The Genie in Ferry Park: An Odyssey

By William H. White

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."

In a long life, much of it devoted to his fellow man Darrell Manley had experienced more than his share of soul searching

3:00 AM vigils. But haven't we all at one time or another?

That is, found ourselves in these days of unequalled change, often questioned our own roles and purpose in the chaotic scheme of things? Like so many of us, Manley too, gropes through a world in constant flux. Like us, inevitably showered with such a richness of questionsand poverty of answers! Many may answer life's call by simply fleeing for answers to yoga, meditation, the mall, even Monday night football for consolation. For Darrell Manley, relief came in an entirely different package.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503572935

William H. White

Author William White refers to himself as a blatant curmudgeon much like his protagonist in "Genie." His many years as a humanist celebrant or counselor may indicate otherwise. For example, officiating at weddings, memorials, hole-in-one ceremonies, and other important Homo sapiens rituals. He and wife, Isabel (Bell), have resided in North Florida for four decades. Also like Darrell Manning, with some adjustment difficulties he hopes to overcome eventually. "Hope's Fool," an earlier work by White, was written as the millennium rolled in, and he's quick to comment that it could have been written last week. Events flash by in a blur, he says, and people tend to leave heel marks across the pages of time. In "Genie" he's spun a tale reflecting this strength and vulnerability.

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Copyright © 2015 by William H. White.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015908312

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-7295-9

                Softcover        978-1-5035-7294-2

                eBook             978-1-5035-7293-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/24/2015

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

SO DARRELL’S JOURNEY WITH THE GENIE IN FERRY PARK IS SET IN MOTION

DEDICATION

Why search for magic in your life? It’s already there! Enjoy the day to day beauty around you and within you, because life itself is magic. Each of us with our ration of twenty-four hours to frolic in the web of nature we’re such a fundamental part of. Treasure that magical life force within us, the core of our very being.

So this little book is offered up lovingly to my family. The dear souls of my heart, nurturers of my own life force over all those days and years. To my precious Bell, and our four awesome offspring. The eight gorgeous grandkids they presented us with as our little tribe grew. May all their spirits flourish in life’s abundance of gifts and challenges. Never overlooking, of course, another charming little lady. Now a great grandchild arriving so recently on the planetary scene.

Let’s name drop! :- Susan, Kathryn, Janet, Victor. Theirs:- Michael, Christina. Kyle, Lyndsey. Tiffany. Myles, Trevor, Ashley. And the recently welcomed in - Mia.

So this little story, hardly adequate to the purpose, is simply my way of thanking each and every one of you for making my life a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I can only hope all of you, each in your own way, will exemplify the title of that old Frankie Lane song. (Please don’t ask me who Frankie Lane was) Just Live ’til You Die.

With great affection

BILL \()/

Nothing else sounded like that. Nothing!

Just two things Darrell really detested on these prison visits. That feeling of being suspended when the grating behind him slowly slid shut to allow the one a few steps ahead to begin sliding open. That teeth grating crunch of steel across steel! He’d been told it was mainly the older joints still had those huge, sliding doors. But maybe even worse was the now fading echo of endless prison clatter and jabber.

Nope, he wouldn’t be missing any of it, Darrell thought, the sound of his own footsteps rattling along the sterile hallway that led out to the last confinement door. Hell no, he sure wouldn’t! Still he had to admit there was a tinge of sadness hanging over this, his last walk, as well.

Forget it he figured, who in the joint wouldn’t give their left nut to be joining Darrell today going over the wall? Including the keepers! Coronaries had become an occupational hazard in corrections now, and he felt a little ashamed for chuckling to himself over the thought.

Officers Cleery and Shaw were on reception. It had been Shaw, the older of the two, who’d given him such a ration of shit that first time Darrell brought his little recorder into the institution. Shaw spotted the tiny instrument in Darrell’s shirt pocket right off and made him remove it to the tray. Luckily, as it turned out, his partner Cleery had read Warden Johnson’s memo making the little machine an exception for the purposes of therapy. It had been hard convincing the warden it wasn’t a phone but simply a small recording device. Finally, with Johnson’s blessings, his little machine morphed into a therapeutic aid. Truth be known, for Darrell it had become a necessity of life as well. He figured it was just one more concession to old age and illness. Sometimes he’d even referred to it humorously as his spare brain.

Anyway he’d only keep the recordings long enough to make notes when he arrived back home. Actually he’d built up a small library of those note books over the years. One for each inmate he’d worked with in the prison chaplain’s office they’d let him use for meetings. Darrell turned down an offer to use the prison library. Mainly because it wasn’t much bigger than a broom closet and comically stocked with ancient cast offs, ranging from Yachting World to Home and Garden and the like. He remembered wondering where all those fabled, prison law libraries he’d heard so much about were hidden away?

Hell it didn’t matter now anyway! Of course when word of his departure got around they’d made him comb through his desk at home and turn all his notebooks in. Even though this knocked the whole privacy thing on its ass, he obediently complied anyway. What did they think? Maybe he’d write a book, even an expose? Seriously? In any event Darrell wished them luck as it was at a point where even he could hardly read his own handwriting! Fortunately for him, a timely technology had come to the rescue letting Darrell fall back on his spare brain more and more each day.

Hey doc!, Cleery called out through the glass while Shaw pretended to study a clipboard packed with notes. Darrell learned to let the doc reference slide. He must have told the young corrections officer a hundred times he wasn’t a doc. Just a worn out and creepy old counselor. Professional pal. A Talker. Helper. Certainly not the deep healer of disturbed souls he’d once intended to be. Clearly the joint was a treasury of troubled souls. Both keepers and kept.

Hi John! he returned the cheery greeting. He’d always liked the younger guy. For one thing it seemed cheer nowadays, especially youthful cheer, was in such short supply. Like virtually everything else in life, Darrell had given it a lot of thought. What he’d sadly concluded, the Millenials, including his own grandkids, had fallen into a kind of lost generation" abyss. Not like earlier lost generations, the hipsters or even Hemmingway’s ex-pat crowd lost in Twenties Paris. Darrell had an affinity for both groups, avidly reading all their stuff over the years while his vision permitted, right up until his eyes just got too played out for heavy reading. No, this lost generation of youth were probably more like the poor souls in Porter’s novel Ship of Fools. Loud and proud, and tucked out of sight down in the steerage - likely headed nowhere! Here at the prison much the same. Even staff scrambled to hold onto their jobs, much like everyone else.

You guys get those pay raises yet? Darrell inquired through the glass.

You’ve got to be shitting! the younger officer replied, laughing.

Guess you heard I was checking out, eh? Darrell added.

Yeah. We’ll miss you doc. Gave the place a little class. Those unexpected words were from Shaw who had finally looked up from the clipboard.

You gonna miss us too doc? Cleery asked.

He’ll miss flirting with all our little sociopaths. Right doc? Shaw broke in. Darrell ignored him. Trouble was that’s even what his wife Marie had begun calling the inmates too. Of course she said it just to kid him. On the other hand Shaw, the asshole, was dead serious.

Sure will John. Been heading up here quite a while, haven’t I? Darrell replied. Right now though I just need to get the medics off my ass. They keep telling me how this place is just a little too much heavy lifting for me right now. Or ever! He added to himself.

Wish to hell we were goin’ with you, Shaw said, that flinty stare of his softening a little.

What is it you got doc? the younger one asked. You told me once I think, but all that medical crap’s Greek to me

Me too, Darrel laughed. What don’t I got? Mushy heart. Paper lungs. Whole damned body’s just gone squishy on me

Squishy huh?, Shaw echoed.

Yeah squishy. So let’s crank this joint open for me okay? Way past my nap time

The outside door buzzed open.

So long Doctor Manley, they both called after him but Darrell didn’t glance back until he was well across the lot to his old Honda. Probably shouldn’t look back he mused. Might turn into a salt shaker.

He looked back anyway.

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Darrell suffered a wave of nostalgia as he drove, recalling the first time he’d traveled this twisty North Florida back road leading up to the sprawling complex of state lock ups. Those days it simply petered out in the piney woods. Just a ribbon of flying gravel and grit is all there was to it back then. When he’d first caught sight of the prison he recalled marveling how the flowing curtain of pines seemed somehow to soften the concrete buildings themselves. Made them seem almost welcoming! Almost homey he’d thought, not yet being exposed to the mental and audible wails stifled within those hard walls.

Early on Darrell noticed many of the logs and documentation done by the keepers were often every bit as skewed toward exaggeration and mental aberrations as the kept. Yet all sung to old social refrain of jobs, jobs, jobs that kept everything and everyone in lockstep. Mutual survival. Everyone covered their asses, and for that matter gruesome boarding facilities such as this one played a key role in the economic life blood of many North Florida communities.

To hell with it!

The ancient Honda had unfailingly cranked up like the old friend it was. Once more whisking Darrell down the nine mile stretch of woods back to the Interstate. Removing the little recorder from his pocket, he placed it on the seat beside him. A familiar voice drifted up as he drove.

Man I love him. That’s all there is to it!

Rene’s unmistakable, French Canadian whine wafted up, blending into the whirr of tires on asphalt. The stocky, little frog in his primo "love lost" mode. Rene droned on in that jealous, no insanely jealous patois! Decibels soaring in an endless stream of curses directed at his lover Alex. Despite the lock up’s obvious hurdles, the two had been almost inseparable, constantly linked up for over a year now. That was until the state decided, during one of their nonstop economy pushes, to split dorms up. Of course this supposedly allowed them to pile in more prisoners to meet ever growing demands. It wasn’t actually a physical split. They simply inserted an iron mesh divider, much like a hurricane fence with no top, smack down the center of each bay.

This new dynamic left Rene and Alex still almost within arms reach of each other, except now Rene could only look on helplessly as the love of his life succumbed to new interests.

Darrell had worked with the two black youths almost all that year, and it quickly became clear to him only Alex had even the remotest shot at a future. Yes, Alex would have much bigger fish to fry for sure. Along with this truth came an equally clear perception should Darrell return to the institution twenty years down the line, he’d undoubtedly run into Rene out there in the lock-up kitchen still scrubbing and peeling.