Blue Green

By Gregory N. Whitis

Near the town of Tazewell, on the western edge of the Mississippi Delta, amidst vast fields of cotton and ponds of catfish, twenty-four-year-old Warren Pope manages the Paradise Catfish Farm. He befriends most of the locals and struggles with the Delta's lingering reluctance to cast aside the last remaining vestiges of social injustice. Pope's archnemesis, Chief Deputy Leo Abrams, doesn't appreciate the northern outsider and the two tangle in a suspenseful, action-packed sequence of events that could only happen in the backwood haunts of Mississippi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641381062

Book preview

Acknowledgements

Above all, my parents, Peter and Martha Whitis of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Dad headed up my review team. Between my prehistoric Dell, Dad’s Microsoft-addled Mac running off into some cloud, and 900 miles of fiber optic cable, we got ‘er done. And Mom, for putting up with Dad during the ordeal.

My wife, Karen. The endearing arguments on our back deck, while sipping on Long Island Iced Teas, about the book’s profanities are now funny memories. But Kiddo, I’m not using the profanity, my characters are. This man logic was right up there with needing another implement for my tractor. For you puritans, I used profanity very sparingly in deference to my devoted Lutheran wife.

The rest of my review team-- Aileen Henderson, Anne Weston, Beth Niehoff, Kristie Taylor, Jay Haffner and David Teichert-Coddington. I took Stephen King’s advice-- get six friends who are willing to get in your face and let them read it before sending to an editor. David, I didn’t realize one could get that much red ink out of one pen. Kristie’s creative suggestions cemented its appeal to her gender. And Aileen, my writing mentor. Twenty years ago she encouraged me to write a novel. Special thanks to Pastor Patrick Fertitta of the University Lutheran Church in Tuscaloosa and Jerry Fiest with USDA-Wildlife Services for reviewing select chapters.

My employer, Auburn University, for hiring a goofy Iowan, stationing him in west Alabama for thirty years, and providing the opportunity to meet the players in the U.S. Farm Raised Catfish Industry. We grow an awesome product and I’ll be forever proud, being associated with this shining star in American agriculture.

All the wonderful, dedicated, author-friendly folks at Page Publishing, and in particular, Carl Cook and Gretchen Wills.

This book is dedicated to Jimmy Lee Matthews of Greensboro, Alabama. Jimmy Lee would give a stranger the shirt off his back even if it was his last shirt. His Christian spirit knows no bounds. I promised him, ten years ago, I’d get him a new scooter if this book ever got published. Jimmy Lee, enjoy your new ride!

Chapter One

The mud grips on Warren Pope’s truck hummed as he headed west into the next heat mirage on Mississippi Highway 12. The flat delta road shimmered with wavy blankets of liquefying heat. Dazzling rows of waist-high cotton bordered the gummy blacktop. The bolls were unfolding, revealing tufts of virgin white cotton in the dense, dark-green foliage.

Pope had been up since three in the morning. The plate lunch of greasy meatloaf, black-eyed peas, and turnip greens induced a desperate need for a short nap. Pope caught himself as he nodded off. He adjusted the AC to max and revved up the fan.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he wiggled the two-way radio mic from the steel clip on the dashboard and pushed the side button.

Paradise One to Base.

Stoney Ellis, assistant manager for the Paradise Catfish Farm, answered.

Go ahead, Paradise One.

Should be there in ten minutes. I need Slim to detail my truck this afternoon.

Ten four on that, Paradise One.

Everything OK? Warren Pope asked.

Something’s up with Odie. He took off in a hurry after getting a phone call from his sister, Stoney replied.

Warren thought for a moment before acknowledging. Odie was the first employee he had hired. His work ethic was unmatched. He lived to work.

Ten four. You tried getting him on the radio?

Yes, sir. Negative contact.

OK, be there in a few. Warren returned the mic to the dashboard clip. He rubbed the stubble on his chin.

Stoney reached into his mail slot and quickly thumbed through the short stack of junk mail, and tossed it in the wastebasket.

He retrieved a Victoria’s Secret catalog out of the can and leaned back in the office chair. It squeaked as it adjusted to his weight. The chair was rated for two hundred and fifty pounds, and it was maxed out. Stoney’s daily diet of full-strength Mountain Dews and Hostess cupcakes almost guaranteed an eventual and catastrophic breakdown from metal fatigue.

Stoney flipped through the glossy pages of half-naked young women. He was in his forties. He was married, barely, having been thrown out of the house so many times he lost count.

Stoney remembered why the boss wanted Slim to detail his truck. The boss was going out with his girl that night up at the university. He recalled seeing the picture of Warren’s girlfriend clipped to the truck visor. She was drop-dead gorgeous. She looked like the woman on page thirteen.

Stoney gazed at a picture of a woman in her twenties, a tall, trim, dark brunette wearing a hot pink teddy. Her long, shiny black hair flowed down to her chest.

As Warren Pope made his way back to the farm, he thought about his girlfriend, Miranda. They were going to a Jimmy Buffett concert at Old Miss. He tried to remember where Boyd Hall was on the sprawling campus. He desperately needed a nap while Slim detailed his truck. Warren looked up at Miranda’s picture on his visor. He rubbed his eyes and reached for the bottle of Visine in the clean ashtray.

The almost soundproof interior of the new 1993 Ford F250 pickup, the custom Bose sound system pumping out the carefree tunes of Bob Marley, isolated Pope from the shrill whelps of the Delta River ambulance behind him. When the word AMBULANCE filled his rearview mirror he realized he was in the way. He put on his right blinker, braked, and turned onto the next gravel road.

The ambulance turned too.

Warren stared into the rearview and then the left mirror. The obviously agitated medic mouthed something and slapped the steering wheel. Pope moved to the far right side of the narrow road. The ambulance roared past him, leaving behind clouds of red dust mixed with black diesel smoke.

The road was a dead end. At the end was the Paradise Catfish Farm. Pope felt a sense of foreboding. There was one residence on the road and he knew the old man who lived there—Jake Cotton Harper. Cotton Harper was Odie’s father. He had terminal brain cancer.

Pope remembered meeting Odie’s father for the first time when he hired Odie. The old man made a lasting impression on Warren. The firm handshake and steady eye exchange, leading to a solid pat on the back before parting that afternoon, started a friendship despite the vast difference in age. Warren would drop in from time to time, checking on Cotton. The old man was trying to master the satellite system for the television and Warren had been helpful. Cotton kept him supplied with home-grown sweet potatoes.

Odie had brought his father home last week from Jackson Hospital to die in the same shotgun shack he was born in, ninety-two years ago.

The Harper yard was full of chaotically parked vehicles. One of the cars, a dark-green Ford Taurus with US Government plates, was parked with an open driver’s door. A purse was tipped over on the passenger seat. A compact mirror, several tubes of lipstick, and a checkbook were strewn on the floorboard in front of the passenger seat.

Warren parked next to the mailbox. The only sound was the ambulance’s rumbling diesel engine and the occasional radio chatter from headquarters in Greenville. The ambulance was backed up to a rickety, sagging front porch. The shack, built in 1901 out of rough-sawn cypress boards, listed on one side, its crumbling foundation perpetually shifting as the gumbo clay contracted and swelled. Next to the porch a shiny eight-foot satellite dish pointed southward into the sky. A solitary kudzu vine was wrapped around the rusted support pipe. It would eventually strangle the mechanism that moved the dish from satellite to satellite. On the porch, a tattered jute welcome mat was askew, no longer in front of the doorway. Above the door, a wooden oxbow with the burned initials JH rested on two handmade iron pegs.

Warren heard Odie’s baritone voice in the back of the shack.

Odie? Warren said loudly.

Back here, Mr. Warren, Odie replied.

Warren found the shack’s single bedroom.

Odie’s two sisters, Hattie and Beatrice, were sitting in wicker chairs next to the double bed, sobbing and holding hands. Odie was on his knees next to the bed, tears streaking down his rounded face. He looked up at Warren and tried to say something.

Odie’s lips trembled.

Warren’s voice cracked as the emotion of the moment welled up inside of him.

I’m so sorry, Odie.

Daddy’s gone, Odie said, wiping away a tear.

Mr. Jake Harper had just died. A white sheet was pulled up to the man’s sinewy neck. The face resembled a skeleton: wrinkled, deeply cracked ebony skin pulled tight across prominent cheekbones. Large brown eyes were still wide open and rolled backward, seemingly fixed in an upward gaze at the framed picture of Jesus looking down. His mouth gaped open. The expression on the dead man’s face was unmistakable. He died gasping for air.

God, we didn’t want Daddy dying like that. Odie sighed.

Odie’s younger sister, Hattie, sobbed. He wasn’t in any pain but when he couldn’t breathe he looked at us and gasped. Oh, it was terrible. Just terrible.

Odie regained his composure and sat down.

It was like he wanted to die, but his body fought for life. The doctor said the cancer might finally move into the part that controls the breathing, and the outcome could be very discomforting.

Discomforting? Hell. He died begging for air, and we couldn’t help him, Odie’s older sister Beatrice said.

She was still smartly buttoned in her National Guard uniform.

Odie added, We called for an ambulance because it was getting too painful to watch. We all hoped and prayed that he would die quietly in his sleep.

Warren helped the two attendants lift the warm limp body onto the bright aluminum gurney. The corpse’s eyes still stared upward. Warren felt lightheaded while staring at the body. He’d never seen a fresh corpse. As a child, he had viewed the pampered remains of distant relatives in funeral homes. Somehow a body lying in a coffin surrounded by flowers made human death more comforting. It was different being minutes away from witnessing someone losing that final spark of life that could never be relit.

Warren wondered why the attendants didn’t close the eyes like in the movies. One of the attendants snapped the sheet over the head and they wheeled the body out. Warren helped get the gurney off the porch. The gurney automatically folded when it struck the bumper of the ambulance and rolled into the back. Each attendant grabbed a door and slammed them shut.

The rest of the Harper family was still inside Cotton’s shack.

One of the attendants, Warren recognized him as the driver, same stubbled, pudgy face with a crew-cut, turned around and wrote down the house number from the mailbox. Warren asked if he could help with some information.

Nah, just need someone to send the bill to.

The obese driver looked at the shack. But then this is probably going to be one of those no-collects. Damn niggers probably don’t have any mon—

Warren Pope’s lightning reflexes never gave the man time to finish. He slugged him so hard in the solar plexus, the man’s knees buckled and he dropped to the ground with a thud, writhing like a snake cut in half. He tried to suck down air—his diaphragm was locked in a spasm.

Warren stood over him. He stared into his face, ready to hit him again if he said something more. The man slowly rose to his feet, gasping. Beads of salty sweat dripped into the fat man’s eyes. Through its stinging haze, he sized up the twenty-four-year-old, a muscular and a lanky six-foot-three kid with the not-from-around-here accent.

Pope’s wide shoulders and trim waistline, well-defined biceps, and muscular forearms added up to more pain for the man.

Warren locked his steely blues on the attendant’s watery eyes. His Midwestern accent sounded somewhat strained, The Harpers aren’t niggers.

The driver looked at him incredulously. He knocked the dirt off his navy blue pants, picked up his NASCAR baseball cap, briskly walked to the driver’s side door, and climbed behind the wheel.

The other attendant, oblivious to the past several minutes, looked at him through the smoky haze of the Marlboro glued to his bottom lip.

You OK?

Shut the fuck up. Lotta help you are. Nigger-loving white boy back there sucker punches me, and you’re up here jacking off.

Marlboro man shrugged his shoulders.

The driver grabbed for the smashed pack of Camels in his shirt pocket, lit one up with the Bic lighter, stored in the center console, and threw the ambulance into drive. He stomped on the gas pedal. Cotton Harper almost slid off the gurney.

The attendant turned around and glanced at the body.

Might want to take it easy. He ain’t strapped in, you know.

Fuck it, the driver said. He exhaled a thick plume of white

smoke.

The Delta River Ambulance roared off down the road.

Pope felt weak standing there by himself in the front yard. The adrenaline rush was wearing off. He was lightheaded again. He couldn’t believe he had lost his temper like that. He hadn’t struck anybody in anger before except for that red-headed school bully in the fifth grade.

What’s happening to me? he said to himself.

Waves of nausea overcame him. He bent over.

Oh crap.

The heaves were gut-wrenching. He vomited his lunch. He kneeled down on both knees, his hands at his hips, and slowly shook his head. He wiped a piece of spittle out of the corner of his mouth with the back of his right hand.

He stared up at the cloudless sky. He thought to himself, All alone. Again.

He contemplated the past several minutes.

He wasn’t the same person who had arrived two years ago from the idyllic and pristine community of Viola, Iowa. Folks back home knew him as the hometown football hero—the quarterback who had brought home two consecutive state championships. Great family. Never got in trouble.

The All-American boy you wished your daughter brought home from college, the editor wrote in the Viola Gazette.

The culture shock of moving to the delta was taking a toll. Hitting the man was a sudden, uncontrolled release of tension. He had never had anger issues. He was going to have to find a better way to vent.

As Warren watched the ambulance disappear in a cloud of dust down the long, dirt road, he heard the surviving Harpers reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

And forgive us our trespasses, the surviving Harpers said in unison.

Warren stood up and wiped the dirt off his knees.

He was feeling better about defending Cotton Harper’s honor.

At this point in Warren’s life, he realized he too could leave a legacy. Changing the delta’s deep-rooted cultural quagmire was probably not feasible in his lifetime. He had never been a quitter in his life. It was late in the fourth quarter, and he was down fifty-five to seven. As a football star, he had led his team to numerous hard-fought victories. He was the underdog in this fight, long odds but not out of the fight completely.

He had defended Cotton Harper’s honor. He wondered if someone, someday, would defend his. He also knew he had crossed the line. There would be retribution. He was a foreigner in a foreign land.

Chapter Two

The osprey flew from its towering roost in the bald cypress spire at the western plug of the Lost Yankee Oxbow, once a prehistoric route for the meandering Mississippi, to the Paradise Catfish Farm, less than a mile away. The raptor’s snow-white chest, black eye patches, and pronounced crook midway along the leading edge of the wings distinguished it from the other hawks. From its vantage point of two hundred feet, the square mile below was laid out in a checkerboard of dirt levees and water. The solitary fish hawk hunted for telltale ripples on the glassy ponds that teemed with channel catfish. These were the farm-raised variety, stocked at a density one hundred times that of Mother Nature’s sleepy backwaters.

Tired pairs of ephemeral mayflies, joined in a final embrace, landed on the quiescent surface and quickly disappeared in a vortex of hungry fish and water. The osprey descended and made several passes over pond fifteen, the clearest of the thirty-six seventeen acre ponds.

Fifteen was so translucent, the grayish catfish were visible several feet down. The other ponds were a mosaic of colors ranging from dark ultramarine to bright yellow green. No two ponds were exactly the same color. Each pond had a unique blend of over fifty different species of algae: blue-greens, greens, yellow-greens, browns, and reds, all in competition for a limited amount of life-sustaining nutrients. And it was this diverse amalgamation of photosynthetic pigments that reflected the intense blistering sunlight on a sweltering August day in the Mississippi Delta.

Pond fifteen’s algal population had crashed the night before. Billions and billions of single-celled plants had starved to death under a full moon. Rivers of catfish jockeyed for position behind partially submerged water pumps resembling dragons of steel. The roaring tractor-powered pumps spewed out surfable currents of oxygenated water. The water had been stripped of natural oxygen due to the mass extermination of the pond’s photosynthetic life system. The domesticated catfish had survived another night of ecological chaos.

When the morning sun crested Winona Hill, fifteen’s water had cleared. The decayed biomass released precious molecules of nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorous. The cycle started again. Scattered planktonic survivors bathed in a nutrient broth responded by reproducing at a Malthusian pace.

The pond’s color would change from week to week as dozens of pigmented algae species competed for scarce resources. It was another round of survival of the fittest among the lowest members of life. By noon the fish had left the life-sustaining machinery, and they were fed their daily pelleted ration of puffed soybeans, ground corn, wheat, and vitamins.

The osprey sighted its watery prey as the pickup crested the main pond levee and stopped several feet from the water’s edge. Warren Pope’s sweaty bare back was momentarily stuck to the vinyl bench seat. The air conditioner was set on max, and the fan whirled on its highest setting.

Pope, without losing sight of the magnificent bird, palmed the objects on his front seat. He felt the trigger guard of his twenty-two caliber Ruger Model 1022 and then groped for his Nikon binoculars. The bird started to hover. It tucked its wings and dropped swiftly. The tail fanned out, twisted slightly, and the bird deftly maneuvered over an unsuspecting catfish. The razor-sharp talons stretched wide open as the bird hit the water. The powerful binoculars brought Pope and beast eye to eye. The bird’s banded yellow iris seemed so close, Pope was frozen in awe. The osprey rose out of the calm water with long powerful wing strokes. In its clutches was a foot-long catfish—its talons buried deep in the firm white flesh. In midflight the osprey pointed the fish forward, one foot behind the other, and tucked the dorsal fin under its snow-white breast. The airborne catfish flew off into the setting orange delta sun. Drops of water from the winged duo shimmered in the sunlight as they fell back into the ponds. The last concentric ripple washed up on the bank in front of Pope’s idling truck.

Pope didn’t mind the almost daily feast by the osprey but was grateful they were by nature, solitary hunters. The catfish in the pond were livestock. His monthly paycheck and year-end bonus depended on their well-being. Pope placed the binoculars back on the seat. He reached for the gray oxygen meter and a pole resting in the gun rack on the rear window.

Pope extended the brown collapsible fishing pole out the driver’s window. Attached to the fiberglass pole with black electrical tape was a pencil-thick cable connected to the oxygen meter. At the other end of the cable was a grayish probe, six inches long. The probe dangled off the end of the pole and then disappeared under the blue-green scum of pond number sixteen. The only noise was the engine’s idling punctuated by the occasional on-and-off clicking of the AC compressor as it struggled to cool off the relentless summer furnace of west Mississippi.

He adjusted several knobs on the oxygen meter and patiently waited as the red needle came to a rest on the centigrade temperature scale. He glanced at the sun-faded centigrade-Fahrenheit conversion chart taped on the back of the meter. The water was ninety-one degrees. He calibrated for an altitude of two hundred feet and waited as the needle paused on the oxygen scale. The meter registered fourteen parts per million. Readings above eight were good. Below four meant he wouldn’t be leaving the farm. He logged it on the nightly oxygen sheet and drove slowly to the next pond.

It wasn’t Warren’s usual night to check oxygen on the farm. He usually had every Friday and Saturday night off. Odie Harper, the regular night man, had been scheduled to work but his father’s death required a period of family leave. Miranda understood when he called her from the farm’s office. Since she had the tickets anyway, she would probably end up taking her homely roommate to the concert instead. After the episode with the ambulance driver and the dreadful death stare on Cotton Harper’s face, he wasn’t in the party mood anyway.

Pope had twenty more ponds to check before the sun set behind the bald cypress stand on the west side of the farm. If all the ponds checked out OK, he planned on going to Bagby’s Diner and take full advantage of the all-you-could-eat seafood buffet. Fried farm-raised catfish from the Paradise Farm was a featured entrée.

Warren folded up the cable and placed the probe pole back on the gun rack. He looked over the dissolved oxygen readings on the night sheet and compared them to the night before. They looked good in comparison and he felt comfortable leaving the farm for an hour or so.

How about some good finger-licking catfish, Warren hummed.

He turned on the FM radio, turned down the AC, and rolled the window up. The setting sun was no longer trying to re-bake the truck’s blue enamel. He gazed out at the six hundred acres of mirror smooth water. Occasionally a catfish broke the surface. It was another stunning delta sunset. The altocumulus clouds reflected hues of auburn against a blue sky. The cursed delta sun disappeared below the horizon and rewarded Pope’s tenacity for stifling heat with a quick panorama of visual glory. As a catfish farmer, Warren realized that the brighter the sun, the better off the fish. They were the benefactors of free oxygen produced by the photosynthetic algae blooms. But there was no escape from the relentless radiation of earth’s closest star. It was still hell on humanity.

Thank God for freon.

Pope switched on the halogens as he left the main levee onto the highway into Tazewell. Mountains of cumulus clouds on the southern horizon glowed as heat lightning danced among the cloud tops. The radio station, ARROW 94, out of Jackson, interrupted the sweet cooing of Reba McIntire for a special weather bulletin. Hurricane Dennis was expected to glance along the Mississippi coastline. Downgraded to a tropical storm, no evacuations were necessary since landfall was expected at low tide. Steady winds of twenty to thirty miles an hour with gusts of forty were predicted north of Jackson.

Warren looked forward to the easy night ahead of him. The predicted whitecaps on the ponds after midnight would keep the oxygen levels up. He might even catch a few hours of sleep before sunrise. It was seven-thirty. The late-afternoon snack of RC cola and a chocolate Moon pie had been his only sustenance for the past twelve hours. Lunch was now worm food on Cotton Harper’s yard. His washboard stomach growled. Fried catfish, boiled shrimp, and stuffed blue crabs were ten minutes away.

Pope pointed the Ford south toward Tazewell.

Chapter Three

Harold Bagby was perched on his throne at the cash register next to the double glass doors at the front of Bagby’s Diner.

When he saw Warren’s truck, he moaned, Well, there goes tonight’s profit.

He almost hated to see Pope’s lanky frame on an all-you-could-eat-night. His regular-as-clockwork lunch business during the week made up for his horrendous Saturday night appetite.

He greeted Warren with the usual Bagby charm. Where the hell have you been, boy? I was just thinking about my perfect little world when you drove up.

Yeah, what world is that?

Well, everybody is five feet tall, overdosed on Dexatrim, and still sore from getting their stomachs stapled.

Warren chuckled and with one arm hugged Shelia Abrams, the waitress, as she went by.

I suppose you haven’t even eaten since you beat the shit out of Bubba Whitley, Bagby intoned.

This got Warren’s attention. Look, I didn’t beat the shit out of anybody. I hit the guy one time. That’s all. I swear. He had it coming.

Well, you just watch your back side, Warren. Those Whitleys are a mean bunch. They’re probably sitting in a cave right now figuring out a way to get even.

Thanks for the warning, Harold.

Bagby’s seafood buffet was as greasy as usual. The hot food bar was pretty well picked over when Pope arrived fifteen minutes before closing time. Lucky for him the last pot of boiled shrimp was dumped in the warming tray as Warren looked forlornly at the lone remaining stuffed crab sitting in a puddle of brown oil. The lack of competition in Tazewell’s restaurant trade was quite evident.

Years of smoky grease coated the kitchen’s fluorescent fixtures, casting a yellowish-brown light on the blackened aluminum pots hanging at eye level on rusty hooks. The kitchen was so dingy and dark that when the county health inspector visited, he couldn’t tell whether he was looking at spilled brown rice or mouse shit. Weak-stomached stray travelers didn’t stand a chance. Most of the locals had built up a tolerance. The toilet in the Chevron restroom twenty miles up the road in Smuteye was the final resting ground for Tazewell’s latest strain of E.coli. Warren wasn’t completely immune. Wild dashes into a jungle of kudzu necessitated a stocking of toilet paper in his glove compartment. One could eat elsewhere in town. The Shell station served ten-minute pizzas and the BP station featured week old semifrozen Stewart sandwiches. Bagby’s Diner was the only place for slow food.

Harold Bagby came over to Warren’s table, grabbed a wood chair, turned it around, and sat down in it backward, letting out a fart as his fat ass molded over the seat. He loved to chastise Warren about all the food he could eat. He stared at Warren’s rugged young face as he peeled the last of thirty-odd crawfish with lightning dexterity.

Warren, if I didn’t know you were from Idaho—

"Iowa," Warren muttered, his mouth half-full of crawfish and iced tea.

…I’d swear you were one of those Cajun coon asses from across the River.

Warren smiled and politely wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. Warren had the entire restaurant and food bar to himself. Bagby leaned forward and pulled an issue of Reader’s Digest out of his back pocket. He turned to an article titled Determining your life expectancy.

Pope, how about helping me out on this. I keep coming up with a negative number. Bagby sighed.

Warren didn’t doubt this for a moment. Harold Bagby was a heart attack waiting to happen: a chain-smoking three hundred and fifty pounds lumped on a hunched-over, five-foot-something frame, clogged with sixty years of cholesterol and tar. Warren looked at the scribbles Bagby had made by each lifestyle question and added up the points.

He looked Bagby in his bloodshot and squinty brown eyes and slowly shook his head. Yep, you should have died five years ago. Warren stirred his ice tea with the plastic straw.

Bagby took a long draw on his unfiltered Camel and dazed off into the bluish smoke. Warren took another look at the Digest and quickly figured out his personal estimated age before expiring.

One hundred and two! Warren exclaimed.

Big fucking deal. What’s the point of living that long after your pecker stops working?

Sheila Abrams heard the last part of the comment, which didn’t bother Bagby in the least, but it made Warren blush. Sheila went back into the kitchen and promptly told the cook, Florence Benson, that something was wrong with Warren’s pecker.

What a shame. Florence sighed. She was almost a mirror twin of Bagby. All of this was of course within earshot of Warren who stayed red for several minutes. Bagby was eating this up. The women in the back continued