A Point in Time

By Jeff Bernard

It's 1970, a time of great change for society and the naive son of an Alabama redneck who transforms into a somewhat timid free spirited, open-minded, hippie on a quest to find answers to questions every human has asked since the beginning of time. Thus begins the adventures of Joe Pratt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Bernard
• Release date: Jul 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476133072

Jeff Bernard

I was born in Morelia, Mexico. I grew up in south Louisiana, Venezuela and Alabama and lived in Las Vegas New Mexico, Odessa Texas, and Chicago during the early years. Upon leaving the nest I moved to Colorado and lived there for 8 years, then south Florida for several more, and onto Aiken, South Carolina where I stayed for 4 years before coming here to northern New Mexico in June of 2009. I’ve worked as an oil field roughneck, cowboy on a large cattle ranch in the state of Durango Mexico, restaurateur and jazz club partner in Boulder, fine printing, embossing and engraving in Florida, television show development for a Florida based film and television company, product placement for film and television with an L.A. based company, independent film development and packaging, partnering with a former executive vice president of New Line Cinema, managing an equestrian development in Aiken, SC and now I’m involved in a sustainable community development about 35 minutes north of the Ghost Ranch, south of Chama, New Mexico. During this time I traveled to Europe several times, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Paraguay, Philippines, and Australia. At present I live in northern New Mexico. In my adult life, focus on inner peace and contentment within has been a priority.

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A POINT IN TIME

Jeff Bernard

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 1972, 2012

CHAPTER 1

Memories of the last year and a half run rapidly through Joe Pratt’s mind as he sits alone on his bed at home in Mount Vernon, Alabama. The greatest experience in his life burned into his memory is his last football game and four autumns worth of stadium intercom chatter. He looks around his room that is cluttered with the memorabilia of a star high school athlete. The voice in his mind is clear . . . Next, Joe Pratt at quarterback weighing in at one hundred and eighty pounds and standing just over six feet.

A few months earlier town’s people were cheering and band members wildly blew their horns when Joe ran onto the field ready to play his last high school football game.

Mount Vernon is a very small town of only a few hundred people at best. The closest town with a school is Citronelle with just under 2000 residents. It would be less but black gold was discovered in the area and ‘oil field trash’ as the locals refer to oil workers, moved in and swelled the population by several dozen.

Joe was not recruited by the University of Alabama or by Auburn but in his hometown he is a star and gets star treatment. No speeding tickets or getting arrested for the usual teenage shenanigans. Joe has his whole life planned out, two years in the army then on to school at the University of South Alabama, or U.S.A. as the locals call it. The college is too small to have a football program but they do have a good basketball team most years. To Joe that means that campus life won’t be completely void of excitement. After collage he plans on getting married and having three children, two boys and a girl.

He shakes his head slightly back and forth feeling sad and nostalgic as he looks at the old wooden floor in the room where he slept all of his eighteen years. The past is gone and with it his days of football glory. This is a fact he is well aware of. His eyes glaze over as he thinks, ‘Now that I’m graduated from high school I have a few new things to learn about life. It’s almost unbelievable that I’m leaving everything I know behind, I mean everything. It’s going to be new world and I have no idea what to expect. I don’t know. My whole life has been here in Mount Vernon and Citronelle. I hate leaving mama and not helping out with daddy. I’ve had some great times with the boys on the team and that old football coach, Cranford. Calling him Crankfart behind his back, that was fun. Shoot! I’ll miss seeing them ol’ cheerleaders with their short skirts and bright eyes. I can’t hardly believe that three of the eight cheerleaders got pregnant before graduation and expelled from school for un-Christian like behavior. None got knocked up by me. I couldn’t face mama if I did something like that. She really wants me so save myself until marriage. I promised her I would do that. She said it makes it more special that way.’

Joe loves the flag of the United States of America for what it represents. It even has his favorite colors; bright red, and dark blue. His main desires have not been making money and chasing girls. Those are second and third. His biggest desire growing up was to impress his daddy and his coach. They told him that the country needs my help to save us all from those commie aggressors in Vietnam. ‘Coach and daddy both say the commies are bad medicine and bad medicine’s got to be taken off the market like pot off the street. I don’t think we have any pot around here so I don’t know why they are so concerned about that.’

Joe doesn’t want to kill anybody, but war he is told, is one’s patriotic duty, yes sir ee Bobby Johnson his granddaddy used to say!

Lucky for Joe, his mama says. See the country before you go off in a streak of red, white, and blue thirteen thousand miles away.

Joe’s mama, Betty, wants her pride and joy to know what he’ll be fighting for. Today just before he walked out of the mental hospital after visiting his daddy, she said, Son, I know you’ll come back a hero just like in football. Joe said, I ain’t in the army yet, mama. She smiled at him and answered, Go out and see America first, Joe. See this great country so you’ll know what you’re fighting for. Keep the memories close to you, and Jesus. That will give you courage to fight harder and braver. You do that now! Go and embrace America. Let people know you’re going to Vietnam to fight for Jesus, America and Americans.

The mental hospital where his daddy, John Pratt lives is located in this one gas station town of Mount Vernon. The hospital was once a prison that held among others, Geronimo and Sitting Bull. Those American Indian prisoners had a stop over in Oklahoma before being taken to Mount Vernon. After Mount Vernon they were sent to Florida to tell the Seminoles stories about the great American west.

This part of the land of Dixie is about thirty miles north of Mobile. Mobile is the home of the Azalea Trail with those girls that people gawk over as they parade by.

Remembering those girls Joe thinks, ‘They look so proper in them old fashioned dresses all brightly colored and everything. Man, I love watching them girls as they roll by in them big fancy convertible cars.’

Joe makes ten, sometimes fifteen trips a year into Mobile mostly to see a movie or go bowling. One trip is to the annual Senior Bowl football game. It’s great when the college all star seniors come to town from universities all over the country to play football.

Once on the fourth of July Joe visited the destroyer U.S.S. Alabama. It’s kept on display in Mobile Bay and is a proud veteran symbol of the Big War John Pratt fought in.

Before John went to Germany to fight the Nazi’s he never needed to spend time in the hospital and was okay in the head. He never talks about the war. People say he went to one of the camps to free the Jews but when he got there most of them were dead already. He hasn’t been the same since.

As a kid Joe dreamed of fighting in the Big War just like his daddy and the fathers of all his friends. When he was a kid World War Two had been over for ten to fifteen years and now it’s been a little more than twenty years. Nobody complained about fighting in that war like they do about our war in Vietnam. He doesn’t understand the protesters. The men who fought in World War II are all proud and honored to have done so. Joe has read the many books his daddy has about the war. The movies he goes to see in Mobile are mostly about World War II. The John Wayne movies are Joe’s favorites. He loves fishing for crabs around the U.S.S. Alabama just so he can look at the great destroyer. When he was younger he often daydreamed about the battles in the great Pacific Ocean. As he grew older his daydreaming changed from battles in Germany to battles on the football field and basketball court. Realizing that his high school glory days are over Joe thinks, ‘I had better make my daydreaming about girls now that I’m out of school and all done with sports.’

Joe graduated from Citronelle High School. Citronelle is an all American town of real patriots as long as the government is doing what they agree with, like electing presidents who aren’t Catholic.

Joe’s daddy is a patriot, to the degree of fanaticism. He is in a patient work program and his is job holding other mental patients down while they receive their shock treatments. That is of course, when he isn’t getting one himself.

Knowing that daddy isn’t all together upstairs makes Joe at times question his daddy’s logic and his ideas especially his opinions of the war in Vietnam. ‘It’s me that would be getting shot at and not him. It hurts knowing daddy ain’t a well man. I think he knows people make fun of him behind his back but never to his face or in front of me, if they know what’s good for ‘em.’

How Joe’s daddy got himself thrown into such a place of rest and relaxation is a story in itself. You see, down here around Mount Vernon and Citronelle is a group people known by the locals as Cajuns. Now, they are not the same kind of Cajun as a Louisiana Cajun, they have no French ancestry. In case you don’t know, a Louisiana coon-ass is a white man from south Louisiana west of New Orleans or what people in the rest of the country call a redneck. The Cajuns here aren’t coon-asses and they are not rednecks.

Mobile county Alabama Cajuns are different. They are said to be one fourth white, one fourth colored, one fourth American Indian and one fourth descendents of pirates. They can be mean and nasty if they’re done wrong which doesn’t seem to deter a lot of drunken rednecks from doing them wrong.

Going to school has been a problem for these people. They don’t go to school with the coloreds because the coloreds don’t want ‘em. They don’t go to school with the whites. The whites don’t want ‘em. People say that kind of mix would be a real dangerous thing. They don’t go to school with the Indians ‘cause the whites sent those redskins down to Florida. They don’t go to school with the pirates because they are long gone from here. Seems they’re all in politics now days. Because of all this the Cajuns had to build a school all for themselves and nobody else. The sign says, Reserved for Cajun kids only.

Cajuns don’t even have a town. Nobody will let them belong to one. So, they live all along the bumpy, pot hole strewn, and beat up road between Citronelle and Mount Vernon. It’s about fifteen miles between the two communities. This little stretch of road is the Cajun’s own little world between the two towns, both of which are off limits for Cajuns except for going to the, grocery store, doctor or the jail house.

On Cajun Road, the law sort of ignores many of the goings on until things get so out of hand that people start killing each other.

Sitting on his bed Joe covers both sides of his head with his hands and drops his head down as he relives what his daddy did that has left a very large stain of embarrassment in his mind. That terrible crazy thing his daddy did that is one reason he wants to leave town and go where no one knows or has heard of his insane father. The memory floods his mind. Joe’s father losing it that day had a dramatic emotional impact on poor young Joe.

His Daddy decided one day that Indians, niggers, hippies, and Mexicans are all communist just like, what he calls, those little yellow niggers in Vietnam and China. He says these here Cajuns are worse than the rest, ‘cause they spies and spies ought to be shot. At least that’s the way John had it figured. Like anyone with mental problems he is a little different from most of the people in America but not all that different. Instead of just thinking about things he takes action. He decided these Cajuns were conspiring with the commies. He loaded his 30-30 rifle and put seven bird pellet shells in his shot gun and went out to do some cleaning up.

He jumped into his 1964 half-ton pickup truck with its gun rack mounted on the back window and an American flag sticker on each side of the gun rack. He had confederate flag stickers on each side of the front window, and a sticker on the dash that read, I’m Proud to be an American.

His front license plate read Next Time You’re in Trouble Call a Hippie, and of course, his back bumper sticker read America, Love it or Leave it, and there was a peace sign symbol on another sticker, and next to the peace symbol, the caption read, Sign of the American Chicken.

His rampage began on a typical hot and humid south Alabama late afternoon in Cajun country. The road curved up and down the small hills where houses dotted the red clay roadside. The rolling pine forest stretched out in all directions behind the houses. Nobody had air-conditioning, so as usual, people hung out in their yards and on their porches with little or nothing to do but drink moonshine. He didn’t really want to hurt anyone; he only intended to scare them a little.

Now and then rednecks like John get drunk and drive along and shoot into the tin roofs of the Cajun people’s houses. Some people think that’s real funny to keep these people’s houses leaking when it rains which it often does. In fact outside of northwest Washington State this is the rainiest part of the country.

This self described freedom fighter drove down the road in his red pickup truck wearing his American Legion uniform, singing ‘God Bless America’. He slowed down to about 15 mph and picked up his trusty rifle. As he took aim, someone noticed the gun and yelled, Get down! That crazy sum-bitch honkey’s got a gun.

A few people ran while others hit the dirt. He aimed high and fired into one of the shacks hitting the roof making a sound he loved as the bullet went through corrugated tin. He fired through the roofs of the next three houses on the passenger side of the road. He turned around and pointed the gun out the driver’s side and fired into a house on that side of the road.

He heard a pop sound. Because this particular pop was not from his gun he floored the accelerator and sped away in a great hurry. As he did, people got up and ran out to the road shouting all kinds of dirty words at him. A few had guns and fired at his truck eager to hit his truck or him. He heard a bullet tear through the truck’s tailgate as he rounded the first curve.

On down the road, he slowed to repeat the shooting process; he only shot one house before he heard return fire. So off he went again as shot gun pellets peppered his truck. While he was flashing back to World War Two, he drove about half a mile figuring it would be safe to start shooting again but to his astonishment, someone had called ahead. Several were people waiting on the road waving all kinds of things in the air to let him know that they were sick and tired of their houses being shot up by honky rednecks. They weren’t going to stand for it any longer.

He broke into a profuse sweat and his adrenaline started pumping like crazy in the crazy man. He floored the accelerator and people dove in every which direction but not before letting go of whatever they had in their hands. Several hard objects hit John’s truck, one of them cracking the windshield. He looked in his mirror and saw an orange Dodge Road Runner pull onto the road burning rubber as it did leaving a cloud of blue smoke that drifted over the green weeds toward the house it came from.

He was driving as fast as he could but the Road Runner was gaining rapidly. He must have felt like he was standing still seeing that Road Runner coming at him with such speed. He tried to find a position to fire the gun at the approaching car but it was too difficult to drive and shoot at the same time. He heard shots fired at him. Joe’s poor daddy pissed in his pants when a bullet shattered the rear windshield. He felt the glass hit the back of his neck and pieces of glass fall down his shirt and sting his back. The glass was all over the seat and floor of his truck.

The Road Runner was now trying to pass, so he stayed mostly in the middle of the road swerving on either side to keep that orange demon from getting ahead of him.

Up ahead he noticed a man with a gun standing in a crowd, and then he noticed others with baseball bats, bottles, and rocks. Driving by the crowd he could hear people shouting obscenities at him as an assortment of objects banged against the truck. In his mirror he could see the Road Runner screeching to a halt, smoke coming from its tires.

He noticed a man with a gun aimed at him. He saw through the rear view mirror a flash from the gun and heard a loud explosion as his pickup swayed out of his control. He went off the road and into a mound of red sandy clay.

After doing a quick U-turn the Road Runner headed to Citronelle. The two Cajuns in the Road Runner went straight to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff turned to his two deputies who were holding sawed off shotguns (‘cause the locals are scared of these badder than niggers, meaner than pirate Cajuns) and said, Lock ‘em up boys. They must have been speeding and they probably got a weapon.

What are you locking us up for, sheriff? We’re de ones reporting de crime. We ain’t de ones dat done it. No sir.

Well you boys look a little hot under the collar. I think it would be good if you cooled off a bit . . . so you don’t do something you might regret.

The sheriff turned and walked away. He gave their car keys to his two deputies and all three went for a test ride in that supped up Road Runner just to see what it could do. Joe was thinking how surprised he was that they didn’t go to one of their Ku Klux Klan meetings to show it off.

By this time John was bogged down, the trucks tire was shot out, and an angry mob of Cajuns was approaching from down the road. In his mind they were dressed in black and carrying sickles. It looked like death was near. He got down on his knees in the middle of the road and cried and prayed to his lords Nixon and Agnew. He was certain that these people, whose houses he had been shooting at were going to come and cut out his heart. Probably use it in some voodoo ritual. He heard loud voices full of obscenities getting closer and closer. His mind raced. He figured that this would not be a very good day to meet the big judge in the sky, not after all the mess he had just made. He didn’t think he was gonna have a prayer in hell of making it to heaven and he had no doubt that he would be meeting his maker very shortly. He prayed that if God would save him from this angry mob of Cajuns he would never go around shooting peoples’ houses again and when he spoke to coloreds he would stop referring to them as niggers in their presence. Most of all he asked Jesus for forgiveness and he told God and Jesus that he would accept them into his heart and his life.

In the middle of his beseeching a car screeched to a dead stop right next to him. It was a state policeman.

What are you doing here, John? asked the policeman, who knew damn well what he had been up to.

He jumped up and down yelling, Praise the lord I done been saved.

The state trooper said, Yeah, John, you been saved all right . . . by me. I have saved your sorry ass, again.

The angry mob closed in yelling and complaining to the officer all about what this lunatic had done. ‘Would justice prevail?’, they wanted to know. If not, they could quite easily administer justice right then and there.

He started praising the Lord again not so sure the police officer could help him anymore. He told the Cajuns that Jesus had forgiven him his sins, ‘cause he had repented after seeing his life come so close to an end. He had them to thank for this religious revelation. They told him he could thank them by getting professional help and paying for all the damages. He could serve Jesus by crusading against other redneck idiots going around and shooting at their houses.

The state policeman was patient and let everybody talk out their grievances. He put cuffs on Joe’s daddy before putting him in the back seat of the patrol car. After the police car disappeared the crowd set fire to the red truck then had a big party and got good and drunk. After that they went to their homes and got to work making more babies.

When the state trooper and Joe’s daddy arrived at the jail the only people in the jail house were the two wrongly-jailed Cajuns.

After much explaining and complaining by the two Cajuns the good trooper let them out of the cell. Then he put Joe’s poor mixed up daddy in the cell where the Cajuns had been.

When the sheriff and his two deputies returned, the state trooper scolded them for the injustice they had done to the two innocent Cajuns. He gave the young Cajun man back his car keys and told the two of them to go home and forget the whole affair, which they did but first they went to the local whorehouse where they could enjoy some white women.

That’s how Joe’s daddy got thrown into the Mount Vernon mental hospital.

Joe tries to forget the things that his daddy did that remind him that he isn’t all there in the head.

Joe sits looking around his bedroom trying to soak up as many good memories as he can. His high school yearbook sits on the dresser reminding him of the only social life he has known up till now. He didn’t make valedictorian but he was chosen as the most likely to succeed in the achieving the American dream. ‘All that I have done and accomplished and I am still embarrassed to be seen with daddy. All the things I have done to make daddy proud of me, for what? He never once told me he is proud of anything I’ve done, not even leading the football team to state. Pleasing daddy is like trying to squeeze watermelon juice out of a cement block. It makes me sad.’

In the photo of him and his best friend Buck sitting on the dresser next to his high school yearbook Joe has a military style crew cut. ‘Buck was the fullback on the football team and got voted the most likable guy in school. ‘Buck and I tied for the best-dressed.’ Joe smiles to himself.

‘When I look in the mirror I can see how I’ve changed since the year-book picture. My hair is almost long enough to part on the left side.’

He walks over to the closet, opens the door, and studies his belongings. He gives his well worn tin hard hat one last look. It sits on the shelf with dents that saved him from more than one concussion. He worked the last four summers as a roustabout in the Citronelle Oil field so he would have enough money to get married after graduating from high school. He has been saving so that when he meets the girl of his dreams he will be able to offer her some financial security. He hasn’t had a real girlfriend, at least not one willing to end his virginity. He likes a few of the cheerleaders but never got all the way with one partly due to Christian guilt and fear of going to hell. These feeling of fear were burned into his mind by his mother. His mother turned to religion in a much more serious way after John came back from the big war. During John’s first weeks home it became obvious that he had left his sanity back in Poland. As Betty started to accept this tragedy she became more and more fanatical with her prayers and pleading for God’s help.

He looks up as his mother enters his room.

Now, Joe when those blue jeans get faded you buy you some more. Okay?

Mama always speaks to me as if she were talking to a ten year old. He finds it embarrassing when she does this in front of his friends.

Yes, ma’am, I’ll do that. He answers obediently.

Joe.

Yes, ma’am.

I put your football jacket and basketball letter sweater in your suitcase with your best suit.

I don’t need the suit, mama. She thinks. ‘Please Lord Jesus help my boy. Keep my boy safe. Jesus please tell him to call me everyday.’

In case you take a sweet girl out while you’re gone. That way you’ll have something nice to wear. She shakes her head back and forth with a ‘you-silly-boy-expression.'

Mama, I ain’t gonna date no girls. His cheeks turn red. He can’t imagine his mama knowing the kind of dirty thoughts he has about girls every single day. In fact he has those thoughts every few minutes day in and day out. Besides, he adds, I still like playing football, basketball, and baseball. I don’t have time to be worrying about no girls, mama.

This sets her mind spinning. ‘Oh, lordy I hope my boy ain’t no queer. All that time in the locker room naked with other boys. Jesus, please let my Joe like girls. His daddy and me would die knowing he was sinning with the same sex.’ She looks straight at him. Frustration spreads across her face. Joe, you’re eighteen. I think it’s high time you start paying more attention to pretty girls and less to your sports. You’re a grownup man now. Besides you don’t want people thinking you’re some kind of fairy. On top of that I want grandbabies.

AAwh, Mama, people ain’t going to think that. He can’t believe his mother just insinuated that people could think he is a fairy. He thinks, ‘I can’t believe she said that. That’s disgusting. Where can I hide? I don’t believe she said that.’

She softens a little. I wonder sometimes, Joe.

He is shocked. How can you think that, mama?

She hesitates a minute, then says nervously, I put three shirts, two pair of dress pants, and one pair of blue jeans on the same side with your suit. She raises her eyebrows, again looking serious. Now, are you taking the red socks and red tie that the good preacher man sold you when he was in town last Easter?

She thinks, ‘I hope he was sincere those times the preacher saved him. Ten, twelve times I don’t remember. Won’t hurt him to get saved more. Please, Jesus keep him saved for me. Pretty please, Jesus.’

Yes ma’am. You know I wouldn’t forget those. Every time I look at them I will be reminded of you. Mama that was some powerful stuff the way he preached in that big tent. Joe says with one of those of course looks. Hey, mama you know, He feels a shy smile rising on his face, I packed my trophy to show people I meet.

Good! She says with a smile, They’ll know my boy is a great high school quarterback. Make sure you tell people you done graduated. You ain’t no ignoramus.

Seeing her sad smile. He begins to get misty eyed. Tears well up, he wipes his face with the back of his hand and kisses her goodbye.

As he walks through the bedroom door with her following, he turns around, Mama, I’m proud to be your son.

She looks at him with tears flowing from her eyes, "Joe, you’ll love America. Now have fun. A word of warning, be very careful who