The District Manager (10 page)

I’m reasonably tall, a little over six-feet; but the banister is high, so Brenna and I are nearly eye to eye. By placing my hands on her thighs, I’m taking a chance here…again. I seem predisposed to taking chances with Brenna. The only other woman I ever felt courageous enough to act indiscriminately with was Ann.

She hasn’t muttered a word; she just stares at me. I start to wonder if maybe I have a stray nose hair that I forgot to trim, or worse…
a booger!
Doubt is again descending in the form of pitchforked, red demons. Brenna must be the lone angel on my shoulder because these gnat-like creeps cannot prevent me from removing my hands from her thighs and placing them gently upon her high, rounded cheekbones. I cock my head to the right as I pull her steaming face towards mine, gently turning it to the left. Our lips meet and our tongues entwine. It is some moments before release. I’m just staring at her now.

The moon is reflected in jagged, racing lines upon the lake’s surface. Birds can be heard fussing in a nearby tree. The stillness all around us belies the fact that we stand only some thirty yards from a large, industrial power plant.

“Oh, Mason,” she finally speaks, “I’ve wondered how this would taste almost from the first time I saw you.”

“And did it taste good?” I ask, barely audible.

“Delicious.”

“You know what’s wrong with you, Mason?” Keith patronizingly asks from the den.

I’ve just arrived home from a long Monday in Austin. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed changing out of my work clothes.

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” I answer, dismissively. I’m struggling to get my left boot off.

“You’re a Southern Intellectual.”

“A what?” I unclasp my watch and place it on the nightstand.

“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.

“They 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.”