Southern Discomfort

"The construction drawings, plus the specifications to be described later, are the chief sources of information for the supervisors and craftsman responsible for the actual work of construction."

i

The male mockingbird teeters on the edge of a whitewashed brick wall and flexes his wings in a motion designed to flush unwary insects from the ground below.

Nothing.

He glides down to an open patch of sunlit grass between the wall and a rhododendron bush and again flicks open gray-feathered wings, exposing flashes of white.

A startled cricket hastily dives under a sheltering blade of centipede grass.

Too late.

The mockingbird pounces, tweezers it from the grass with a sharp and deadly accurate bill, then flies up to a crepe myrtle and checks for enemies. At the far end of the long wall, a big yellow cat drowses in the shade provided by tall rhododendrons, extravagant in lavender bloom.

They are old adversaries who long ago established a modus vivendi of mutual respect. He knows she would eat his babies were they left unguarded, but a warning chirr usually discourages her predatory nature. His nest is well hidden among spindly, difficult to climb twigs; and if she tries, his outraged screams will marshall other birds to hurl raucous threats and help peck her unprotected back.

Only this morning, he and his mate banded with the thrashers and blue jays that inhabit this quiet suburban street to chase a snake from their territory. The sleeping cat is no real threat. The mocker swoops down onto the wall, pauses a moment to pound the cricket into a more easily digested mush, then hops along the bricks to where dogwood twigs brush the top of the wall at this corner.

Here in mid-May, the dogwood has finished blooming. No white flowers gleam among the broad leaves, only swelling green berries that will redden in the fall and provide sustenance when spiders and insects have buried themselves out of sight against winter's coming.

Here in the heart of the tree, the mockingbird and his mate have built a nest safe from prying eyes, and four half-fledged babies open their soft bright yellow beaks the instant they sense his arrival. He stuffs the broken cricket down the most insistent gaping mouth and flies off in search of more food.

All is quiet on this tree-lined street save the drone of a nearby power mower, and nothing disturbs the orderly coming and going of birds at work.

Cars pass, occasional screen doors slam, the lawn mower goes silent, and the mockingbirds shuttle back and forth with their beaks full of grasshoppers and beetles to stuff those insatiable little gullets.

Babies must be fed. The young are always hungry...

Into the silence comes the sound of a crooning voice.

The mockingbird buzzes a raspy alarm and watches as a human at the end of the wall stretches out a hand to the cat. She rises, sniffs the strange hand, then allows it to stroke her sleek back.

No threat to his mate or their babies, the mockingbird decides, and goes back to scanning the yard. His eye locks onto a huge grasshopper there at the base of a nearby flowering judas. It's one of those big brown-and-green creatures, enough to fill at least three ravenous beaks. The instant the bird approaches, it springs up; but the bird is quicker and catches it on the wing.

Intent on smashing the struggling grasshopper into manageable bits, the mockingbird pays no attention to what's happening at the far end of the wall; and by the time he flies up to the nest to distribute his grisly morsels, the cat has vanished from his tiny brain as completely and as finally as she has vanished from the wall.

There are babies to feed.

Only the babies matter.

ii

Boxer shorts.

That's how she always thinks of him.

The old-fashioned kind made of striped cotton. With snap fasteners. Except that half the time they'll be unsnapped, with a little circle of damp where he's gotten up to use the bathroom and has been careless about the last drop or two before tucking his thing back inside the striped cotton.

If it's after midnight and her light is still on, he comes into her room without knocking, as if hoping to catch her doing something forbidden.

"Time you were asleep," he growls before lumbering back down the hall.

That's okay. A lot of fathers do stuff like that.

What's not okay are the nights she gets home after they've gone upstairs and he comes to the head of the stairs and stands  there looking down at her, his bathrobe hanging open. Or he's waiting in the living room, sitting spraddle-legged in his lounge chair, and he makes her sit down on the couch across from him while he cross-examines her about the evening.

"Why is your skirt so wrinkled? Were you in the backseat of his car? Did you let him put his tongue in your mouth? That's the first thing men want with a girl—to get their hands inside her blouse, put their hands in her panties. Did you let him? Did you? Is my daughter nothing but a slut? Look at me when I talk to you, young lady!"

But she doesn't know where to look. At his eyes, hot and greedy for something she doesn't understand? At the gaping slit in those boxer shorts where his thing hangs dark and disturbing against those wrinkled hairy lumps?

When he sees her looking there, the striped fabric quivers and rises as the thing beneath engorges and swells. He usually stands then. "I just want your solemn word that you're still a virgin," he says.

Sobbing now, she swears that she is.

And now he knots his robe around him and retires in patriarchal seemliness to the master bedroom.

Her mother often complains of insomnia; yet somehow, she never wakes up when he lectures her at night like this.

iii

The kitchen is even filthier than the rest of the trailer—every surface littered with fast-food cartons, soft drink cans, wilted lettuce leaves, dirty dishes, gummy knives and forks.

"What'd you expect," she bristles.
"House Beautiful?
Supper on the table? When half the time you don't even come home for three days? What's the matter? Couldn't find any fresh meat to poke it into tonight?"

And now she's in there on the couch crying 'cause she got the slapping she was begging for. Well, damn it all to frigging hell, a woman pushes a man like that, what's she expect?

A bunch of roses?

All her fault.

Yeah, and it's her fault, too, if he has to go looking for what he can't find at home anymore.

Including a clean glass.

Every single glass they own is sitting dirty on the narrow counter. Enraged, he sweeps them all to the floor and bangs out of the back door to go where it'll be cool and quiet and clean glasses appear with the snap of a finger.

iv

George Jones's nasal twang fills the flashy little car—two speakers in the rear and one on each door—but the thief's mind isn't on cheating and hurting songs at the moment, and it's certainly not on the lush green trees and fields flashing past the closed car windows. No, it's remembering details from those articles in the
News and Observer
last summer.

They made it sound so easy. Like Velma Barfield, the "Death Row Granny" and last woman executed in North Carolina. Five or six people died before anybody started really noticing. A woman's crime. Middle-aged women. Women like Blanche Taylor Moore, who's sitting up there on death row right this minute. Before her trial actually began, they were saying she might have poisoned as many as nine people.

So who'll notice one more? Anyhow, you really can't count that first time. Because you don't know for sure that's what did it.

There had been only a few syrupy drops left in that little bottle under the sink in the church kitchen. Like liquid saccharine and who's to say it really made much of a difference to that last glass of iced tea? He might've gone on and died anyhow.

But those few drops emptied the bottle and where to get more?

It's just like all the old-timers keep mouthing: nobody ever notices what's slipping away till it's mostly already gone.

Isn't there one single old-fashioned honest-to-God country store left in the whole state of North Carolina? Used to be you could count on a storekeeper
keeping
stuff—old stock pushed to the back of the shelves, new stuff shoved in at the front. Root around a little and you could find 1979 goods still marked at 1979 prices and the owner would never dream of saying, "Hold on a minute, I b'lieve that's gone up a dime or two since I shelved it."

When did hick stores start acting like 7-Eleven quick-stops with computerized inventory controls, wide and brightly lit aisles, even video cameras to record everybody who steps up to the cash register?

After driving up and down every back road in Colleton County this steamy Saturday morning in mid-June, the thief's almost ready to consider other alternatives when suddenly, at a nothing-looking crossroads in the middle of tobacco and sweet potato fields, here it is: a big shabby cinderblock with battered gas pumps and a promising air of neglect. The hard-packed dirt yard is thickly cobbled with forty years' worth of rusty bottle caps and the dirty plate glass windows hold faded announcements of long past gospel sings or benefit fish frys. From the number of pickups and cars parked out front, business is pretty good, which means that whoever runs the store must be too lazy and/or too tight to spend money fixing things up.

Coming in out of the bright noonday sun makes the crowded interior seem even dimmer than normal, but a quick glance around through dark glasses confirms that all the white, black and brown faces belong to strangers. Anyhow, most of them seem to be migrant workers who mill around the cash register to pay for the weekend's wine and beer or to settle up for lunchtime drinks and beans and wedges of hoop cheese bought on the tab all week.

The fat white man behind the counter nods and his sallow-faced wife says, "Let me know if you need any help," but both are too busy making sure their dark-skinned customers aren't stealing to pay much attention to an ordinary white person.

The narrow aisles are crammed head-high with canned goods, farm implements, seed bins and fishing poles; and the smell of fertilizer mingles with sweat and cigarette smoke. Towards the back, mops and brooms are jammed upright between plastic and tin buckets, mothballs and rat traps. Next to these, at eye level, is a shelf full of assorted insecticides. Modern aerosol cans, all with labels claiming to protect Earth's ozone layer, have been dumped in beside pump bottles of evil green liquids that may have been sitting in this very same spot since before what's her name—Rachel Carson?—wrote that book.

With quickening excitement, the thief pushes aside dried-out rolls of flypaper and boxes of shiny tin ant traps that never work worth a flip and spots a stack of orange cardboard boxes:
Terro Ant Killer.
The top ones have a little Roman numeral II after the name and are priced at $2.19. According to the box, each bottle of clear syrup is laced with "sodium tetraborate decahydrate (borax)."

Borax? Isn't that for washing clothes? What good is borax?

A little further digging unearths a battered and faded box marked 98¢. On the back, small black letters read:

Active ingredients:
Sodium Arsenate.....................2.27%
Total Arsenic (as Metallic).....0.91%
Arsenic in water soluble
  form (as Metallic)..................0.91%

This is followed by a large orange WARNING:
May be fatal if swallowed.

There are two small bottles left on the shelf.

Shielded by a support post in the middle of the aisle, the thief slips one in each pocket, crams the empty boxes back where they came from, and looks around for something innocuous to buy.

Back up at the front, the fat owner rings up $6.75 for a rusty mole trap and ninety-nine cents for the mothballs. Plus tax. "That'll be eight twenty," he says.

"Looks like somebody's fixing to get rid of some pests," says his gaunt wife as she bags the two items.

Thinking how much nicer life is soon going to be for a certain person, the thief smiles and hands over a ten-dollar bill. "We sure plan to try."

"Grade elevations of the surface area around a structure are indicated on the plot plan....This grading operation involves removing earth from areas which are higher than the prescribed elevation (cut) and filling earth into areas which are below the prescribed elevation (fill)."

My swearing-in ceremony was held on a hot and humid Monday afternoon in Colleton County's oldest courtroom, a big cavernous space paneled in dark oak and weighty with the stone-footed majesty of nineteenth-century law. The high vaulted ceiling is plastered with acanthus leaves; pierced brass lanterns hang down on long black cords above solid oak benches. Now that three bright-colored modern courtrooms have been added on to the top floor of the new jail annex, this part of the courthouse is used so infrequently that the air was cool and musty even though the place was jammed with well-wishers and a bailiff said the air-conditioning wasn't working right.

If and when we ever got around to the actual robing—put a microphone in front of some people and they never hush talking—I knew I'd appreciate the room's coolness. That heavy black garment had started out miles too big, but Aunt Zell had gathered and stitched and cut and hemmed till it no longer swam on me. Not that I'm the dainty flower of southern womanhood God probably meant for me to be—I came out of my mother's womb a size fourteen and it's been a struggle to get down to a twelve ever since—but Carly Jernigan had been six one; and back when he served two terms on the district bench sometime in the late seventies, he must've weighed two-forty easy.

My sister-in-law Minnie was the closest thing I had to a campaign manager when I ran for judge, and since Carly Jernigan had been Minnie's mother's oldest brother, his widow thought it'd be nice to pass his robe on to me.

"I'm real sorry about the smell," Miss Abby apologized the day she and Minnie brought it over to Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's house, where I live.

A homemade potpourri of rose petals and heartleaves fills a Chinese bowl that sits atop a Queen Anne chest amid the formality of Aunt Zell's pink and green living room, but its delicate fragrance was blotted up by coarse mothball fumes the minute I opened the long fiberboard coat box.

"I've had that thing hanging on my back porch for a week," said Miss Abby. "Ever since Minnie told me you were going to be appointed. I'm afraid it'll have to get dry-cleaned before you can stand to wear it, though."

After pricing new robes in a catalog of judicial accoutrements that a soon-to-be colleague had loaned me, a dry-cleaning bill was nothing; and I sincerely meant it when I told Miss Abby how much I appreciated her generosity.

Nevertheless, a faint aroma of naphthalene still met my nose whenever Aunt Zell shifted the robe from one arm to the other as we bowed our heads that afternoon for Barry Blackman's invocation. Barry is pastor at Bethel Baptist Church. Sweetwater Missionary Baptist was actually my home church, but the new minister had only been there two months whereas I'd known Barry forever—in fact, he was the first boy I'd ever kissed for real—so it was nice that I could get him to come pray God's blessing on my new career without hurting anybody's feelings. (Politics makes you sensitive to stuff like that.)

We'd already been called to order by Ellis Glover, Colleton County's clerk of court, and we'd been welcomed by Pete Taylor, current president of the county bar association.

Programs rustled up and down the aisle as Barry said Amen and returned to his seat in the old jury box. My brother Haywood's Stevie was videotaping the ceremony and he took advantage of the momentary stir to switch camera angles.

Ellis came back to the microphone set up in front of the high carved bench where the Honorable Frances Tripp reposed in unselfconscious dignity. Forever a politician, Ellis spent the next ten minutes recognizing just about everybody in the audience. He began with the elected: two state representatives, four judges, the sheriff, three mayors, a police chief, six county commissioners, four members of the school board, and the register of deeds.

(If Colleton County ever goes back to electing dog catchers or town criers, our clerk of court will recognize them, too.)

We clapped for two preachers, the head of the Democratic Women, the head of the Democratic Men, the leader of the county's Black Caucus, the president of the local Jaycees, a fire chief, the dean of our local community college, and somebody from the state auditor's office who had innocently wandered over from Raleigh on other business and now had to wait till I was sworn in before courthouse routine would return to normal.

After at least a third of the crowd had stood for polite applause, Ellis asked anxiously, "Now did I miss any body?" No one leaped up, so he said, "Then how 'bout I ask for all of Miss Knott's family to stand and be recognized?"

There was a slight hesitation, then another third of the audience got up—all my brothers and their wives and children, cousins, aunts and uncles and finally, from his seat beside me, my father, like an Old Testament patriarch, still vigorous and straight-backed even though his hair was silvered by more than eighty years of hard living.

Running for district judge was not Daddy's idea of what his only daughter should be doing with her life. Not ladylike enough. Not by a long shot. But back in his younger days he'd been one of the biggest bootleggers in eastern North Carolina and when an anonymous mud-slinger started linking my reputation to his towards the end of my campaign, he changed his attitude. Far as he was concerned, judging the scum of the district might not be a ladylike occupation, but by damn, nobody else but him better try to tell me I couldn't do it. He'd even pulled strings to get me appointed after a disastrous runoff primary last month.

I was still a little sensitive about that.

"Will you just quit it?" scolded the pragmatist that lives in the back of my skull. "Half the judges on the bench today were first appointed. It's not like your daddy ever killed anybody to put you here."

"Then how come he knows where so many political bodies are buried?" asked the preacher who shares the same skull space.

A valedictory tone in Ellis's voice brought me back to attention. "—of the North Carolina Court of Appeals will administer the oath of office."

Down from the high bench came Judge Frances Tripp, a majestically tall black woman who moves with such solemn deliberation it always comes as a surprise to realize there’s an infectious sense of the ridiculous down below. A narrow ruffle of white lace banded her neck above her dark robe, and she looked like Justice personified.

We met her at the microphone and Daddy held out my mother's Bible. I placed my right hand on the worn black leather, lifted my left, and listened attentively as Judge Tripp said, "Do you, Deborah Stephenson Knott, solemnly and sincerely swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States; that you will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of North Carolina, and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof; and that you will endeavor to support and maintain and defend the Constitution of the said State, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, to the best of your knowledge and ability; so help you God?"

"I do," I said firmly.

"Furthermore, do you solemnly and sincerely swear that you will administer justice without favoritism to anyone or to the State; that you will not knowingly take, directly or indirectly, any fee, gift, gratuity or reward whatsoever, for any matter or thing done by you or to be done by you by virtue of your office, except the salary and allowances by law provided; and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties of Judge of the District Court Division of the General Court of Justice to the best of your ability and understanding, and consistent with the Constitution and laws of the State, so help you God?"

The words flowed over me like the sanctified anointment of some sweet-smelling oil.

Solemnly and sincerely, I swore again that I did.

Frances smiled for the first time and held out her cool thin hand to shake mine.

"Welcome to the bench, Judge Knott."

Applause almost muffled out the "Awww-
right!
" from one of my enthusiastic nephews.

Aunt Zell came forward with my robe. I was wearing a splashy red-flowered dress that flamed against the somber oak and leather of the courtroom. It was a dress I'd chosen deliberately because I'm theatrical enough to enjoy symbolism. I was a nun taking holy vows. I was Wisdom abjuring Vanity. I was deep water preparing to run still, by damn.

Aunt Zell handed the robe to my father and he held it open for me, settling its weight onto my shoulders. The zipper ends went together smoothly and every inch of red-flowered silk disappeared beneath the heavy black fabric. As Daddy escorted Aunt Zell back to their seats, I turned to the audience and spoke of my gratitude for the trust now placed in me.

My remarks were simple and direct.

And short.

Good politicians know enough to quit talking before people realize they're tired of being talked at. My name was going to be on the November ballot after all; and even though it was only a formality, since I was unopposed for Perry Byrd's seat, I still aimed to rack up a bunch of votes.

Weddings, funerals, christenings—most solemn ceremonies are followed by food and fellowship, and a swearing-in is no different. Once all the official documents were signed, we followed the crowd downstairs and through a soaring two-level glass atrium that links the new part of the courthouse with the old.

The shiny brass-and-glass design harkens towards the twenty-first century. It's filled with green plants and sunlight, and it's become a popular setting for receptions, which is probably why Julia Lee won't use it if she can help it. She had directed the Martha Circle of the First Methodist Church to set up their tables in the gloomy rotunda of the old courthouse.

Julia—she's John Claude's wife and therefore my cousin by marriage—gets herself elected president of the Historical Society about every other year, and she thought I ought to stand right where a long line of Colleton County judges had stood in bygone years to greet all the colleagues, friends and family who had crowded against these selfsame marble walls to wish them well.

Julia sometimes gets carried away and forgets that those walls aren't all that historical nor all that old either, if truth be told. Yes, court had been held on this site since the late 1700s, but this particular building was erected in 1921, not 1821. Even so, the rotunda was a better choice for this sweltering July day. Modern air-conditioning couldn't keep the sunny atrium as cool as the thick marble that surrounded us; and Carly Jernigan's robe not only smelled like a wool horse blanket, it was starting to feel like one.

One of the Marthas handed me a cup of slushy lime punch before I took my place in the receiving line. Too sickly sweet, but at least it was cold and wet.

Against his wishes—"I'm not an invalid and I can damn well stand"—they had brought a chair for Daddy and he was holding his own court at the far end of the line. For the last few years, he doesn't leave the farm all that often, so there were lots of folks to crowd around and shake his hand, glad to see him again.

I stood with Judge Frances Tripp on one side and John Claude Lee, Julia's husband, on the other. John Claude's an older cousin and the current Lee of Lee & Stephenson, the law firm where I was no longer a full partner.

Genealogy is still the favorite parlor game in every southern house that still has a parlor; but for those who don't really care who fits in how, here's the Cliffs Notes version: my mother was a Stephenson, her mother was a Lee. Lee & Stephenson, Attorneys-at-Law was begun in the 1920s by John Herman Lee, my first cousin twice removed on Mother's Lee side, and old Brixton Stephenson, her paternal grandfather. My younger cousin Reid, Brixton's grandson, is this generation's Stephenson.

If you're any good at this sort of thing, then you've already worked it out that, while I'm cousin to Reid and John Claude both, they're no blood kin to each other.

But unless you've got some reason to worry about whether or not you could get a fair trial in my courtroom, the relationships are moot at this point and you don't really have to keep it all straight. The firm of Lee, Stephenson & Knott had gone back to being plain old Lee & Stephenson again. I was legally out of it, and all my personal clients had been shifted to John Claude or Reid, who has trouble keeping his pants zipped, but who's a damn fine attorney.

That's a personal opinion, though, and I promise you it's not something I'm going to let bias me. Sooner or later they'd both be pleading cases before me and I planned to be totally objective.

"Long as you don't bend over backwards to be fair," said John Claude when I was cleaning out my office in the 1867 house his great-grandfather (my great-
great
-grandfather) had built half a block from the courthouse. John Claude's mother was once his second-grade school teacher. His hair is silver now and she's almost ninety yet he's never forgotten the way she always took the other child's side in any dispute.

"Don't you worry, not one little minute," I soothed. "When it's your turn to take out the kickball, I won't give it to anybody else."

The receiving line from hell continued to snake past. My fellow attorneys were amiable and friendly, but their joshing remarks lacked the usual barbs.

When Judge Perry Byrd had his stroke, I was in the middle of a runoff campaign for a different judge's seat. Then, instead of getting better, as his doctors had originally thought, Byrd had another stroke and died just as my own campaign crashed to a halt at the runoff primary. In North Carolina, when a judge dies or resigns in the middle of his term, the local bar associations get together and present the governor with a slate of candidates from the judge's same party. Because I'd polled enough votes to force a runoff in the first place, I was put on the slate as a courtesy, but it was generally thought that Chester Nance, a white male ADA from Black Creek, would get it.