the prettiest black girls he'd ever laid eyes on and he was taken aback.

"Aaaahhh....Hi....I mean....Hello....Is your father at home?" Jim stammered in the face of her beauty.

 

[reaperlament]

Five years was long enough to change a person from the sweetest honey to the bitterest lemon. Sophie had experienced life in a full circle and now she knew she wasn't happy. A better explanation would be content with her position in life. Nothing had gone the way she thought it would. At the age of fifteen, she had watched her mother die on their yellow kitchen floor. Sophia had watched and cried as Jenny had convulsed on the floor, while the ambulance took their time coming to the “rescue”


As her own fingers gripped her mother's chest in horror, she could also feel her perfect little bubble pop. She had never realized until that day how very sheltered she was from the surrounding reality. She was no longer the apple of someone’s eye, but just another colored child. The memory clutched on to her attention, keeping it for a little longer than she was comfortable with. It was only when she smelled the aroma of sweet batter did she come back to the present.

“Foolish, mama.” The pancake flipped in the skillet, hissing a little as it hit the butter. The top side was not quite a golden brown and it was shaped in a mishap circle. It was a testament to her lack of cooking skills. Jenny hadn't passed on a lot of knowledge when it came to such things. So Sophia had never had dishes in the sink and the pots had been good for nothing but boiling water to drink later. Instead, her papa and herself lived off of neighbor’s good charity and the wages she collected as a waitress. It didn’t hurt either that folks here were a tight knit group so if someone struggled there was always someone to fall back on. So when her papa retreated away from her, she had the others.


What little money she made was pocketed into maintaining the house and the bills that came with it. Clothing had been restitched and let loose countless times. It was the one skill she had gained from her mother. Everything else had been handled by her father, who had managed to keep finding construction work. After, he had bought his fair share of liquor he gave the rest of money to her. It was a good system. James drank himself into a quiet stupor and she pretended as if their lives were okay.

Some days, like today when the heat was especially sticky, he would lock himself in the room. Their conversations would dwindle down to a few sentences on the best of days, but when he escaped to his room, the small home was like a ghost town. Sophia had hated the distance initially when she was younger, but then she got used to it, accepted it as she accepted most things in her life. Jenny had been the only bridge to her father and that was gone. There would be no reaching the man and Sophia grew to be ok with that as well. It helped her grow up a little faster, her skin a little thicker.


Sophia scooped the pancake out of skillet dropping it on a plastic plate. It sat there steaming as she stared out into the backyard. The window was open so she could smell the night air, could hear the crickets rubbing their wings and she could hear the truck. The sound picked up on the gravel path that made up the driveway and It took her a few moments to actually realize it was her home the truck had come up to.

Sophia lifted the dry pancake to her lips, waiting to hear the telltale sign of boots on the porch as if needing further confirmation of someone coming to her home so late.


She stood still for a long time, feet plastered to the floor while her head full of rollers tilted sideways. The front window that looked out to the porch was open, a good breeze whistling in. The neighborhood was safe enough so she had no reason to feel worried, at least at first.


A few seconds pass and then there was a light thud on the door, followed by the smooth voice of the law. The rest of her reactions came in quick succession pummeling through fields of worry and fear before halting at quiet dread. It was tempered of course because she didn’t want to escalate the situation and in these days it was easy to do so.


Sophia hadn’t realized she been taking steps, cutting the distance in half, even as she contemplated what she should say. There was a real good amount of fear running through her and making her next words shaky.

“He ah…he sleepin.” The words were out her mouth before she turned the knob, she regretted them instantly. She didn’t sound confident even though she knew her papa was sleeping as hard as a rock, it didn’t help that it also wasn’t much of an excuse.


Sophia didn’t have much time to think about it as she faced the tall white man at her door. She only knew he was tall because she had kept her eyes looking straight forward and he went past her view.

“He ain’t wake, whacha need him four?”

 

[Kassyghost]

The sweet smell of fried dough filled Jim's nostrils as the door swung open and he was greeted by the pretty colored girl with curlers in her hair and it immediately brought back memories of fair food and the joyous summers of youth he'd spent down by the shore. It could have been those fond memories of late nights spent gallivanting with his school yard chums in the twinkling lights of carny rides that had disarmed him, but more likely it was those warm hazel eyes set in the heart shaped face of the young woman standing before him. Either way Jim nearly forgot he was on official business, if only for a second.

"Ah...Sleepin' huh? I guess it is a bit late..." Jim stammered, his eyes freeing from her gaze long enough to scan the room. The place was neat and well kept, not a spec of filth to be found. The aroma he'd smelled emanating from a plate on the kitchen table with a half eaten griddle cake still steaming. "...Sorry to interrupt your meal, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to wake him. I've got some questions on a bit of an urgent matter I need to discuss with him." Jim finished, returning his eyes to the beautiful young woman's visage. She had the look of someone famous, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it. Had he seen her somewhere before?

"You see there has been....a....an accident... down the way in the swamp. Has your Pa been in all night, Miss?" Jim asked, knowing the car hadn't been moved any time lately. Again Jim's blue eyes ran the track around the small open floor plan of the house and this time he saw the half drank bottle of gin sitting on the counter, as well as several empties sitting down near the trash can. He smelled no liquor on her, and could guess that her father would indeed be sleeping quite hard just as she'd said.

She hadn't invited him in, but that was no surprise, afterall he was a white man wearing a badge on his chest and cordiality wasn't usually extended in these sorts of situations. "I can wait right here while ya go and fetch him if'n ya like?" Jim said, taking off his flat brimmed deputy's hat and holding respectfully in his hands and waited for her to comply.

It wasn't until she turned from him and started to walk for the bedroom that it finally clicked in his mind, he had seen her before. She was a waitress, not in any of the diners downtown but in the colored joint out on Palm road. The good ol' boys in town called it 'Nigga Ned's Chicken Shack' but Jim remembered the hand painted sign out front just said Ned's Diner. Those same boys would crack jokes, but the simple truth was that if you wanted the best fried chicken in a 3 hour drive that was the place you went. Jim's own graduation party had served that chicken and everybody had raved about it. That was when he'd seen her first, Sophie, he thought he remembered her nametag had read. He'd remembered just fresh out of high school driving out to pick up the big order of chicken and she'd been behind the counter, dressed in a yellow waitress smock and just as pretty as she was tonight. It was that sauntering walk that had refreshed his memory. Those hips shifting back and forth like a woman with some bluesy rhythm hiding inside her, a rhythm of a woman much older than her years let on.

Jim had to pull his mind out of the lustful reminiscing he'd started, reminding himself again how serious the business he was attending to was. There was a dead white woman out in the swamp just up the road and if his Uncle Earl wanted words with the man of this house than things would be getting very serious very quickly. He nervously tapped his fingers on the stiff brim of his hat while he waited for Sophie to return with her father.

 

[reaperlament]

Her face never turned back. Something like fear and pride jittered up along her nerves. Each step had just a little drag to it until she disappeared out of sight. The back of the house seeming like a momentary sanctuary. It helped her gather some courage to knock on her father’s door because she was just as frightful of upsetting the delicate balance they had as she was of telling the cop her father was asleep.


There was something comforting in the system they had set up. It was a solid yes in a world of nos. The system was good, the system kept her content and now this cop was messing it up. She slowed down even more once she hit the small hallway, carefully processing what all of this would mean or rather trying to. The annoyance of it all almost replaced the seriousness of the situation. There was a cop asking for her father, late at night. It wasn’t good. None of this was good. It was an unknown.

Sophia's fingers rapped against the door, hard as if a little angry had spurred through her fingers. Did her father do something? Why would he do anything but work, drink and come home? There were no extra factors, Sophia had assured herself it was so. So why was the law on her doorstep?

Her knocks grew harder until she could hear the familiar shuffle of feet, questions blooming in her mind like honeysuckles. They were winding their way through her simple foundation cracking it just a little. Her own feet took her back a few steps as she tried to shake off the familiar feeling of a bubble popping when her father open the door, just a crack. The opening was only enough for her to see his face, but not much more. Still, she could smell the heavy scent of lavender drifting out and could catch glimpses of shadowy furniture as he adjusted himself at the door.

James was an older man, but the years didn’t really touch him except for a few wrinkles and gray hair but otherwise he had a good strong face. When he revealed his full shape in the doorway after a moment of silence, she could see the strong tall build figure. He was a large man, tumbling with muscles and standing taller than her five or so feet. He looked like a protector with those sad eyes and Sophia instantly loosen up. She hadn’t even realized she was tense, her shoulders squared for a fight with her father, for having a cop at their door.

But of course, there was no way he knew about the cop coming, she could see that as he watched her, confused. He didn’t even say anything, he just watched, patiently with her as always.

“There’s a guy from tha law here. He wants to speak to ya. Asking where ya was at tonight.”

Her dad tilted his head, watched her for a second, then stepped out the door, shutting it behind him. As he came to the light, she could see the fresh circles around his eyes, he has been crying again. It had been a few years since her mother died and he was still crying like it happened yesterday. It made Sophia feel bad for even thinking her daddy had suddenly done something other than what he always did. For just a few seconds she had thought her daddy had threatened, what little comfort they had but the blame didn’t lay with him.


“Come, I’l talk to him. It’l be fine.”

James voice automatically carried an air of reassurances that he did not feel. His daughter seemed to need them so that’s what he gave. He was good at reading her facial expressions because he didn’t like to talk a lot to her. She reminded him of Jenny and he wasn’t comfortable with it.
Dislike wasn’t quite the right word for what he felt for his daughter. There was love there, but it wasn’t entirely unconditional all the time. James was dictated by circumstance he knew it and she knew it. He would be whatever she needed to be out of obligation…but not quite love.

Walking down the short hall, he heard her follow, her steps light like always. When he rounded the corner, he saw the tall figure of a white fellow, dress in the outfit of the law. James stopped for a hot second before moving forward, no smile covered his face as his heavy steps cut the distance, He was tall maybe taller than the officer. He didn’t feel the ounce of fear that he might have if he was anyone else. But that was less because of size and more because of the numbness. This was a role he was playing, it was all he knew.

So it was okay, everything would be okay.

“Yes, officer how may I help?”’