Category: Things We Know

So the decaying orange ogre, Donald Trump, announced he got a target letter from Jack Smith and it now appears we’ll move to yet another indcitment with more in the wings. Certainly there will be more to learn about all of this in the days that follow. I’m glad we’re finally getting down to brass tacks. Though I’m not sure how it changes the predicament we’re in.

Opinions have been hardened for quite some time, even more so by the delay and dilly dallying. You’ve got folks who won’t budge off their support for Trump and you’ve got more folks who can’t wait to see him get his comeuppance. But we’re all still waiting and watching the show that this failed fabulist and crooked carbuncle is starring in. You can hear clocks ticking and smell the powder in the kegs.

I want to see this end. It’s not that I’m tired of the saga. But this story keeps screwing with my moral compass in ways that make it difficult to maintain any true direction.

I’m going to tell you a story from my childhood. Before I do, let me lay out a few points. First, I’m a believer in the Rule of Law. I don’t think we always follow that as intended and it’s getting abused by those who know better. Regardless, I believe in what it stands for. Second, the story you’re about to read is from my memory. There may be some facts I remember inaccurately, there may be some fuzziness on my part. Most of what I know I found out from conversations with relatives. None of that is intended to sway the story one way or the other. The essential facts are what they are. Third, I’m leaving out names here because I don’t know who is still alive and who is not. That doesn’t change the story and if anyone reads this who knows. Well, they know.

Now, the story.

I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Central Virginia. Rural area. Small population. When I graduated high school the total enrollment for the entire school was around 800 and the school was the only high school in the county. To say most of the folks were of the blue collar, hard working, salt of the earth type would be correct. We lived just outside of the county seat which was the main town. It had three major streets: Main Street, First Street, and Court Street; none long enough to break a sweat while walking them. The local businesses included a drug store, a department store, a hardware store, an appliance store, a bank, an old no longer operating hotel, a car dealership, the funeral parlor, a small general store, a barber shop, and a few offices. There was a church and a movie theatre. The courthouse sat at the top of the hill at the intersection of Main and Court streets. The town also had a small housing subdivision called Green Acres, named long before the TV series.

The main drag wasn’t Main Street. It was First Street. First Street was longer, had more businesses and homes on it and felt more Main. Heck, the parades all marched down First Street, not Main Street. It was confusing. But when the by-pass was completed around the town neither Main Street or First Street soon had anything left resembling what made them First or Main. So you get the picture.

Our county may not have had a large population but it had a disproportionate share of characters for its size. In the early 1960’s I went to grade school with the son of one of those characters. A ne’er-do-well troublemaker who spent most weekends in the county lockup for being drunk and disorderly or worse. One story says he went on a drunken spree one Saturday night and broke the windshield of every parked car along First Street. Another says he pulled a man from his car and almost stomped him to death.

One night, with his son in the car, he met a violent end to his violent life on a country road, (they were all country roads back then) from a shotgun blast.

It was well known how much and how frequently this guy created trouble. He was one of those folks that you just “knew was up to no good and would end up no good,” as one of my grandmothers used to say. Suffice it to say anyone who saw him walking down the street avoided him, and given the sparsity of streets that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Kids were warned about him. I imagine even a dog or two gave a snarl if he passed by.

He married a young girl after getting her pregnant. Their son was my classmate. The son was also constantly in trouble and in the principal’s office or suspended. That one apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Probably because he was constantly getting beaten to the ground. His dad constantly abused him and his mother. When he did show up for school he would often be quite bruised. Tongues wagged and “tsk, tsk’s” were numerous, but mostly there was silence.

One night, his mother had finally had enough after a beating. She called her family. Her dad and two brothers went looking for him. They caught up to him on that country road and one of them pulled the trigger that ended his story. But it didn’t end the story for our community.

The three were arrested. They didn’t put up much of a fuss as I understand it. They admitted what they had done and that they’d done it to protect their daughter/sister’s life. Legal proceedings proceeded. I’m not sure what their pleas were, but there was going to be a trial, so obviously it was not guilty in some form or the other.

And that’s when things got interesting. The local DA did his job and brought the charges. But it was determined that there was no probability of seating a jury that would convinct the three, so the case was dismissed. There was no attempt to move to another jurisdiction by the DA or the judge. As an aside, the judge lived next door to my other grandmother.

And you know what? As I recall I don’t think there was a soul to be found who didn’t think this was the best result. The silence resumed. But it was different. I was still in grade school. So most of how I remember this is through the reactions of my parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and a few other adults. To a person they all thought justice had been done and not in any strange way.

At family gatherings at my maternal grandparents’ home, my cousins and I used to sneak up the stairs and listen to the adults’ conversations through one of the vents in the floor after they retired to the kitchen or the adjacent living room and the kids were dismissed to go out and play. Shortly after all of this came to its end, I remember the adults talking about the events and my grandmother repeatedly trying to change the subject. She finally put her foot down and said, “There’s right and there’s right. We’re all the better for it. Now let’s do the dishes.”

My classmate was never seen by us again. Shipped off to one of the military academies. And not much was ever spoken about the events again. At least not in my presence.

Years later when I was home from college for a weekend I asked my father about the incident. Not a man of many words, he simply said, “The man was bad to the bone. What happened happened and it should have happened a long time ago. Period.” My dad always ended conversations he didn’t want to continue with the word “period.”

And that was that.

I haven’t thought much about these memories in quite awhile. But as we’ve all been forced to live these last six or so years with this menace called Trump debauching everything, everyone and every idea and ideal we’ve supposedly built a society on, I have to admit I’ve found myself losing patience with the Rule of Law. These memories keeps creeping  back in each time we hear of some new outrageous moment in this ongoing saga and I find myself mucking around with my moral compass wondering why we just can’t find quicker ways to put what we all know is wrong behind us before anymore damage is done.

I don’t think I’m alone with those feelings. Everyone knows what we’re watching and living through. The ogre is holding the town hostage. Everyone knows it and goes on with life the best they can with his shadow looming large. Maybe Jack Smith is the one to bring the ogre’s reign of terror to an end. Maybe he’ll also restore a bit of my faith in the Rule of Law. I hope so. Give this ogre what he deserves. Do it the right way, sure. But if not, don’t let this decaying orange ogre wriggle out of another one. Paraphrasing grandma and quoting my dad, “there’s right and then there’s right. We’ll all be better off for it. Period.”