LABYRINTH : Volume 1: A STORY OF A YOUNG MAN'S SOJOURN IN THE GEORGIA CHAIN GANG

By EDWARD PALMORE

I wrote Labyrinth as I sat in administrative segregation at Coffee Correctional Facility, a private prison in southern Georgia. I wrote the manuscript in long hand making a chair of an impromptu stack of books and yellow envelopes while facing my bunk, a steel rack, which would serve as a makeshift desk. The event which gave rise to this

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: May 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949169102

EDWARD PALMORE

Edward Palmore was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey where he attended public school. Upon graduation from the University of Houston with a baccalaureate of arts in United States History he served a tour of duty in the United States Army in Grafenwöhr, Germany as a lieutenant in Air Defense Artillery. Dr. Palmore obtained a doctorate in counseling psychology from the Boston University School of Education. For more than eighteen years he was incarcerated in the State of Georgia. However, he wrote more than fifty books, dramas, poems and song lyrics. It is the author's intent to generate a platform on which to discuss the issue of the marginalization of black men in American society. Once leaving prison he did not forget the conditions he was compelled to endure, and now is an advocate for greater public awareness of an impending social crisis.

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Labyrinth

A story of a young man’s sojourn in the Georgia chain gang

– Volume 1 –

Edward Palmore

Copyright © 2018 by Edward Palmore.

Paperback: 978-1-949169-09-6

eBook: 978-1-949169-10-2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are usedfictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events of locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

PREFACE

Ne’er thought about a preface

‘Til I wrote my own first book.

It is a tentative statement

One that could be eas’ly forsook

Yet it gives readers insights

They might otherwise o’erlook

The author’s labor of love, which

Caused him to write this book.

I wrote Labyrinth as I sat in administrative segregation at Coffee Correction Facility, a private prison in South Georgia. I wrote the manuscript entirely in long hand making a chair of an impromptu stack of books and yellow envelopes while facing my bunk, a steel rack that would serve as a make shift desk. The event that gave rise to the writing of this book was the result of a brief, casual conversation I had with a fellow prisoner in population. One Sunday, in an open dormitory, as I sat on my bunk reading and writing, I nibbled from a bag of popcorn. The lights were turned off as prisoners played cards and chess, watched television, exercised or slept. It happened on a weekend, since Georgia prisons serve only two meals on weekends and holidays. This young man was obviously hungry and asked me if I would share some of what I was eating. He sat as I offered popcorn, and he briefed and unwittingly suggested the theme of this story. During the conversation, he mentioned that he had been shipped to several prison camps during a rather brief time. Unknowingly this chat gave impetus to the writing of Labyrinth . The question remains" why was this young prisoner moved to so many prisons in such a brief pe riod?

As I pondered this question a story emerged. With nothing but time on my hands, I wrote Labyrinth. Mark Hope, our central protagonist faces sundry obstacles that he brings to prison, difficulties in prison that threatens his physical and emotional well-being, and trials that test his courage and resolve once he is released from the custody of the Georgia Department of Corrections.

What makes Mark’s difficulties so remarkable is that he cannot readily extricate himself from the abuse heaped on him by others in his environment. And it is not as though he has confidants to advise him. What we see in Labyrinth is the ascendancy of street gangs and the unraveling of a dangerous vile homophobia that is played out in many American prisons.

It is my hope that not only Labyrinth would be entertaining, but that it would also provoke widespread discussion into prison conditions. This is not a fairy tale. This is not a Sunday school catechism. The language of prisons is rugged, raw and risqué. And this reflects the story of a young man’s brief sojourn in a southern prison in the United States of America

Edward Palmore

Macon, Georgia

April, 2016

VOLUME ONE

CHAPTER ONE

M otha…fucka...git...offa...me! Sally Ann Ellington eerily screeched, hesitating between each word with a switch blade clutched high in her clench fists. These would be her last words. Her heavy breasts were almost ready to plop completely out of her tight-fitting blouse. Although she was wielding a blade she did not have much of an opportunity to use it with any degree of proficiency. She was breathing with difficulty and snot was spilling from her nostrils. She used her left hand to backhandedly wipe her nose as if it mattered. He just came at her as she held the blade high over her head warning him. Perhaps she had made a tactical error by brandishing too early the switch blade. But she had done this to warn him. Undoubtedly, he did not tend to regard warnings. She lost the element of surprise – a principle of warfare – and would pay for it dearly with her precious life. He immediately attacked the hand that held the troublesome blade wrestling it from her trembling hand. The blade fell to the floor, and she was then totally defenseless without a weapon. His hand discovered her vulnerable neck. She was not able to fight him off any longer. He steadily applied pressure. She felt pain. Then she could no longer do battle. Her body went limp and then she was no more. Wearing plastic gloves her assailant opened the front door and carried her out in the frost of the morning with Sally Ann’s children sleeping in the old farm house. Her assailant placed the body over his shoulder and carried her out to the barn. It had been raining and one could hear the raindrops pound upon the rusting, ancient tin roof. He brought her into the barn. He was perfectionistic. Using a Black & Decker chain saw he dismembered her body into one gruesome colossal mess. He worked quickly. Then he arranged the parts as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He was careful to first disrobe her so that no article of clothing would be def aced.

In the morning, Sally Ann’s children, one-by-one woke up late because there was no one there to wake them up on time for school. It was a strange morning. There were not the usual aromas of white bread being toasted, of cheese being melted into a sauce pan of grits, and streak o’ lean being fried in a pan in the fireplace to harness energy costs. Usually, Sally Ann was in the kitchen adding the precise amount of Calumet in the small red can with powdered milk to eggs to stretch them adequately so that everyone would have something to eat. Thelma Lou knew that there was something ominous happening by the absence of familiar things – familiar aromas and familiar sounds.

Little Mark got up next. Seven years younger than Thelma Lou, he got up as his older brother slept. Thelma Lou knew something was wrong because it was in the beginning of winter and the sun seeped in through the holes of the cheap paper window shades. The rays assaulted their faces. Thelma Lou felt at first as though it was a Sunday and they were waiting to go with the Taliferros to Sunday School. But then she saw their Sunday School clothes hanging up and she then remembered instantly that they had already spent the Lord’s Day in church. Then she wondered whether that Monday was a holiday and soon disregarded that notion since she could hear no children playing in the distance.

Thelma Lou didn’t wake the other children. She merely went downstairs after walking through the second floor to determine the possible location of her mother. Then she walked through the door at the end of the foyer and Mark surveilled the opposite end of the dwelling. They were in the living room near the foyer. I’ve gone through the house calling Momma, but she’s nowhere to be found.

Maybe she is – Thelma began to say not completing her thought. Then she moved toward the door. The air was chilly, too chilly to be outside without a jacket, or sweater, or a pair of socks.

It was muddy outside as Thelma and Mark went through the yard. They came to the parcel where the old barn stood. It was one of those old jobs that needed vast amounts of paint. Decades ago all farm activities had emanated from this point. Thelma Lou walked tentatively with Mark closely behind her in the barn – where she went past areas where bales of hay were once kept and spaces where grain was once stored. It was dark. Electricity had been somehow installed before the owner’s uncle – who once owned the barn -- passed away. So, that power tools could be operated in the barn. Thelma Lou was not all that familiar with the barn, but Mark was. Nothing larger than a field mouse or more dangerous than a snake moved there within the dark. He twisted the old-style light switch on the wall which produced light. In the middle of the floor, he found her. Thelma Lou followed the light and their mother was there, laid out, cut up like so many pieces. The pieces would have been carefully put back together except blood and body fluids gushed out over the floor of the barn. Thelma Lou swallowed hard and continuously. Then she retched. Mark’s heart beat quickened. They embraced each other, but it was not a display of affection.

After a few minutes, they talked.

Thelma Lou knew instinctively at that moment that she couldn’t fall apart, but would have to gain from somewhere all the strength she could bring to bear. She knew there would be dreadful repercussions if the younger children saw such a hideous display. And now she had to console and comfort Mark about a situation she, herself was not prepared to handle. She had to inform someone responsible. Her first proclivity was to restore order where chaos existed.

You see that? That’s Momma cut up like a piece of pork. Thelma Lou said hysterically with heart racing, tears flowing and head throbbing.

Yeah, I see that. What we going to do? Who would kill Momma? She didn’t mess with nobody. We gotta call the police. They’ll know what to do, Mark said.

Yeah, I’ll begin breakfast and you can call the police. Then you can go over and talk to Mrs. Taliferro. I’ll get Summer and Emma ready after breakfast. Within a half hour one of the sheriff’s deputies was there in his white Crown Victoria. He raced down the unpaved country road leaving a trail of dust as he responded to a possible homicide. He walked into the barn and observed Sally Ann’s gruesome remains. The body stank. Its foul odor had already attracted huge flies that were virtually dormant this time of year. Then he walked to the Crown Victoria and dragged out a brown woolen blanket with County Jail stenciled on it, and mercifully spread it over the body.

What sick bastard would take a chain saw and cut up and then rearrange the pieces in perfect order like this? The perp must belong in the looney bin, or he must be a serial killer. Then he thought: This Sally Ann was probably a local prostitute picking up dollars to supplement her AFDC check. Maybe the perp’s a one-time customer dissatisfied, feeling that he paid too much for a product so inferior. Deputy Clem Rich called for backup, and an entire forensic team came.

Sandy Rawlson, the lead investigator, immediately called social services when she learned that there were children involved. She castigated Clem for covering over the body, stressing that he could have inadvertently compromised the case by contaminating evidence. She promised not to write him up for this unthinkable deed. The forensic team gathered evidence, took photos and carried away Sally Ann while others arrived to deal with the children.

The case worker came in as they wheeled Sally Ann’s dismantled body away on a gurney. Mrs. Brenda Whitehead, the caseworker, appeared to be a Caucasian, fortyish, a woman who took command from the very first moment in which she arrived. She spread mountains of documents out on the kitchen table and began filling out various forms. She phoned and planned for a homemaker to come over until they could sort out and then locate the fathers of these seven children – the persons responsible for the well-being of these children.

The children never again returned to their neighborhood schools or day care center. The homemaker remained in the home and Thelma Lou helped her as best as she could with the youngest siblings. There was precious little for Mark to do. He did not really want to go to the Taliferro home to play, because he suspected that they would want to know every single detail of what occurred, and that he could not supply since there was a whole lot which he didn’t know. Besides, he would find it embarrassing to divulge such information of a personal matter.

The funeral was held quickly. Mark would later remember walking down the aisle of the church behind his mother’s closed casket. Of course, it would be a closed-coffin affair. None of the children, except Thelma Lou and Mark, had seen the morbid display. They could only describe it with disbelief.

At the end of the funeral recessional, Mark looked through the audience. There was no man out there that looked anything like him. Not one of the fathers showed up. Thelma Lou had learned that the father of the youngest children, Emma and Summer, was locked up in prison again. So, there was no one there they could turn to for help.

The funeral service lasted less than thirty minutes. The body was pushed into the back of a hearse, and they took it to a remote place in a local cemetery. The cloth-covered pine box was placed upon the ground. Mark stood there as his feet sank into the soggy grass. There were less than fifty mourners. Mrs. Taliferro took care of the details so that on the return to the church after burial they ate the usual funereal repast.

Mark did not sleep well at all that week. He had forgotten the forgettable funeral service but could only think of the way in which his mother was carved up and ritualistically displayed on the dirt floor of the nineteenth-century barn. He would relive that scene repeatedly in his young and impressionable mind.

CHAPTER TWO

By the time, Mark Hope was born on Friday, the third of June, 1983, four of his other half-siblings were already living with his mother, Sally Ann Ellington. There was Thelma Lou and Grace Ann Ellington who were seven and six years old, respectively. They had the same father, Derrick Ames. She also had Otto and Princess, both toddlers, their father was a German, a military officer. Mark was born in Houston, Texas where Sally Ann was living with her older sister, Meryl. It was in Meryl’s house that Sally Ann got a little better acquainted with Meryl’s husband, Mark Lance Hope.

When Sally Ann was only twelve years old, she conceived her first child, Thelma Lou. She had been a student in the same school as her first child’s father, Derrick Ames. Really, he should have been in the eleventh grade, but could never graduate from the eighth grade. They met up at school and bumped into each other quite frequently in the cafeteria, in the school gym, and at other popular locations in and around campus. She was superlatively bright, and he preferred to sit next to her, so that he could look at her answers as she figured out decimals, fractions and percentages, and he would successfully copy them down. He muscled himself into nearby seats in other classes too. Derrick, three years older, was particularly sweet. He was relatively tall, handsome, and muscular. Even though he was intellectually challenged, he was athletically proficient. He played on the high school varsity basketball team, although he had never graduated eighth grade. And from the bleachers the young girls and some of the older ones too would incessantly call out his name and he would respond by smiling and gesturing appreciatively. This continued unabated until Sally Ann issued an ultimatum: he had to be with her entirely or not at all. Sally continued seeking out Derrick until she was signed out of school and was admitted into an environment for unwed mothers. So, he would go by her mother’s from time to time and wait for her to come in from school with his children. At times Derrick, would have a basketball game and she would wrap the baby girls and take them with her to the games. Then the more she pushed, the more he pulled away until she became completely uncommunicative, unresponsive, and almost suicidal. At times, she would look at that razor and would contemplate cutting her wrist. Later she and her children left to live with her oldest sister, Meryl. Meryl was fourteen years her senior and was married to the dashing Lance Mark Hope a staff sergeant in the United States Army who taught ROTC at the university.

Sally continued attending school in El Paso near Ft. Bliss and her girls continued attending a day care center. One-day Sally Ann left the school and went directly home. This was an afternoon where Meryl was out at the post exchange, the PX, buying provisions for her extended family. Lance had already finished a week of work back at his missile battalion and was preparing for a weekend of poker with the boys. Meryl certainly didn’t mind her husband’s weekly gambling soirees at home, because she knew where he was, and when the boys left and the children were in bed she would have him all to herself. That was more than what a lot of wives even some living on post, could expect or hope for. From the training brigade, he brought home a German soldier, Johannes Mueller, who was learning how to interrogate aircraft and track targets on a cathode ray tube and determine whether aircraft was from friendly or aggressive nationals.

Johannes was the only white soldier invited to come over and play cards with Lance although he would have a Mexican come over from time to time. Johannes was from Heidelberg and spoke fluent English and had a distinct accent. Mark was one of his instructors in the air defense artillery school, and they were friendly toward each other, often teaming as partners in poker.

The fact that his fifteen-year-old sister-in-law was seeing a German soldier did not rattle him; it did, however, unsettle Meryl. This girl, he reasoned, looked much older than she was. And if she had not had her own difficulties, she would have found time to deal with this budding romance. Notwithstanding, Johannes found every opportunity to bring flowers, and chocolates and other little dainties for Thelma Lou and Grace Ann. Whenever he came over Meryl could find no way to disinvite Johannes. Meryl and Lance would communicate with Johannes who came over in his Fiat and took Sally Ann around the town wherever she wished to go. Had he been the usual run-of-the-mill Southern cracker, he wouldn’t have excited her in the least bit. But he possessed continental mannerisms and an abiding respect for womanhood that predated his own existence – in a Jungian archetypal sort of way – by centuries. She would go to school and pick up her children at the end of the day. Meryl, who had her own family to care for, had scant time to interfere with Sally Ann. At an age when most young girls were contemplating shelving their dolls, Sally Ann had the onus of feeding, clothing, and sheltering two babies of her own. Moreover, she was dealing with issues all pubertal females traditionally faced.

Their relationship continued and Otto came along in spring of ‘80. Johannes steadfastly lent support, even though he knew he had promises to keep back in Heidelberg with another Jungfrau. Then before he knew it, Princess was born a year later. Desiring that Sally Ann abort, Johannes didn’t want Princess; yet, he gave both Otto and Princess his family name. They would not have to go through life being Ellingtons. Yet, a few weeks before Princess’ birth, he was called back to the Federal Republic of Germany.

Once again, Sally Ann found herself hurt over a man. Meryl coldly upbraided her, I tol’ ya so. Then the young teen mother sat in a white wicker chair on the porch with feet tucked up under her. She sat there and wept knowing that Johannes was lost forever.

It was not just the sex. Derrick was by far the more fulfilling, and more appealing, and more skillful lover. Although he had been gone for a few years she couldn’t help but think of him whenever she made love to Johannes. Derrick just teased every miniscule molecule of her magnificent body. Her olfactory system was stimulated by the mixture of his sweet perspiration and pungent musk as they made love. She learned early that her senses responded differently, reacting one way to black men and another way to Caucasians. It wasn’t that one was better or more pleasurable than the other. They were just different. She could sense that subtle transformation in Derrick’s body as they continued their sensuous intermingling. She could sense the smell of every single micro-millimeter of his body. Then she could taste Derrick – still taste him. She tasted his sweet tongue as it expanded its search within her oral cavity. The sense of touch was tantalized by his abundant muscularity, and there was always a wetness that she experienced every time she touched him or was touched by him. Then she could hear his heart beat as she rested on his colossal torso and heard the sound derived from the expansion of his lungs. She listened, silently to the sounds that were emitted from his body.

Meryl began to experience pains in her body and had taken to bed. While in the home, she did less and less of the housework. So, Sally Ann began bearing her share of responsibilities for her children and Meryl’s simultaneously. Lance would do the best he could to support the two women realizing that with Johannes gone Sally Ann was grieving as if she was a bona fide widow. Toward the end of the month, Meryl was diagnosed with cancer, and Lance would come in every evening and watch his wife dwindle away. He would go into her room and hold her hand during periods when she was conscious. She slept more. Then he would sit at the table as his sister-in-law would ladle soup in a bowl and serve a spicy meat loaf she had mixed with her own hands, a three-bean salad and potato salad. The very young Sally Ann had become proficient in the kitchen. As the year progressed, the cancer dominated Meryl’s body, her spirit, and that of her household. The disease metastasized, and she was moved into a hospice.

Lance would sleep sometimes restlessly in their bedroom, and sometimes he would lay awake at night in the living room. Sally Ann would go to her room. With Johannes in Deutschland and Ames locked up, she had no lover. Sometimes she would be sleepless too. Lance would knock on her door and invite himself in. He knew that she was still sweet on Johannes, but he knew that Johannes belonged to another. Then as Meryl languished in a palliative care milieu, Lance sought comfort in his sister-in-law’s arms. They subsequently had a child, his only child outside the bonds of holy matrimony. For another two years as Meryl lingered Sally Ann performed as Lance’s surrogate wife.

In West Texas on AFDC, Sally Ann waited around her sister’s house each day for Meryl’s husband to come in from work. She now had the task of caring for her own family and taking care of Meryl’s. She did the shopping and took care of their son. Lance taught her how to drive so that she could get her driver’s license and take care of household chores without inconveniencing him.

One afternoon she went to the market looking for noodles for lasagna, and was trying at the same time to figure out how much of the ingredients she would need. She had a calculator in her hand and she was thoroughly absorbed with pressing numbers while standing in the aisles to estimate the amount of noodles, meats, cheeses and dry ingredients she would need to use in the preparation of the meal. She had tiny Mark Lance in a small car seat that she had placed in the shopping cart which she pushed through the aisles. Inadvertently, she rammed her cart into a perpendicular aisle, jamming it into Specialist Fourth Class Richard Guthrie. The young morning report clerk was shopping for refreshments for his weekend poker game. He excused himself – although he was not at fault – and with a grin looked into her face. One look at Sally Ann and he almost forgot why he had come into the emporium in the first place. She was upset because she had collided with him. While he could have been flippant or sarcastic, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Wanna exchange driver’s licenses? Do you need to know the name of my insurance carrier? Then he laughed, and she followed suit. Noticing the groceries, she had in her cart, he said, I really have a hankering for some home-made lasagna with plenty of Romano cheese and fennel seed.

Sally estimated that he was six-feet-three, and based on his physique he obviously worked out regularly. His hair was cut short but it was fashionable. There were no blemishes in his skin. His baritone voiced a certain degree of culture and gentility.

Oh, I see. You just want an invitation, don’t you? she lightheartedly questioned, allowing her tongue to lightly sweep the top edge of her lower lip, and her mind suspected what he was possibly thinking about.

She wrote out her address, and he put it in the top pocket of his fatigue shirt and buttoned it up. The date was set for Friday evening at seven o’clock.

SP/4 Richard Guthrie came to Sally Ann Ellington’s abode with a nosegay of carnations in his hands. One could tell that they had been professionally arranged by a florist. At that moment, she was by herself in the household since a reassigned Lance moved on after Meryl died.

Richard was the smoothest and most debonair man she ever dated. Before the month expired Sally Ann was totally involved with Guthrie. Apparently, he enjoyed the lasagna. He never touched the salt, because it needed no embellishments. He commented favorably about the sausage she used and compared her dish favorably with his mother’s. Then he met the children and took time with little Mark because he was so dark and so different than the others. When his duty station changed, he moved the family from Texas to Georgia.

Until a week before Christmas in the palindromic year of 1991, Sally Ann Ellington had been adequately caring for her children: cooking for them, cleaning the house, doing laundry, and helping the youngster with school assignments. Occasionally she would go to the school for meetings and conferences. Thelma Lou who was fifteen, was more like a sister than a daughter to Sally Ann, and she was more like a mother than a sister to Mark. Thelma Lou was the glue that kept the family together. When Sally Ann could not attend to some detail, Thelma Lou was there and no one questioned her authority.

Sally would occasionally go and do some freelance work to tide the family over. This work, of course, was never registered with the Internal Revenue Service, and no taxes consequently had ever been paid because of the profits made of an exchange of goods and services. One fact remained constant with all her outside freelance activities, she never brought any of her work home. All the free-lance coital work was performed at sundry venues. When Sally Ann had finished, she would get in a cab or find some other way to get home to her children.

Sally Ann was a single parent, yet she never, ever missed buying Christmas gifts for all her children even though their fathers rarely contributed. The previous Christmas in 1990, she purchased for Mark a Nintendo. She was on the verge of having the electricity cut off, the water cut off and the telephone services disrupted, yet she pulled through. Never mind for a few months Mark had to play with the same Mario Brothers cassette that came with the contraption learning to play it backwards and forwards. It would be a while before she could purchase other things, but she did provide at Christmas.

Men all over simply adored Sally Ann. She had a light complexion that was cafe au lait. Her hair was naturally red, and her roots were never dark. Her nails and make-up were impeccably done and her figure magnificently chiseled. After pregnancies, she exercised rigorously and dieted. Men simply loved her. At church, they would turn their bodies, their eyes, their heads whenever she made an entrance. The pastor would spend several extra minutes with her at the doors of the church after the benediction was pronounced. He would spend time hugging and kissing her children when others would be merely spoken to. The women in the congregation noted that she was a woman to be reckoned with, and they respected her because she was not into wrecking their homes. Besides she believed that you do not shit where you got to eat. Anything Sally did to supplement her welfare check she did away from the home.

Nor did she have a phalanx of girlfriends advising her to march her babies’ daddies downtown to get what was coming to her and make them do what was right. Every single year she would have a school picture sent to all the fathers. If this did not tug at their hearts nothing else would, she reckoned. Every once in a while, a father remembering a single night with Sally Ann Ellington would send her something for their child.

She and Thelma Lou were particularly sweet on Mark. Sally Ann could see that he could be quite irresponsible with hanging up his school clothes, making his bed and completing his homework. She did not believe that summer was a time to vacation and would encourage the classroom teachers to give the children work to do over the summertime. She could be a bit fastidious, fussing over Mark’s penmanship, making him construct letters and numbers over and over again until they were readable and then practice a little more until characters were a work of pure calligraphy. Mark was continually winning awards and certificates, and Sally Ann took pride in all his achievements.

First and second grades progressed splendidly. Each year, Mark sat for another school picture, and his mother would dutifully send each year a picture to Mark Lance Hope Sr. Outside of Otto, who was three years older, Mark was the only boy in the family. And after parceling out the children he had with Meryl, Lance left for overseas. Richard Guthrie met Sally Ann. There was a long moratorium on a good deal of her nocturnal wanderings once she met Richard. Sally Ann gave Richard children, two girls – Summer and Emma – before he took off and reunited with another distant family somewhere else. Mark’s mother, of course, remained – but this young boy was experiencing a number of father figures coming in and out of Sally Ann’s house as she would begin to date again. He would be saddened because she would have to leave, and he would come and stand by her door while she was selecting a pair of earrings which would match her outfit and applying make-up.

Momma, where you goin’? Mark would ask.

Out, baby. Out! she uttered not elaborating. The second out meant, Don’t ask me any more silly questions, boy. Then she might say, Baby, bring Momma them shoes! And he would do so.

Y’all do what Thelma Lou says. You hear me? Otto! Otto!

Yes, ma’am, Otto responded after running upstairs to see what she wanted.

I’m goin’ out. I don’t wanna hear tell of you bullyin’ Mark. You hear?

But what if he –?

She put her hand up with her palms faced outward. I don’t wanna hear it. You just behave. Y’all behave. Momma’ll bring back sumpthin’ nice fo’ y’all!

Yes, ma’am, Otto said.

She would leave and return the next morning with all sorts of goodies sticking something in each brown lunch bag while hastening them off for the school bus. At lunch or on break they would have something extra to eat. They would all take the same school bus that would take them to their nearby schools.

On the last night of Sally Ann’s life, she got dressed as usual upstairs in her bedroom. She had gone over Mark’s homework and put her initials on the right upper hand corner of each page to let the teacher know that she had checked it. It was the week before Christmas and a Christmas tree was already in place. Sally Ann got a boyfriend to help her pick up the tree and set it in a metal stand left by the family, the Petersons, who previously lived there. They had rented this place from the superior court judge and sublet it to Sally Ann.

While getting dressed for her date that evening she had taken off her high school ring to lotion her hands, legs, and feet. She certainly did not want to go out with ashy appendages. Earlier in the day Sally Ann had movers move a piano into her room. She had desired to give the children a musical education, and felt as though her room would be the best place to keep the instrument. Sally Ann had mistakenly knocked the ring off on to the floor of her boudoir. Unintentionally, the movers rolled right over it, crushing the green emerald stone. There were the initials on it: S.A.E. Later, in the evening she picked it up from the floor.

What’s up, Momma?

They shattered my ring. The moving people have shattered my ring, she said, but she looked up and was all smiles again. But at least, I still love you, and you are not broken up. She then put the ring on her chain and put it around her neck. The inscription read: Clemmons County High School, Class of 1982.

Maybe you can have it fixed? Mark asked innocently.

Maybe I can. But some things don’t need to be fixed. They need to remain the way they are. You’ll understand someday. Sally Ann proceeded to get ready for her special date. Whoever this gentleman might be, he never came to the door. Sally Ann would go down the walk and meet him at the road. He remained anonymous to the children; they only knew that he drove a huge burgundy truck and she usually came back after they had gone to bed.

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The funeral was one of those closed-casket deals. The social worker had done an excellent job in determining the whereabouts of the fathers of all of Sally Ann Ellington’s children. Derrick Ames was yet in prison. Johannes Mueller was living in Heidelberg owning a Volvo dealership and heavily involved in the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands. Lance Mark Hope was representing the State Department and was a diplomat in Italy. He was settling down with another young family and a new, young wife. Richard Guthrie was found living with his legitimate family and he steadfastly refused to have anything to do with either Emma, now six, or Summer, four.

With the funeral over, the children were rushed into white vans and hustled up to the offices of the local Department of Family and Children’s Services. Mrs. Brenda Whitehead, who asked the children to call her Brenda, had them seated around a long conference table in the department’s office. She seemed to be a bundle of energy; most of the time she remained seated next to Thelma Lou. She listened, attempting to gain some insight on the fate of herself and each of her siblings. She and Grace, the eldest children, were going to be sent to different homes. It was supposed to be at best a tentative arrangement. Otto and Princess would be put up for adoption. Being fair complected they were theoretically more adoptable.

All the playthings of the Ellington children were lumped up in few plastic bags in the corner of the office. And clothes were taken from the home and folded and packed away for each new caretaker to carry with