Death Sentence (12 page)

By the time Ronnie reported for duty with the Army Security Agency at Fort Bragg on March 30, nobody held out any hope for his grandfather. In January, Murphy had developed more difficulty breathing. His minister helped get him admitted to a state hospital near McCain which specialized in respiratory ailments. Within a week, Murphy’s condition had been diagnosed: lung cancer. He deteriorated rapidly and died at the hospital on April 15 at sixty-one.

Velma was greatly upset by her father’s death, despite all the harsh feelings she once held for him. “I had learned to love him as much as I had hated him,” she recalled years later. “He was so good to my kids. I think he tried to do with my kids like he wished he had done to us. He could not stand to see me correct them. If I would pick them up and spank them, he would ask me, ‘Isn’t that enough?’”

Her father was not Velma’s only loss that spring. She had ceased making payments on her house months earlier. The mortgage company foreclosed, and the house was put up for auction.

After losing the house, Velma took a job at the textile plant in Raeford where she had worked years earlier when her children were young, back in the same department. But the job would last for only a few months before Velma was hospitalized again in Lumberton for an overdose, this time for three weeks.

If not for his mother, this would have been one of the happiest times of Ronnie’s life. From the time he had been reassigned to Fort Bragg, he had been dating Joanna regularly. Just before Velma’s hospitalization, Joanna had entered Pembroke State University, which once had been a Lumbee Indian college. She was planning to major in education and become an elementary school teacher.

One evening after finishing work at Fort Bragg, Ronnie drove for forty miles to the hospital in Lumberton to visit his mother. He had big plans for the evening, but he didn’t tell her about them. As usual, he had trouble getting away from her. When he left, he was already late for his date with Joanna, and he still had sixteen miles to drive. In his rush to get there, he got stopped by a state trooper.

“What’s the hurry?” the trooper wanted to know.

Ronnie showed him the diamond engagement ring he’d picked up at Tyndall’s Jewelry in Fayetteville that afternoon, explaining that he was late for a date and was planning to propose.

“You’ll have plenty of time to regret that later,” the trooper said, opening his ticket book.

Joanna said yes, and Ronnie was overjoyed. But he decided not to tell his mother for now.

Unknown to Ronnie, Velma was beginning a romance of her own, bizarrely enough with a man named Al Smith, who was hospitalized in the mental health center undergoing treatment for alcoholism.

Velma was almost forty. Al Smith was sixty, a construction worker from adjoining Columbus County. He was divorced, the father of a grown son and daughter, the grandfather of three.

Soon after Velma was released, Al began showing up at Lillie’s house. Velma started going out with him, and for a period both seemed to be doing well. Velma had Al attending church, taking her to gospel singings and revivals, just as Jennings Barfield once had done.

Ronnie was wary of Al. Not only was he so much older, but he seemed a rough sort, and Ronnie couldn’t believe that his mother was going out with a man who was a recovering alcoholic. He gently questioned her, but she was convinced that Al had overcome his drinking problem. Ronnie was dubious, but his mother seemed so pleased to have somebody paying attention to her that he reluctantly tolerated the doomed relationship.

That fall, Velma told Ronnie that she had taken a job at a textile plant in Whiteville, Al’s hometown, in adjoining Columbus County. She found a small, furnished apartment above a garage behind an old house in Whiteville, and Al helped her move in. Although he didn’t approve of the move, Ronnie was glad that his mother was showing initiative, doing things on her own. He also knew that his grandmother and the rest of the family were relieved that she was leaving.

Gaining Al didn’t mean that Velma was willing to give up her son, however. Ronnie and Joanna had been discussing wedding dates, and early in November Ronnie decided to tell his mother. He and Joanna drove to Whiteville filled with expectation.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Velma said when Ronnie broke the news. The response was so cool and blatantly insincere that Joanna realized that perhaps Ronnie and his mother needed to talk. She excused herself and went for a walk. As soon as she left, Velma started on Ronnie.

How could he do this to her? Look at all the money he’d spent on that ring when he knew that she needed help. She didn’t even have money enough to buy her medicine.

“I’ve always been the most important woman in your life,” she said, breaking into tears, “and now you’re going to have her and you won’t even want to come around me at all.”

“That’s not true, Mama,” Ronnie said, moving to console her. “I’ll still be here for you. Nothing’s going to change that. Just because I love Joanna doesn’t mean I’m going to stop loving you.”

He had not expected this. He had wanted his mother to be happy for him, to love Joanna, to grant her blessing. And although she seemed more accepting of the situation by the time he and Joanna left, her selfishness had stripped the occasion of any joy.

He and Joanna didn’t talk much about his mother’s reaction on the way back. He was embarrassed and didn’t tell her what his mother had said. And Joanna, sensing his disappointment, didn’t question him about it.

Ronnie knew that his mother’s relationship with Al had grown volatile. He was not surprised when she called to tell him that Al had hit her and she had moved to an old motel that had been converted to efficiency apartments at Lake Waccamaw, a crater lake ten miles east of Whiteville. Ronnie went to see her and begged her to return to live with Lillie, but she was reluctant to give up on Al, and she still had her job at the mill.

“How’s Joanna?” she asked as Ronnie was about to leave.

“She’s fine.”

“Are y’all still planning on getting married?”

They were, Ronnie said.

And even sooner, it turned out, than he expected. Early in December, Ronnie got orders to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey, in March for reassignment to Germany. He was surprised. He still had two years to go on his enlistment, and he thought his assignment at Fort Bragg was permanent. He talked to his commanding officer, only to learn that nothing could be done.

Ronnie and Joanna discussed the situation and agreed that they should get married before he left. Joanna could continue at Pembroke State until the end of her first year. By then Ronnie would be settled in Germany and could send for her. Joanna could continue her classes there through a University of Maryland extension program offered by the Army. They set February 9 as their wedding date.

Ronnie put off telling his mother until after Christmas. Her reaction was exactly what he knew it would be, but even he was shocked at the depth to which the news, combined with her other problems, pushed her.

Soon afterward, Pam called, distraught. “Well, she’s finally done it,” she said.

Al Smith had called Velma’s brother Jimmy and told him that Velma was in the hospital in Whiteville from an overdose, Pam said, and this time doctors were saying that she likely wouldn’t survive.

Ronnie arrived to find his mother in a coma, breathing with a respirator, intravenous lines feeding fluids into her body. A doctor told him that his mother’s stomach had been pumped, but too much of the medication had already made it into her system. They had done all that could be done. She might not make it through the night.

This was what Ronnie had feared all along, and it was the news of his imminent marriage and departure that apparently had pushed her over the edge. His guilt was overwhelming.

All the family gathered at the hospital, thinking this was the end. Velma remained comatose in intensive care for two days, then slowly began regaining consciousness.

Ronnie and Pam were at wit’s end about what to do with their mother. After she got stronger, Ronnie went to the hospital and had another of his long, firm talks with her. He told her plainly that he did not approve of her relationship with Al. He wanted her back with her mother. He made it just as plain that he had no intention of backing away from marrying Joanna. She would just have to accept it, and he was sure that she would come to love Joanna as much as he did.

“It’s all going to have to come from you,” he told her. “You’re going to have to take control of your life. Nobody can do it for you. Only you can make your life worth living.”

Velma was released from the hospital less than three weeks before Ronnie’s wedding. Although she still wasn’t enthusiastic about the marriage, she wanted to take part in the ceremony. Ronnie was nervous about including her, worried that she might overdose and cause a scene, embarrassing Joanna and her family. He had another stern talk with her beforehand, and she did fine. Ronnie couldn’t tell that she had taken any medicine at all.

The wedding was formal but held at Joanna’s parents’ house, because she wanted to be married at home. Joanna had chosen a beautiful gown; Ronnie wore a rented tux. Joanna’s elder brother George* was best man. Joanna’s pastor, for whose children she had babysat throughout her teen years, performed the vows, as friends and family of both Ronnie and Joanna looked on. A reception followed. Pam, who had arrived laughing and singing, “It’s Too Late to Turn Back Now,” caught the bouquet.

Ronnie and Joanna set up temporary housekeeping in a small furnished apartment upstairs in an old house not far from Joanna’s parents’ home. Ronnie had to drive more than eighty miles each day back and forth to his duties at Fort Bragg.

After Ronnie’s wedding Velma took a job at a department store in the same town where he was living and seemed to be controlling her medicines better. Still, Ronnie was concerned about her, and after talking with Joanna, he began collecting new documents and renewed his request for a discharge.

“I feel that a hardship discharge would be of great benefit to Mrs. Barfield’s mental health and would probably prolong her life,” Dr. Robert Townsend of Raeford wrote on Ronnie’s behalf.

Once again, though, the Army took its time deciding, and in mid-March, Ronnie reported to Fort Dix, his embarkation point for Germany. But soon after his arrival, a hold was put on his orders, and two days later he was sent back to Fort Bragg until a decision could be reached.

Only a few days after his return, Ronnie got a tearful call from his mother. She had been arrested in Red Springs and was being held at the jail. He rushed as usual to her aid. The charge, he discovered, was serious. She had attempted to pass a forged prescription at a local drugstore using a form she had taken from a doctor’s desk. The pharmacist had recognized that the handwriting was different and had called the police.

Luther Hagins, the uncle of Ronnie’s friend Julius, was the police chief of Red Springs, and he allowed Ronnie to take his mother home.

Velma’s problems were no secret to Joanna, of course, but she did not know the severity of them. Ronnie had not told her much, fearing the effect it might have on their relationship. But that night, despondent, he decided the time had come to tell her everything. It was a long, sad story, one he’d never told to anyone. Joanna was understanding and reassuring. And Ronnie felt comforted having finally let it all out.

Velma did not tell Ronnie when the court date was set. She pleaded guilty on April 3 and was sentenced to six months, suspended for three years. She also was fined $100 and ordered to pay court costs. The judge warned that any future violations could put her in prison.

Three days later, Ronnie got the news that his discharge had been approved. He called both Joanna and his mother in jubilation. A day later, he was released, free at last from the Army. But not from his mother.

7

Ronnie had never given up his dream of college, and in the fall of 1973 he joined Joanna at Pembroke State University, choosing history as his major. He arranged his classes so that he could continue to work fulltime in his father-in-law’s business, but strain soon took its toll.

For the first time, he was not making high grades. And tension was growing in his marriage. Money problems caused constant bickering. In the spring of 1974 one argument quickly got out of hand. Before it ended Ronnie grabbed a baseball bat and bashed the telephone, beating it into obliteration. Frightened, Joanna fled to her parents’ house.

Ronnie was surprised and disturbed at the violence that had erupted from him. He always had been shy and pacific, and now this troubling force had boiled up. It scared and depressed him.

He thought his marriage was over, but he and Joanna soon worked out their problems and moved into a trailer park in Lumberton. Joanna got a job as a waitress at a steak house; Ronnie took a route for the morning newspaper in Fayetteville. That left him time to practice miniature golf. He had taken the sport up seriously again while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. Now a professional circuit had been organized and he joined it. By late summer he was making more money playing golf than working.

Joanna took an interest in the sport, too, and it brought them closer together. She soon started playing in the novice division. On one of the happiest days of their marriage, Joanna won a novice tournament at the same time Ronnie was winning in the professional division, and a story about them appeared in the sports pages of the newspaper Ronnie delivered.