Atticus from Shawneetown: A Novel

By James Varga

Absurd humor questions the meaning of truth. Deep in Southern Illinois, called Little Egypt, the county sheriff and his young deputy scientifically bumble their way through the "Invasion of the Feral Swine." A prosecutor fresh out of law school brings the whole shebang into a court of law for the "Trial of the Man with No Name." Instead of science and law, the everyday people of Greens Point live on the minutia of life, their conversations dotted with nothings.

Throughout these absurd events, Sunday evening chats between a reverend and his visitor link essential topics, speared by death, yet caught by hope, and told with a dash of humor. In bits from their talks, the reverend learns about his guest's past and the makeup of the man, including how he came up with the name "Atticus." The story closes with their final Sunday evening chat: from the mouth of an ex-con, truth is told to a dying reverend.

Atticus from Shawneetown is the sequel to Tombs of Little Egypt (2022).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385208807

James Varga

James Varga is a judge presiding over jury trials in Chicago. He is the author of Tombs of Little Egypt (2022), the first Little Egypt novel. Writing as Augie Holiday, he is the author of Angels Have Wings (2020), a Christmas novella. After graduating from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and Notre Dame Law School, he began his professional career on the prosecution team against John Gacy, murderer of thirty-three boys and young men.

Book preview

Atticus from Shawneetown

A Novel

James Varga

Atticus from Shawneetown

A Novel

Copyright © 2024 James Varga. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 979-8-3852-0878-4

hardcover isbn: 979-8-3852-0879-1

ebook isbn: 979-8-3852-0880-7

version number 09/17/15

Epigraph: Used with permission of Princeton University Press, Aphorism 1, in The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka, ed. Reiner Stach, trans. Shelley Frisch, 2022; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Cover Art: Bing Wright, Broken Mirror/Evening Sky, 2012, © Bing Wright. Courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

This is a work of humorous literary fiction. The story refers to historical facts (names, places, and events) and also to small cities that still exist today. The main characters and locations in the story, their names, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author. Greens Point and Clermont County, Illinois, do not exist.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

The true path leads along a rope stretched, not high in the air, but barely above the ground. It seems designed more for stumbling than for walking along it.

—Franz Kafka, The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka

Chapter 1

A brass pole lamp with a white shade lit a clear half glass of bourbon. A plump hand, with fingers extending toward the bourbon, rested on a heavily varnished black oak arm of a black vinyl chair. Grief and disillusionment.

Come on now, Reverend, you got heaven waiting for you. The visitor answered back.

The reverend’s hand picked up the bourbon.

Me, I’m not so lucky, continued the reverend’s guest, with a half-ass smile curling the corners of his lips. Single, white hairs shone throughout his long, black, curly hair. Old, broken bones buckled his nose. The top button on his short sleeve shirt was shut.

The reverend drew the bourbon slowly to his dry lips, took a sip, and returned the glass more slowly than he had brought it. The top of his head was smothered by an obvious toupee that matched the coarse texture and salt-and-pepper color of his hair brushed down the sides and back of his head. The tiny curls sprouting on his neck confessed the truth about his vanity. His index finger tapped silently a couple beats and stopped.

Reverend, you ain’t got it that bad. I’ve spent years behind bars and concrete. No sun. No breeze. It stinks in prison—I mean it—those big, sweaty bastards don’t give a shit about nothing. The guest sitting across from the reverend dropped his head and stared past his forearms, resting on his knees, into the rug on the floor.

The walls within our minds, too, block out all light, the reverend said.

The visitor’s head popped up. But you ain’t got those shitty bastards.

True. That’s true. The reverend agreed.

Ain’t you got somebody to talk to—other than your God, I mean.

No. No. All my family is gone. Six years ago, my only brother passed away in a nursing home.

"What from?

Nobody knows. They found him unresponsive one morning. The medical examiner’s office said no autopsy was performed because there was no evidence of trauma.

Nobody ever found out the truth, huh, Reverend? What a way to go—one big question mark.

Yes. Life is a question mark. The reverend smiled. That’s what my brother used to say. After all is said and done, maybe he, and he alone, did find the truth, in his own way, of course.

Once, I took an oath in court. I told the truth. Nobody believed me. The visitor stared up at the ceiling. What do I think? His head dropped back down. I’ll tell you what I think. He aimed his eyes at the reverend. "Truth is a shattered mirror on the floor. The truth depends upon what piece you pick up. He stretched the, sounding out a long e, thee."

The reverend filled out the pause with a peek at his golden bourbon reflecting the light from the pole lamp.

What’d he do? asked the guest.

The reverend rolled the bourbon around his glass on the wooden arm of his chair. He couldn’t do anything. He lived his life in a bed at a nursing home. He broke his leg in a fall at one of the nursing homes. He sued; they settled. He never really did physical therapy, or Medicare didn’t pay enough. He was a prisoner in his own mind. ‘Pain.’ He always complained of pain throughout his body. He’d take an ambulance to a hospital. Nothing was ever found. He rode right back to the nursing home that sent him, if they accepted him back.

Why wouldn’t they take him back?

He’d claim they abused him.

Oh boy. That’d do it.

He bounced around all the Medicaid nursing homes in Cook County. I figure he was searching for a safe haven.

Like those stiff-necked people out in the desert you told me about?

Not really. But okay.

The reverend’s guest slapped his knee. So you stroked out. You got a bum right arm. Big deal. You can drink your bourbon with your left, am I right?

As if on cue, the reverend raised his glass in the light, rolled the golden liquid around in the clear glass, and drew it to his lips. He took a sip of his bourbon and then set it back on the wooden arm of the vinyl armchair. He swallowed and paused before he spoke again. Prayer is all we have, whispered the reverend, still looking at his bourbon.

You have, the guest quickly responded.

The word of God is our last, best hope. The reverend politely replied.

I can’t say too much about that, but what if people don’t believe it?

The reverend raised his eyes from the bourbon and stared back at his visitor.

Then we’re all doomed.

Fire-and-brimstone doomed?

Maybe. Maybe hell on earth.

Okay. Okay. Enough. I know preaching is your line of work, Reverend, but I ain’t no part of your congregation. You can stop the sermon right there. Whatever you’re going through, can’t you do something with that soul you religious types are always referring to? An adjustment? Maybe it’s time you take it in for a tune-up or something like that.

Time is running out.

Time ran out on me a long time ago.

The short visitor grabbed his knees, stood, and turned toward the front door. I can see my way out. He tapped the side of his head. Geez, I forgot about your bum leg.

No offense. Come see me again.

Thanks for the invite. I will. I’ll come again. I like talking where I can’t get in trouble. We’re talking here like we’re in confession, sort of, ain’t we?

Wrong religion, but if that will put you at ease. The reverend smiled. Can you hand me that newspaper before you leave.

Sure. The reverend’s visitor stepped next to the dining room table, picked up the paper, and walked it back.

The reverend pointed to a stack of folded newspapers that rose up from the floor to the left arm on his chair. He picked up a pen and black journal off the stack, so his departing guest could put the paper on top. The reverend placed the journal on the arm of his chair between him and his drink. "I wasn’t talking about my grief and disillusionment."

You mean—

The reverend nodded his head.

The visitor shrugged his shoulders. He put the paper down on the stack and walked to the front door and out of the tiny front yard of a small, white, wooden house.

***

I was sad to see the sign for the estate sale in the front yard of his small, white house. I remember the flesh and blood of the man, not the objects. His sermons were good, not penetrating or overpowering. They struck simple themes, the themes you forget about until somebody reminds you. Those seem to be the important things in life to me, good guideposts in life without the barbed wire.

I’m a reader. I’m drawn to words. Years ago, I visited the museums up in Chicago. They’re fabulous. The problem for me, though, is I read the histories or descriptions on the plaques longer than I viewed the paintings or artifacts.

In almost every room of his small house, except for the kitchen and bathroom, stacks of books lined the walls. Reverend Betts liked history. Until that estate sale, I never knew those famous heroes and villains of the Old West came from Illinois, not one, though, from Chicago. Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois, near the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Davenport. He and his two brothers, Virgil and Morgan, survived the shoot-out at the O. K. Corral on October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Wyatt’s friend, Bat Masterson, a lawman and gambler in Dodge City, Kansas, lived as a boy in Clay County, near the center of our state east of St. Louis. Wild Bill Hickok, some considered the greatest gunfighter of all, was born in Troy Grove, in the middle of the state north of the Illinois River. Black Bart, Charles Boles, robbed twenty-seven stagecoaches. He was a farmer from Decatur, Illinois.

How I found it, I’ll never know. I saw what appeared to be another book, a black book without a title or author. I opened it. Handwriting filled each page. I read a few lines, flipped a chunk of pages, and read some more. I skimmed, stopped, and read. Should I have this? I asked myself. Should I tell the manager of the estate sale? Should I walk over and hand it to her?

I was torn—Reverend Betts’s journal. His life in his own words laid before me. I grabbed some history books about Southern Illinois, Little Egypt, and the Shawnee National Forest. I piled them together and made an offer. She accepted.

I’m also a writer. As was my older sister, Jessie Daniels, I’m a reporter for the Bugler. I, too, graduated from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale with a degree in journalism. Although our names, Jessie and Jesse, sound the same, we chose different paths. Ten years ago, she covered the notorious grave robberies that put Greens Point on the map. Reporters from St. Louis and Chicago came down to cover the trial of two drifters, ex-cons named Lou and Duke. From all of the publicity about the crimes and trial, although negative, our town landed a stopover with a renovated steamboat line that brought us outside money from vacationers and tourists. After the trial, Jessie moved up to Chicago.

Unlike my sister, I’m a bystander. As a boy, I collected stamps, coins, rocks, comics, and just about anything a boy could collect. She’s an athlete. She was the captain of the high school softball team, the pitcher, and the clean-up batter.

Retired Sheriff Sam Carter was laid to rest in Holy Hill Cemetery. He pretty neared filled up our old cemetery. Ain’t that a hoot. Sheriff Carter is buried in the cemetery where those grave robbers dug up three graves for gold. Jeffries General Store has copies of the sheriff’s book that tells all about it on the checkout counter. Betsy, Sam’s wife, moved up to Effingham to live near Susan, their daughter, and grandchildren.

Some mighty big changes happened down here in Greens Point, Illinois, the county seat of Clermont County. Our town is tucked up along the Ohio River in what’s called Little Egypt. The nickname is probably from a resemblance to the Nile Delta in Egypt because of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at the southern tip of our state at Cairo, another reference to Egypt. Businesses latch onto the catchy name; Little Egypt goods and services are for sale throughout Southern Illinois.

Although Little Egypt is in Southern Illinois, all of Southern Illinois is not necessarily Little Egypt. Despite different opinions, with scant facts, Little Egypt is generally considered to be the southern third of Illinois. Hard-liners draw the top line at the confluence of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers along the southeastern border with Indiana. That’s about sixteen counties. Some put the top all the way up near St. Louis at Edwardsville, which was known as Goshen, a biblical reference to ancient Egypt. This is fodder for another plausible theory for the nickname that stems from the Winter of Deep Snow in the 1830s that drove northerners south to buy grain like the famine forced the sons of Jacob to Egypt for food during biblical times.

Shawnee is pretty near as popular of a name for businesses. The name tags our pride and joy, the Shawnee National Forest. At 289,000 acres, the forest is small compared to the big national parks out West. The jewel of the forest is the Garden of the Gods. Gray sandstone bluffs reach up to the sky. Three hundred million years ago, this part of the state was covered by a sea. The sea disappeared, for whatever reason, and the towering cliffs rose. The name Shawnee comes from the Shawnee tribe. The tribe had lived from Ohio to the southern tip of Illinois. Chief Tecumseh had been part of the resistance fighting to decide the future of the North American lands.

There’s good hunting and fishing, too, in Little Egypt with the rolling hills, lakes, and forests. October is the most splendid month in Little Egypt, especially around the Shawnee National Forest. Tree leaves explode in colors: hickory, red oak, and sassafras burst from yellow to orange while the white oak bleeds red. Rock formations resemble the Ozark Mountains running along the Arkansas and Missouri borders into Oklahoma.

Despite the beauty and activities Southern Illinois offers, most families in and around Chicago drive up to Wisconsin or Michigan for their summer vacations. That fits us living here just fine. We enjoy our way of life. The northerners can spend their money elsewhere.

At first, nobody noticed the invisible storms drifting into Clermont County during the last decade before the new millennium. Maybe we had grown too used to seeing the thunderheads cuffing the Ohio River Valley as they drifted toward town. Country life would forever change: the feral swine invasion, corporate hog confinements, coal strip-mining, and even logging into the Shawnee National Forest. Amidst this seismic shift in Southern Illinois, a short, dark stranger from out of town also seeped into the fiber of our life down here. He called himself Atticus from Shawneetown.

Writers can’t get very far with observations, interviews, and trial transcripts, so I improvised a bit to capture the essence of some situations in parts of this story. Not to offer an apology, especially at the very start, but after all of the heroes and villains had upped and left, we were left with slim pickings down here.

Chapter 2

H old on there, Arnold. I’m leaving right now, the sheriff said over the telephone.

Mind if I ask what that was all about? I asked. It’s sounds like breaking news. I smiled for a response.

You can tag along, if you like, Sheriff Hank Turner answered with a stern face. The sheriff of Clermont County blasted like a steamboat, hot or cold. He hung up the telephone on his desk and marched to the front door with his puffed-out chest leading the way.

I stepped aside and followed. Where’re we going?

Arnold’s farm, he answered, as he opened the front door of the sheriff’s office. Butch, he called over his shoulder.

The eyes and ears of a red bloodhound, sleeping on a round woven rug by the door leading back to the jail cells, didn’t