4) Bail Boss

A week after my adoption I attended my first bookstore party. Mariah and the sheriff and I were having a beer out in the atrium after work when they presumed, with a heavy-handed, scrutinizing authority, that I would be there. Of course you'll be there , right John-John?

"Yes, sir. Just so long as I have time to get drunk ahead of time, fine."

The general manager, Diane, came over and joined us. For the first time I got to see her back-stage persona and I thought she was crass, smoking (as we were), one arm over an empty chair and talking out of the side of her mouth. She was so outrageously funny, though, with her exaggerated vindictiveness towards the man who ran the cafe, Mariah said afterwards:

"You're going to love Dianne. And of course you already hate Chuck."
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The party was mostly outside around a fire-pit. Kay's parents' home was a hulking over-sized ranch-style house, with the back patio doors open and the house blazing a sharp golden light. I tried not to stick too close to my tutors. There was my friend Carter, there was Eleanor and Danny Briggs (who wanted me to help persuade Eleanor to stop drinking so much). The three Smith Brothers, post-coup, were present and unfazed in their usual sportsman-like good humor.
It was a good time, hearing old book-store stories and about bookseller legends who'd gone on to actually finish graduate school.

Near the end of the evening Eleanor was more tipsy than usual and I decided to leave my car and drive her home.

I'd spent many sexless nights there before, even sharing her bed, and wasn't expecting anything but her usual fidelity to Howard Groves. I only hoped there was some beer in the fridge and that I'd be able to hook up the cable TV, which she never watched. I felt wonderfully at home there nowadays, a measure of success to me. This made two, with my parents' house out in the Nashville sprawl somewhere by balloon.
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But then we were pulled over. It was a lady cop coming toward my driver's side door and I guessed that was a lucky break.
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After being booked, I declined my phone call for help.

Eleanor, suddenly not completely wasted, was allowed to drive home, where she'd forget all about me I was sure.

Pleasantly drunk, a little curious, not afraid. They led me down several corridors, having me stop here and there for buzzers to buzz or for the heavy clank of keys and locks. There was a growing roar. I asked were we going to the coliseum?

"Big event tonight."
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This wasn't the drunk tank at all. It was the jail's overflow. A gymnasium, blacks only, with bunk beds three beds high, and you had to turn sideways to walk.

No one asleep at this hour or any hour. The blazing bright lights above cast shadows of metal meshing. The loudest voices were those crying for people to

shut. the. fuck. up.

Angry restless souls in hell waiting to stare me down. Here and there, I let my eyes rest long enough to show that I wasn't afeared. People began approaching me for cigarettes. One, in a not too friendly way, warned me that I'd better watch out for myself.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm your mama's boyfriend."

"Ha,ha!" I looked around so people could see I'd made a friend and he was cracking me up.

A good guy told me, "Don't take off your shoes, they'll steal them."

The stench of sweat, smoke and the broken toilets back-flow, the 200 decibels, the claustrophobia, it all started to become "Negro" to my mind. The cigarette economy, "Negro". That very word. Then I remembered I was down south in Nashville, too.

They weren't human anymore. Not here. When I am sober in a few hours I won't be human either.

The novelty of my situation lasted five minutes. Must trust someone. That this particular bunk has no owner.

I laid back and waited six hours until the store opened. My thoughts were always with Mariah. What was she doing now, sleeping alone I hope. Someday soon maybe I'd see her house. I loved thinking of Mariah.

At nine o'clock the Sheriff answered the phone and said well john john let me guess.
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Next I remember was being in a hallway of cages and seeing Mariah and the Sheriff looking in a small dirty window, thirty yards away. Eyes wide, then eyes smiling.

When the men realized I was getting bail they all pressed against the bars yelling for my remaining cigarettes. It was a zoo. They were desperate. The hopeless ones were behind. I emptied my pack into my hands and stupidly threw all my smokes over their heads so they fell at the feet of those innocents who were just looking on. It was a generous impulse but I realized immediately, when the beggars turned, that it was cruel.
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"I'll never be the same," was all I said. It was what I planned to say.

Mariah and Jerry laughing, of course. I could still play drunk, being drunk enough. They laughed and laughed , talking about me like I was a dog they'd rescued from the animal shelter. We walked the quiet downtown streets towards her car. I said I needed to shower. The sheriff said I could take the day off.

"Eleanor didn't call?"
"She will this afternoon," Mariah said, "when she wakes up and has a bloody mary. She'll remember you, John, don't worry."

I stopped and let them keep walking until they noticed.

"It was innocent, you know." Make this a bit of theater. "I mean, don't think. Not me and Eleanor. You know her, she's proper. Sure, she smooches with the nearest guy when she's drunk, I know. But we're just friends. Did you know she's related to Rachel Robarts Jackson?"

Mariah suggested we stop for breakfast.

"We're the bosses, right?" she asked the Sheriff.

"That's right."

"And every things ok at the store isn't it."

"Sure. It's slow."

"This will be down hominy cooking, John!" Mariah said, then as an aside to the Sheriff, "John is here to learn about the South."

Then she laughed, "You'll get to see the court house pretty soon!"