Independence Blues

By W. B. Garvey

A vivid chronicle of an immigrant family challenged by the contradictions of the American Dream. In 1939, Emerson Gardner, a successful Jamaican pharmacist and aspiring doctor, crosses class and social lines and marries Madeline Jans, a free-spirited pediatric nurse risen from poverty. In 1946, the childl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonkro Books
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9780982229491

W. B. Garvey

W. B. Garvey is a relative of the Jamaican National Hero, Marcus Garvey and the author of the critically acclaimed historical novel PANAMA FEVER: DIGGING DOWN GOLD MOUNTAIN. While going through his father's papers, Garvey learned that his grandfather had been a railroad engineer on the construction of the Panama Canal, sparking years of research that led to his two related historical novels, PANAMA FEVER and WHITE GOLD. Garvey is an honors graduate of the University of Southern California and has lived in Los Angeles, Kingston Jamaica and London England. He now lives and writes in New York City.

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Copyright 2021 by W.B. Garvey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means now known or hereafter developed, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or in an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of factual information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any such errors are unintentional.

First printing 2021

ISBN 978-0-9822294-9-1

Independence Blues is published by Jonkro Books, LLC, 1008 W. Allen St., Phoenix, AZ 85041.

For information please email [e-mail]

Cover design by Sheer Design and Typsetting

www.jonkrobooks.com

For my son

INDEPENDENCE BLUES

On a hot New Mexico desert in 1963 I discovered my mother was a champion fighter. I was nine that scorching midsummer day, stuck on a patch of black asphalt, sipping a cold orange pop alongside my father, watching the world turn cockeyed. It had not yet dawned on me, as we pulled off the highway and up to the bright pink motel in our pale-green push-button Valiant my father claims he bought so my mother would have a fancy new car to drive back home on their island, that we had crossed into hostile territory.

Roll, I said! You’re not kneading dough for Mr. Chen-Lee's bullah!

Maddy cut her eyes at the hated ruler confiding its menace like a schoolmate’s grin or the dreaded tamarind switch. Thwack! Her stung fingers went skating; blind feet on a startled crab, but her thumb kept hold of the violin.

No jerking the wrist! Tuck in that elbow!

A harsh tooth drew blood, moistening her pouting lip. Too late.

Stop with the crocodile tears! Try again!

Rebel eye-water clouding her eyes, Maddy took a second stab at the impossible scale. Out squeaked more spine-shrinking notes.

Jehovah! Yuh deaf or what? Look—‌yuh even have poor Charlie runnin’ from yuh!

The frail girl sucked up her sniffles in time to see the small green lizard scoot from his favorite sun-drenched spot on the windowsill.

The despised ruler flashed, landing another stinger.

Pay attention! How yuh expect to learn if yuh can’t even concentrate?

Yuh de one seh look ’pon Charlie!

No back-talking the teacher!

Yunnot a teacha—‌yuh jus’ mi bruddah! Ten-year-old Maddy taunted her tormentor with a spearing pink tongue.

The older boy smiled in contempt. Better drop that quashie rudeness—‌Little Miss Big Head!

"Don’t you call me that!"

The ruler sliced down with quickened vengeance but instead of flesh it encountered a stick that promptly struck the floor with a heart-stopping crick! His grown-man’s face creasing in horror, her brother stooped to rescue the injured bow, his breath stopped as he stood and gingerly unwound its silver screw. The black frog sank from the drooping horsehairs like bait on a fishing-rod.

You crazy stupid gal—‌you broke my bow!

Not me break it—‌you the one hit it with your ruler! There would be hell to pay and Madeline wanted the record set straight.

I never should try teach a nincompoop! her distraught brother huffed. This is a fine musician’s bow—‌it cost plenty!

Then yuh shuddena bruck it, she countered logically, before ducking a reproachful fist.

Liar! You tryin’ to make like it’s not you break it?

Is de truit!

Is not!

Is so!

The teenaged bean-pole drew up like an offended country constable. We’ll see about this when Miss Dora gets home.

The surprise threat tore through Maddy’s vaunted resistance. Her assurance snuffed out, she stood forlorn as Mason snatched his violin and haughtily set it inside its case. She had fought her fears from those first stressful lessons when her best friend suddenly mutated into a sadistic dictator—‌smack! if her thumb was too high, whack! if her hand wasn’t cupped like an umbrella. She was fed up with him and his blasted ruler. Not that the slaps hurt all that much—‌it was just so frustrating! She would finally manage to tuck the violin the right way under her chin, point her full-sized head at the music, then spot the hated ruler and feel her mind go blank. Her brother claimed he only slapped her hand to help her remember. Well, she remembered all right—‌every unjust blow!

Mason—  she whispered, I’m really sorry about your bow. Her voice was earnest because it was true. She hadn’t meant to flinch, any more than she expected her fingers to be so clumsy. If she had known he would make her feel so hopelessly incompetent, she never would have begged him to teach her to play the rotten violin. It was an accident, she persisted weakly, the thunder in her eardrums rising as he continued to ignore her. What? Yuh leavin’ it there—‌like that? she cried, as her brother arranged the loose-haired bow on the balsawood stand with a lawyer’s cold-eyed care—‌Exhibit A for the prosecution. Yuh not gonna try fix it?

Mason’s disdain cut like a razor. That’s not some limb off a breadfruit tree, you ninny. It takes special wood from Brazil to make a bow like that.

It’s just a little split along the top. Maybe we could glue it back— 

Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Mason sneered at her from under the crown of black curly hair he took pride in parting down the middle then pomading flat against his large square skull. "You don’t have a clue, do you? We can’t ‘glue it back.’ That bow was made in Italy, he explained, sniffing the air to remind his little sister of her burdensome ignorance. You need an expert to fix it properly. How many experts do you expect we’ll find on our Lilliputian island?"

Madeline chewed inside her lip and tasted blood. She hated being ridiculed and especially her brother’s recent delight in confounding her with words like ‘Lilliputian.’ You sure an expert made it? Maybe somebody was just foolin’ you!

Mason threw up his hands. I give up. You can’t enlighten a nitwit.

I’m not a nitwit!

Then stop behaving like one!

Maddy rethought her strategy. Normally, after the hour of mutual torment, all would be forgiven; Mason would take her to the nearby Chinese shop and buy them each a half-penny bullah and a packet of new sugar. Best friends again, they would hike down to Stinking-Toe Gully then sit touching knees on the tumor bulging from the trunk of a jackfruit tree while she complained about her latest ordeal with the mean girls at school, her patient brother nodding in sympathy while he cut holes in the semi-sweet buns and squeezed in the thick black syrup. The comforting ritual never varied. Mason was a stickler for regularity.

Are we still going to Mr. Chen-Lee’s? No sooner had the plea escaped her lips than Maddy squirmed, knowing that the words she hoped would magically set things right only made her sound like an even bigger saphead.

You’re really something else, you know that? You think you’re getting off scot free for this? You’re getting a whipping for sure!

Fleeing through tears, Maddy rushed out to the sunken front porch and plopped down on the bottom step, her frail chest heaving. She could not believe her brother was being so horrid. The perilous number of times she risked a hiding for answering back or acting uncouth, Mason had always stepped in to save her. Not like her laba-laba sister, who never failed to seize her most vulnerable moments to remind Miss Dora of the scars she had imprinted on her older daughter for far less abominable conduct. She sulked, her tight throat convulsed with hiccups, watching Charlie Chaplin hop from the porch’s rain-stripped railing and light on her shoulder. You’d never call me that hurtful name, would you, Charlie? she grumbled, running a sullen finger across her playmate’s bumped skin. Mason’s betrayal had shaken her deeply. She could bear the dreaded tamarind switch. What she never could bear was her brother’s contempt.

For all the attention and rare tenderness she sensed in her earliest memories of Miss Dora, Mason was the one she remembered always being there when she opened her eyes. Precisely when the sickness took over her body she had been too little to recall. Little enough that Miss Dora, at four-foot-ten, could wrap her in a blanket and carry her through the miles-long shades of Golgotha to rouse Dr. Joseph who took one look at the motionless child with flesh hot as fire and grimly prescribed an ice-cooled bath and a bracing passage from Job.

Precious monies tucked away for special occasions were spent on a custom-made coffin, but while the tiny silk-lined box gathered dust, Maddy’s red and white army mobilized every cell and corpuscle. The battle expected to last scarcely a week dragged on into months. Her stagnant days shrouded in a fog made memory an incomplete quilt of lucid patches her mind clung to like bursts of cheering sunshine. It was then, during those reviving moments, that her eyes would draw open and find Mason, his face pained as he whispered, fight on, Maddy, fight!

Month after month they prayed, the good Christian ladies who came each Sunday afternoon to lay on hands and softly press the tiny struggling chest; their voices, restored by Miss Dora’s pineapple cake and mint tea, grown thick with hymns and bombastic devotion—‌‘sweet Jesus, heavenly Father! See how this innocent child is fighting! Do, Lord, grant us our miracle!’ An anguished year passed and, as faith gave ground to bush-teas and fruitless elixirs, the visits receded along with Miss Dora’s dwindling stock of butter and flour. Then, just when they had closed the book on Kings and turned back to stoic Job, little Maddy began to recover. Amazed, but loath to seem apostate, the re-gathered faithful claimed never to have wavered. They had known all along their intercessions would find His Favor once the Good Lord saw fit. But when the three-year-old’s fickle consciousness no longer faded inside flaring fevers, it was Mason’s big grin that Madeline recognized and smiled at peacefully through her sweat-cooled cheeks.

Look, I’m sorry—‌I rully am—‌it ain’t up to us— 

But your sign says ‘vacancy’ … 

The redhead with the fake eyelashes made her spearmint gum go pop! and avoided my mother’s glare to wink down at me with a phony grin. Aren’t you a cute little goober, she cooed. I’d take you in a heartbeat, only my boss would fire me fer shure. She snapped the Wrigley’s with a shrug poised between chagrin and self-pity. Like I said—‌it’s motel policy.

Picture a volcano, looming ‌about five foot two, ‌erupting. That’s unacceptable!

Two frozen stares and a snap-free gum.

Do you have any notion as to whom you are speaking?

My mother’s verbal brimstone was like a bath in molten lava.

The gum-chewer’s sidekick, a jittery snow-white brunette, summoned her nerve and joined the cause. Listen, lady— 

No, you listen! Returning fire, Mom kept the two of them locked in her sights while she called for backup. Tell them, Emerson. What they’re doing is against the law. She ignored my father’s nudge as he muttered, it’s all right, Madeline, let’s just go— 

No. It’s not all right!

My father turned from the desk with a weary look and tugged my elbow.

You thirsty? I saw a Coke machine out in the parking lot.

Trust my dad to drag me away just as the standoff was coming to a head. It baffled me that he wanted to retreat and I decided his brain must be fogged from all the driving because a sugar-laden pop was not something he would let me drink were he in charge of his faculties. My throat could be as parched as the New Mexico desert, but no matter how hard I pleaded that the water at those rest-stops tasted like cat pee, and besides it wasn’t even cold, he would calmly reply that there was only one cure for thirst and it was plain old H two O. I knew that dehydration could make you crazy, so as we turned to leave the air-conditioned office and wander back out to bake at a hundred and fourteen degrees, I feared that before the day was over the three of us would be stark-mad, sunstruck zombies. He changed his mind and sent me back inside while he went to the car to hunt up some change. I remember staring across the parking lot of that crummy motel past the deserted highway and perceiving nothing but miles and miles of sand.

To be honest, my dad seemed less confused than defeated. We had been on the road since daybreak, but I sensed he wished we had kept on going. I could hear his brain-wheels straining for a peaceful solution and bumping against my mother’s lust for combat. The way he viewed things, lecturing two dim-witted motel clerks about President Kennedy’s civil rights bill was not going to get us a shower and beds for the night. Weary travelers stuck in a hostile land don’t call for war, they seek appeasement.

I felt as if I’d stumbled into one of those Western reruns; the part where the hero has just been exiled to the badlands on account of a crime he did not commit. And then it hit me—‌how I saw myself was actually a mirage. It made no difference that my teachers thought I was ‘gifted;’ it did not matter that I was proficient on two instruments and a minor hero at my cross-town school for replacing the Christmas program’s typical piano-student offering of Für Elise or Jingle Bells with Leroy Anderson’s jaunty Sleigh Ride. No one cared that I was leaving my best friends forever, even Shayla, the strong honey-brown girl I had planned to marry until my father explained ‘becoming winsome’ meant my oldest playmate was too grown-up to wrestle. In a world that unfair, it amounted to less than a hill of beans that my throat was coated with half the dust in Arizona and I was starving and sore from eleven hours cramped in the back of a Plymouth Valiant beside my parents’ piled-up possessions. I was stuck on a desert in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and worth less than a savage.

My mother was still blasting the poor receptionists. Having set their ears on fire with a salvo that ranged from Executive Orders to Interstate Commerce, she shifted her attack, and with a look used for a small disobedient child, told the one anxiously smacking her Wrigley’s that she wished to speak with the motel’s owner. Fine. If he’s not here, I suggest you call him. Now!

The redhead, her green eyes hopping from Snow White then back to the telephone, blushed the color of her French-rolled hair and nearly choked on her gum. She had clearly never gone nose to nose with a woman like my mother and from the look on her face seemed to be trying to decide if this primly-dressed gal tying her brain up in knots practiced hoodoo. She cast my mother a timid glance and grabbed for the receiver.

My dad held up two bottled orange pops and like a lily-livered traitor I shuffled out to join him. Thirst and my mother’s tirade had left me shell-shocked, so I said not a word as we leaned against the Valiant’s bug-splashed fender to drink it all in. Slurping the ice cold soda, I tried to imagine what would happen if we were stranded here at sundown. All I could think was either none of this was real, or my parents had both gone loopy. I mean, who in their right minds would leave their friends and a perfectly good house in L.A. to be outcasts in the desert? I felt a glimmer of hope seeing my mother stride out of the motel door, only for it to fade when she ignored my dad’s feeble pleas and stalked to the payphone by the soda machine.

If, at the time, I was conscious of the mesas in the forsaken distance waiting to reveal themselves in the blood-light I don’t recall. Eventually, those immovable shrines for displaced gods would help mend my perspective, but back then what tore at my gut was how bad I felt for my father. I found it pretty pitiful of him to leave my mother to fight our battle. It was the journey’s first lesson and while I had just begun to grasp bits and pieces of this puzzling new existence, all I knew was that my father, the esteemed Emerson Gardner, who could explain Kepler’s Law and expound on Gandhi, Socrates and Tirhakah, was a coward.

Seeing Adrianna’s glee as she dashed to cut their mother a whip, Maddy told herself that no matter how much it hurt, she was not going to cry. Two years had passed since the day she had fended off Mason’s ruler and ended up breaking his bow, and although that was not the last time Miss Dora had warned her about her behavior, she had always escaped the dreaded switch, her bout with death having earned her a lifetime of saving bells.

It wasn’t really her fault … the way it broke was just bad lucky … 

Miss Dora had already gripped the branch from her well-pruned tamarind tree when Mason glimpsed the terror on his sister’s face and changed his tune. That he was lying to save her skin had been as plain as the remorse filming his eyes, but the costly bow had been broken and their mother firmly believed that a child who suffers for youthful mistakes will have fewer regrets when grown. After reminding her children it was a sin to bear false witness, Miss Dora had ordered Mason to drop his trousers and touch his toes. Maddy had bawled the whole time she salved his shredded bottom with beeswax and plantain-leaf, then banished herself to bed without supper to weep into her pillow.

Adrianna returned with a branch so green it quivered and Maddy could hear her smirking sister thinking, ‘Mason isn’t here to save Little Miss Big Head this time!’ She firmed her back, urging her knees not to fail her.

You mean you’re not gonna beat her—‌again? Adrianna’s eager look turned to rage seeing Miss Dora grasp the quivering switch and set it aside.

With all the rumpus, I wasn’t watching the time. I need you to help me in the kitchen. Mr. Jans will be here shortly.

"She never gets punished! Adrianna pointed to the soiled blouse slopping out of Maddy’s ripped skirt. You’d tear the skin off my legs if I came home looking like that!"

That’s enough! We’ll deal with your sister after dinner.

Crouching behind Miss Dora, Maddy stuck a thumb in her ear and waggled her fingers at Adrianna who aimed her a glare that declared if a look could kill she’d be dead.

That’s what you always say! You know Mr. Jans will let the disgusting little monkey off with just a talking-to!

Curb that tongue, young lady, or I’ll save you some licks! Now march yourself into the kitchen and grate me some coconut.

Her short-lived happiness now a salted wound, Adrianna stamped off in a rage and Dora turned wearily towards her youngest. Maddy, you can’t be brawling with boys.

Potty is the one who— 

Not one word! Miss Dora’s glower stifled all excuses. Go wash up yuhself, then set the table. We’ll finish this when Mr. Jans gets here.

Now that Mason’s apprenticeship with the railway had him living halfway across the island, Mr. Jans’ bimonthly visits seemed fated to leave serious carnage in their wake. The custom had gone on peacefully for years, but with puberty’s onset finally rousing little Maddy’s dormant hormones, Dora feared that the contest for Mr. Jans’ affections was on the verge of turning her daughters’ verbal snipes into family-rending eruptions.

Madeline seems to think she can hide behind that innocent look to run roughshod over people and get her own way—‌and I know the samfie charmer she gets it from.

If instead of halting his fork at Miss Dora’s jibe with a contrite look Mr. Jans had detected the sparkle in her hard gray eyes, he would have waited until the girls were asleep and swept her into his arms. So many times she had wished he would read her mind and slip through her defenses, more than that once since her desperate pact with God. The Lord had kept His bargain and spared her child, but that old devil temptation still churned inside whenever she drew close to the man her body and soul never stopped loving.

Don’t tell me our Little Miss Big Head has been up to more trouble.

Maddy shied from Mr. Jans’ blithe smile and gazed stonily down at her plate.

Trouble? blurted Adrianna, her knife and fork gripped with rage. That’s all she’s ever been! Trouble and boderation!

Miss Dora glared at her outraged daughter. Excuse me, Mr. Jans and I were conversing! Do you need a whipping to remember that children are to be seen and not heard unless spoken to?

I’m not a child, ‌I’m almost sixteen!

Then it’s time you set your sister a better example.

Maddy hid her face with her hand and squashed her snigger. No matter how hard she tried to get her into hot water, Adrianna was always the one who ended up getting scalded.

Yuh find something funny?

The ice in her mother’s tone chilled her amusement. No’m.

Good. Now tell Mr. Jans what you’ve done. I’ll let him decide on your punishment.

Even though their neighbors rightly presumed that Mr. Jans had fathered Miss Dora’s three children, his place in the household was ambiguous. In Maddy’s eyes he was more a benevolent uncle than a father. With Mason away in the country, she would be lost if her only advocate sided with the prosecution.

Right then, let’s hear it, Mr. Jans coaxed her kindly. What mischief has made my little Maddy want to bury her head?

She’s upset about her stupid lizard, Adrianna finally broke in when her sister sat in silent misery.

One more word and you’ll be tasting that switch! hissed Miss Dora, shifting her annoyance with Mr. Jans onto her daughter who flung down her serviette and rushed from the table. Dora gave the fifteen-year-old’s departing back a glower that said, ‘you’ll pay for this later’ then calmly continued. Maddy went next door looking for Charlie and caught the Pottinger boy trying to stone him. Instead of just telling him to stop, your little hellion butts the poor boy in his stomach and was grabbing up a rock to hit him. Thank goodness Mrs. Pottinger was looking out her window and called her off. The child is growing too wild—‌she needs a man to manage her.

What happened to Charlie? asked Mr. Jans, gliding past the implication.

Miss Dora gave a shrug. "We haven’t seen him since. Madeline thought she found a piece of his tail.

What she did was wrong, but we can’t really blame it all on Maddy, now can we? That Pottinger boy had no business stoning an innocent lizard.

Maddy felt a rush of relief. She judged Mr. Jans’ dissent as meaning to let her mother know that if he was to be the one meting out justice, his verdicts would be fair.

Here I’m trying to raise a Christian young lady and you make excuses for her behavior. What if she had badly hurt that boy? You need to take her in hand. Me one can’t manage two warring hard-ears hellions.

Maddy quailed inside. It would defile their bond if Mr. Jans whipped her for protecting Charlie. Her only pet had barely been born when she found him on her bedroom floor, dazed from a fall. When the teeny lizard did not move at her cautious poke, she hid him inside a shoe-box and fed him bugs and torn up leaves fetched from the garden. Even after he had recovered and jumped for his freedom they remained companions. When she and Mason could not agree on what to call him she had asked Mr. Jans and he had said, ‘how about Charlie?’ Her silly eight-year-old brain had forgotten all about their secret and with Miss Dora sitting right there exclaimed, ‘Oh yes! Let’s call him Charlie Chaplin—‌like that funny little man at the moving pictures!’ Mr. Jans had absorbed chapter and verse of Miss Dora’s Old Testament fury and won a place in Maddy’s heart forever and ever.

As soon as she stepped back out of our car with her brushed-up hair and fresh lipstick I knew my mother was ready to rumble. Though she was only two spins around the sun short of fifty, as she stood smoothing her light cotton dress around her hourglass frame she could pass for a deeply tanned movie star.

My father cast her a tired look as he returned with our empty pop bottles, having failed to charm the redhead into giving us water. You’re not going to change them.

Emerson, they’re breaking the law.

No they’re not. We may find it reprehensible, but what they’re doing is perfectly legal.

Wrong, Dr. Gardner! my mother crowed, as if announcing ‘checkmate.’ Didn’t you see where they hung their sign?

I followed her finger to the giant billboard that said BUY AMERICAN in blue and red letters, then noticed the pink-lettered green sign right beside it urging travelers to the Amity Motel. That’s on an interstate highway, which means it’s on federal property. They are flouting the President.

I could tell my dad was losing his cool to the point where if any hairs remained on his sweat-shined head he would be pulling at every strand. Are we to lounge out here until darkness is upon us so you can debate legal niceties with a couple of high school drop-outs? Just get back in the car and let’s move on—‌your son and I are tired and hungry!

Big mistake. Even at nine, I had sense enough to know that was not the tone to take when Mom was on the warpath.

Typical. You’re worried about your stomach while these people treat you like scum. Well, I won’t stand for it!

Before my dad could get hold of himself for a reasoned comeback, a sun-scarred Volkswagen bug put-putted into the parking lot. A limber young man in a blue Hawaiian shirt and chino shorts hopped out.

Mrs. Gardner?

My mother stroked her brushed up hair as she turned to greet him. That’s me.

Kip Rothschild, Southwestern News.

While she flashed us a ‘told-you-so’ grin, I had my eyes on the reporter’s cool, collected face and wondered what a sun-bronzed surfer was doing living out in the desert.

So good of you to come. This is my husband, Dr. Gardner, and our son.

My father shook the eager copper-toned hand, looking less than impressed.

On the telephone you said you were with the L.A. Times— 

Madeline fluttered a pair of bashful eyelashes. I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear. I’m sure you can understand, considering our stressful situation.

A frown nettled the mellow beachcomber look and I sensed the young reporter losing interest.

"So, you’re not with the Times?"

"Not me personally. I have a friend who covers regional news—‌we met when Governor Brown honored me for my work with California’s Blue Ribbon Commission on improving public education—  She waited until her slightly inflated bona-fides sank in. In fact, I called Max right after we spoke and he’s very interested in letting his readers know what travelers can expect in your town. Having dropped her bait in neatly, she paused for a meek smile before landing her fish. Of course, the Times would love it to be your own story, Mr. Rothschild. Max said that way no one can accuse them of being unbalanced."

Kip snatched the pencil from above his ear and flipped out his notepad. I got a handle on the scene over the phone. How about we fill in some more background?

Egged on by Kip’s solicitous nods, my mother was sharing another highlight of her adapted life story when a dark sedan came roaring up in a cloud of dust and lurched to a stop. The powerful engine went dead and the entire desert seemed to fall silent. No one made a move and, caught in the suspense, I stared at the gold-tipped rattlesnake boots, then the bulging torso straining inside stiff-pressed khakis, and finally the glinting badge that matched the sedan door star and left me shivering. Dad was right—‌we were going to jail!

I’ll be right back, my mother simpered, abandoning Kip with an affectionate hand-pat.

I could see Snow White and Ginger peeking nervously out the office window as I searched for my father and saw that he had gone to sit inside our car. I could tell he was stewing in his juices by the way he was staring through the windshield with both arms locked across his chest. He did not budge as the lawman confronted my mother.

What seems to be the trouble?

"I’m so relieved to see you, Officer! she said compliantly, not batting an eye when the sheriff turned out to be a six-foot-tall Mexican-American with a weightlifter’s build. This establishment needs to be enlightened about the law."

I glanced in time to see