I was grateful he was not playing poker. A couple of bad hands, and you got the impression he might pull an M-16 and even the score.
The drug bust, and the town’s reaction to it, was the source of much humor and ridicule. Folks were acting as though the six teenagers were the very first drug users, and since they’d been caught then the county was on top of the crisis. With some vigilance and tough talk, the plague of illegal drugs could be diverted to another part of the country.
Nixon had mined the harbor at Haiphong and was bombing Hanoi with a fury. I brought this up to get a reaction, but there was little interest in the war that night.
Darrell had heard a rumor that some black kid from Clanton had been drafted and fled to Canada. I said nothing.
“Smart boy,” Bubba said. “Smart boy.”
The conversation soon returned to drugs. At one point Bubba admired his marijuana cigarette and said, “Man, this is really smooth. Didn’t come from the Padgitts.”
“Came from Memphis,” Darrell said. “Mexican.”
Since I knew zero about the local drug supply routes, I listened intently for a few seconds then, when it was evident no one would pursue the conversation, said, “I thought the Padgitts produced pretty good stuff.”
“They should stick to moonshine,” Bubba said.
“It’s okay,” Darrell said, “if you can’t get anything else. They struck it rich a few years back. They started growin’ long before anybody else around here. Now they got competition.”
“I hear they’re cuttin’ back, goin’ back to whiskey and stealin’ cars,” Bubba said.
“Why?” I asked.
“A lot more narcs now. State, federal, local. They got helicopters and surveillance stuff. Ain’t like Mexico where nobody gives a shit what you grow.”
Gunfire erupted outside, not too far away. The others were not fazed by it. “What might that be?” I asked.
“It’s Ollie,” Darrell said. “After a possum. He puts on night-vision goggles, takes his M-16, goes lookin’ for varmints and such. Calls it gook huntin’.”
I luckily lost three hands in a row and found the perfect moment to say good night.
After much delay, the Supreme Court of Mississippi finally affirmed the conviction of Danny Padgitt. Four months earlier it had ruled, by a majority of six to three, that the conviction would stand. Lucien Wilbanks filed a petition for rehearing, which was granted. Harry Rex thought that might signal trouble.
The appeal was reheard, and almost two years after his trial the court finally settled the matter. The vote to affirm the conviction was five to four.
The dissent bought into Lucien’s rather vociferous argument that Ernie Gaddis had been given too much freedom in abusing Danny Padgitt on cross-examination. With his leading questions about the presence of Rhoda’s children in the bedroom, watching the rape, Ernie had effectively been allowed to place before the jury highly prejudicial facts that simply were not in evidence.
Harry Rex had read all the briefs and monitored the appeal for me, and he was concerned that Wilbanks had a legitimate argument. If five justices believed it, then the case would be sent back to Clanton for another trial. On the one hand another trial would be good for the newspaper. On the other, I didn’t want the Padgitts off their island and running around Clanton causing trouble.
In the end, though, only four justices dissented, and the case was over. I plastered the good news across the front of the Times and hoped I would never again hear the name of Danny Padgitt.
Part three
Chapter 31
Five years and two months after Lester Klump, Sr., and Lester Klump, Jr., first set foot in the Hocutt House, they finished the renovation. The ordeal was over, and the results were splendid.
Once I accepted their languid pace, I settled in for the long haul and worked hard selling ad copy. Twice, during the last year of the project, I had unwisely attempted to live in the house and somehow exist in the midst of the debris. In doing so I had little trouble with the dust, the paint fumes, the blocked hallways, the erratic electricity and hot water, and the absence of heating and air conditioning, but I could never adapt to the early morning hammers and handsaws. They were not early birds, which, as I learned, was unusual for contractors, but they did start in earnest each morning by eight-thirty. I really enjoyed sleeping until ten. The arrangement didn’t work, and after each attempt to live in the big house I sneaked back across the gravel drive and returned to the apartment, where things were somewhat quieter.
Only once in five years was I unable to pay the Klumps on time. I refused to borrow money for the project, though Stan Atcavage was always ready to loan it. After work each Friday I would sit down with Lester Senior, usually on a makeshift plywood table in a hallway, and over a cold beer we would tally up the labor and materials for the week, add 10 percent, and I would write him a check. I filed his records away, and for the first two years kept a running total of the cost of the renovation. After two years, though, I stopped adding the weekly to the cumulative. I didn’t want to know what it was costing.
I was broke but I didn’t care. The money pit had been sealed off; I had teetered on the brink of insolvency, dodged it, and now I could begin stashing it away again.
And I had something magnificent to show for the time, effort, and investment. The house had been built around 1900 by Dr. Miles Hocutt. It had a distinctive Victorian style, with two high gabled roofs in the front, a turret that ran up four levels, and wide covered porches that swept around the house on both sides. Over the years the Hocutts had painted the house blue and yellow, and Mr. Klump, Sr., had even found an area of bright red under three coats of newer paint. I played it safe and stayed with white and beige and light brown trim. The roof was copper. Outside it was a rather plain Victorian, but I would have years to jazz it up.
Inside, the heart-pine floors on all three levels had been restored to their original beauty. Walls had been removed, rooms and hallways opened up. The Klumps had finally been forced to remove the entire kitchen and build another from the basement up. The fireplace in the living room had actually collapsed under the pressure of relentless jackhammering I turned the library into a den and knocked out more walls so that upon entering the front foyer you could see through the den to the kitchen in the distance. I added windows everywhere; the house had originally been built like a cave.
Mr. Klump admitted he had never tasted champagne, but he happily chugged it down as we completed our little ceremony on a side porch. I handed him what I hoped would be his last check, we shook hands, posed for a photograph by Wiley Meek, then popped the cork.
Many of the rooms were bare; it would take years to properly decorate the place, and it would require the assistance of someone with far more knowledge and taste than I possessed. Half-empty, though, the house was still spectacular. It needed a party!
I borrowed $2,000 from Stan and ordered wine and champagne from Memphis. I found a suitable caterer from Tupelo. (The only one in Clanton specialized in ribs and catfish and I wanted something a bit classier.)
The official invitation list of three hundred included everybody I knew in town, and a few I did not. The unofficial list was comprised of those who’d heard me say, “We’ll have a huge party when it’s finished.” I invited BeeBee and three of her friends from Memphis. I invited my father but he was too worried about inflation and the bond market. I invited Miss Callie and Esau, Reverend Thurston Small, Claude, three clerks from the courthouse, two schoolteachers, an assistant basketball coach, a teller at the bank, and the newest lawyer in town. That made a total of twelve blacks, and I would’ve invited more if I had known more. I was determined to have the first integrated party in Clanton.