Brown ribbon, its shiny surface spinning, a neon crimson bead the size of an insect eye
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| “I think it is hope-filled to see so many people supporting a needy cause.”
One walker was happy the teams contributed, raising $41,000, $1,000 over the goal. “I think it’s fantastic,” said Mark Moore, 42, of CARETEAM. Moore said he is HIV positive. “Naturally we’d like to see more people every year.” I took some black-and-white photographs of his hands, trying to do something artsy to put up at the new Conway museum, but the pics didn’t turn out worth a hoot. The Garden City entourage responded for one reason. “It’s to support people with AIDS,” Sister Isabel. “We have an active AIDS ministry at St. Michael. It was founded a year and a half ago.” Patrick Evans, a parish member, started the group, was HIV-positive and had helped fight Burroughs & Chapin during the Pride 98 festival. “It feels wonderful,” Sister Isabel said of her involvement. There are two St. Michael AIDS Ministry Teams who administer assistance to the sick. “There were some of us here last year, but much fewer. Patrick Evans, who has AIDS, asked Monsignor Thomas Duffy if St. Michael could start an AIDS ministry. Monsignor was very happy to do that. He talked to me. I was a respite caretaker of HIV positive babies in Philadelphia. “It was very demanding. Most babies were medically compromised, very sick. They did not expect them to live. The children I assisted in Philadelphia are still living and well. They are medical miracles. The physicians are astounded. You love them just like the you love other babies. I experienced no fear because of their disease. Of course I was a nurse. I graduated in 1962 at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania.” Bill Burr of WBTW-TV 13 was the emcee. I cried when I thought about Gene, my friend, who died, having helped me years back as a psychotherapist counselor in Pinehurst. I went to his funeral, and I called him once when he was sick with AIDS. I did the whorehouse stories in his honor. ***************************
Date: 98-04-30 19:25:35 EDT From: markk@onslowonline.net (Mark) To: Bulltim@aol.com (Bulltim)
could be a metaphor or five in there somewhere. just got email from my former psychiatrist in statesboro GA: he’s got liver cancer.
it’s not treatable. didn’t say how long. durn that makes me feel very weird. he too - like me of course - is recovering from alcoholism. he and family just moved up to tennessee too, with a new house, practice, wife selling houses and kid going to college. Lord. he says pray for peace for him and his family. And God’s will be done. Subj: Re: beach Date: 98-04-30 19:49:08 EDT From: Bulltim To: markk@onslowonline.net durn...he’s supposed to make you feel better...why didn’t he just lie, or a sin of omission....”’i’m the ocean,’ neil young on broken arrow listening to now.... cried in cath church today, aids ceremony, 1st baptist minister was there who had been putting gays down..... made money....freelancing to gays...go to www.countryweekly.com and find country notes section and you’ll see my thing on suzy bogggusss and her baby...got seventy five buckerroos for it.
There is a time to click. a time to shutter. ******************** It’s hot as a firecracker. Last year’s stump it thundered, and as the tall gray-headed patrician spoke to the crowd, thunderbolts snapped overhead. This year hundreds of Democrats gathered in Galivants Ferry for the Galivants Ferry Stump as politicians courted voters for their support. As Sen. Ernest Hollings’ baritone thundered over the speakers at Galivants Ferry during the most famous political stump in the world, national conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, listened and critiqued the fatherly speaker. “He’s very conservative,” said Williams, a Marion County native. “If you look at his voting record, he’s a very conservative politician, on many of the moral issues too.” Several hundred voters, political figures like Jim Hodges and children gathered at the river to hear the best of local speakers and politicians, but the most mentioned politician wasn’t present. “He promised Horry County that he would build roads so that this traffic wouldn’t build up every morning, every night and every weekend, and he has not,” said state Democratic Party speaker Dick Harpootlian of Gov. David Beasley. A radio station once cracked about Harpootlian’s name when he tried to stop Guns ‘N’ Roses from playing on the Gamecock’s football field in the stadium. Harpootlian should run for Antichrist. He could get Hitler off on a Jewish holiday. “It’s time for Democrats to win, right?” said Don Fowler, former National Democratic Party Chairman. “We’re going to return that good government to South Carolina.” “As usual, the Galivants Ferry stump meeting is the highlight of any election year,” said former Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore. “Quite frankly, I think it energizes the politicians. It’s a symbolic meeting because it sets off the Democratic primary.” Theodore feels good about his race to recapture the lieutenant governor spot. “I feel good about it but by no means complacent,” he said. “I’ll have to play some good catch-up ball at first. I feel confident.” During his last election Theodore said in Florence Beasley had “flip-flopped more times than a short-order cook,” and this time he said Beasley has done it three times, on the flag, gaming machines and his “athletic prowess.” This year he’s amended the phrase by saying Beasley has “flip-flopped more times than a kid on a trampoline.” There were surreal moments - U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford talking to Libertarian Doc Quillen (pro-pot candidate), Jim Bruton of Surfside Beach, who delivers POINT locally, waving a Hollings sign behind the WPDE live weather anchor and politico and public relations guru Mary Eaddy kissing Lee Bandy, political columnist for The State. Who was the candidate whose thundering voice turned chattering heads? “It puts fear in people’s heart to divide us,” said Tom Turnipseed, the Columbia attorney opposing Attorney General Charlie Condon. “We need to reach out to everyone. We’ve got extremism in the Republican Party. Most of the Republicans are good everyday people. We need to reach out to all of them. We need to reach out to the oppressed people. I’m sick and tired of these people invoking the name of Jesus Christ to divide people, to make them hate and fear one another. These guys are masters that we are up against at dividing people over little things They’ll even tell you that.” Turnipseed’s folks called me the other week to fax them my whorehouse stories. “He called me Senator,” laughed two-term Solicitor Ralph Wilson, laughing. “During that time, I have been fair. I have been honest, and I have been fearless. I will continue to do what is right and what is best and what is lawful, and regardless of who likes it and who dislikes it, as long as I am solicitor of Horry County and the solicitor of Georgetown County I will do what is right and what I believe that the law requires.” Wilson, a Democrat, later lost his seat to a Republican. I asked Wilson whether or not he has read any Mickey Spillane novels. “Not recently,” Wilson replied, laughing hard. Spillane’s wife, Jane, has made it her life’s calling to spurn Wilson and dethrone him, even mulling over advertisements in movie theatres. God forbid. She said she’d get the Mick to read my manuscript. She’s perky, spunky, and she lost in the primary. But she’s real nice and sweet. Like Bob Dylan embraced Hurricane Carter, she’s leeched onto the idea that this guy is innocent of stabbing this girl multiple times in the case that used DNA evidence for the first time in the country’s history. The coroner offered to carry me out to the site once. I have declined so far his offer. “I feel like I can earn respect with Horry County Council,” said council candidate Leroy Clewis. “I think I can be a good leader.” “We have problems with stormwater,” said Deborah Pittman-Page of Socastee, District 6 candidate. “We need better library facilities. Right now the county is paying $38,000 a year to rent a storefront. We should have a building. We would like to see a landscape ordinance.” It’s history. It’s Americana. It’s the Stump. It’s a chance for all God’s children to speak their peace. No Republicans allowed. They can come. But they can’t speak at the podium, according to old man Holliday who runs the general store. There was Steve Skardon of The Palmetto Project, Marion County Council members Marvin Stevenson and William Troy, Florence Mayor Haigh Porter and his daughter, Meg, who works with the party in Columbia, AP, WIS, Sheriff Teddy Henry, Sally Howard, Wayne Gray, Mayor Bob Grissom and many more. Skardon is looking forward to a voter registration drive. “South Carolina has been 49th and 50th in the country for many years. Now we have begun to improve. We moved from 49th to 47th in 1992, and in 1994 we got up to 41st in the country,” said Skardon. “We want to keep that momentum going.” “The biggest political year for me was when they made the shag the state dance. That was the biggest thing ever,” said Harold Bessent, running against Rep. Tracy Edge, who works for Burroughs & Chapin. “If we want to make sure that our local family in small business gets fair shake, if we are going to keep the big money interest from destroying the things we love about Horry County the most, we’ve got to start putting the people first. That’s what I’m going to do. I don’t own any big land near the new highway.” Lucian Norton, a county council candidate, said, “If you take money, you’ll have to represent somebody. Who are you going to represent? The person who you represent or the people who gave you the money?” Republicans stood by the wayside, eyeing the action like Cold War spies with weary 1,000-mile stares much like siblings sidelined as too young to play tag football. “It’s a grand tradition, Horry County style,” said Liz Gilland, Republican county council member. “Being a Republican, I’m thrilled to see so many Republicans here, particularly when they seem to outnumber the Democrats,” said Rep. Tracy Edge. “It looks like a smaller and smaller crowd every year,” said Rep. Mark Kelley. As Sen. Ernest Hollings spoke at the lectern, conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, flanked by two brothers, including Marion school board member Kent Williams, was arguing with a person over how the Democrats will fare against Beasley. “They can’t. What they can do is put forth a good showing. It’s amazing that Beasley won the first time,” said Williams, who is writing his national column on the stump. “I think they’re trying to revive their party. Obviously, the party, idea-wise, is bankrupt. I think it’s good for people to get together. I think it’s fun.” There was a fellow who nodded an acknowledgment, and he looked like a school superintendent or principal. He was in a tie. I nodded, in a hurry. It was our next governor, and his face recognition was pretty low in my book, lower than his name recognition. The next stump would be the founder’s last, John Monroe Holliday, who was famous for handing out cigarettes on November’s National Smoke-out Day at his country general store, Pee Dee Farms. Tobacco farmers never had a better friend. Oh yeah. The whorehouse is still open. *********************** My stomach rolled, and I heard the voice again tonight, playing it over in my head as the feelings of fear and paranoia returned instantly as if they had never left. “You’re dead. You hear me? You’re a dead man.” When my mind went reeling about who had left this message on my answering machine, the contender in second place, and in first place at times, I must admit, was a person who wrote a letter to the editor I just read in the Tabor City/Loris Tribune. If my wife hadn’t got to the church in Loris tonight and brought back the paper, I would have never seen it. It would have disappeared into the shuffle without notice. On the religion page of this paper is a story under “Community Church News.” The author is a no good sorry buffoon. A stinky piece of crap, or as my camping buddy, Mookie, a UNC grad and Tar Heel sports fanatic, would say around the campfire, “a waste of human flesh.” “I’d like to introduce you first of all to the author of Grace, Jesus the Christ. In John I, verse 17 read, ‘For the....” You know the rest. I read like something a blue- haired Sunday School teacher would crank out with plenty of study lesson quotes and quotes from the Bible.” “I can’t believe this! Durn! What kind of frigging religion do they have over in Loris!” I yelled, holding my stomach. There is an editor’s note in this three- column headline story at the top of Page 15, dated Wednesday, July 8, 1998. The Editor’s Note mentions that “the author grew up on a tobacco farm near Loris....” On the Letters to the Editor page the woman squeezes in a letter too, which is a pile of slop and pure-T disgusting rubbish. “Dear Editor, “Thank you for sharing God’s blessing to me with all your other readers. Jesus said where two (2) or more are gathered in HIS NAME. He will be in their midst. I know He feels welcome in Loris (Matthew: 18:20). I am enclosing another of His blessings to share with you and your readers. Please allow me to correct an error. Our Chaplain’s name is Mitchell Wray. He’s such a ray of sunshine in our lives that it’s (inc. sp.) easy to make that mistake. A lot of the women here have been abandoned or forgotten by their families, and this man let’s (sp. inc.) us know that God loves us and that he does, too. He shares with Kathy Strickland, who’d really love to hear from home. Hint! Mary Howard and Linda Singleton, just to name a few. “Being in prison is certainly not anything to aspire to and it will be my prayer that I will never meet you here. Yet I would like you all to know that no matter what happens in our lives that God can and will turn it to good if we trust Him. He is the author of Amazing Grace and it’s my prayer that each of you will know the hour of His grace very soon.” “Editor’s Note: Another sample of Alford’s writing is on the religion page today.) Good God almighty! What kind of crap is that? ******************* 1995 White grains of powder rained from six inches above the wooden panels, waxed smooth as a baby’s bottom as a mirror ball of colored lights sprinkled happiness off the walls’ mirrors while the thin, 60-ish man tapped one penny loafer against the other. His arms were locked around the waist of a woman who must have been 30 years younger than him with shining baubles hanging from her store-bought shirt. They were frozen, ready for the diamond to drop on vinyl behind the record booth as Wendel Wilkie, a portly weekend beach music DJ flipped through his CD library from memory, like a Van Halen audiophile, zipping straight to the Drifters’ hit the couple had requested. Wilkie is the president of the Beach Music DJs Association now and spins platters at Fat Harold’s Beach Club in North Myrtle Beach. It was Saturday night in Mullins - time to shag. Shaggers from Dillon and as far away as Florence, 30 miles, would drive through road blocks of sobriety checks and drug dog stops to enjoy the company of strangers and tobacco company sellers, drunk from her mini-bottle drinks and smelling like a stale cigar soaked in Hai Karate. “Have I got any credit left on the tab, Margaret?” Margaret Denton was about 80 years old, and she was the best bartender in Mullins. A old painting of a naked woman, draped in meshed see-through gauze, her breasts exposed with rosy nipples, was on the wall in “Margaret’s Lounge” at the Imperial Motel. The carpet was red; there were dusty bottles of all kinds of defunct beer labels around the wall, and the bathroom always smelled the same, like urine and the cheap kind of toilet cleaner with blue water. “Now how much did you give me last week?” Her filing system was a spiral binder which she would sometimes forget to check off. You got a free drink on your birthday, or if she was in a good mood. Her pale, white skin was accented by multiple layers of makeup and red lipstick, and her earring collection was something any woman from her era would love - the singles were stockpiled in a cigar box under the bar. When she eventually died of cancer, the bar was really a depressing place to go, but everyone came to the graveside and to the Methodist church service. “Now look what the cat dragged in!” Johnny would spout. Johnny remarried his wife after a divorce, so he’s married her twice. Their daughter is very attractive, tall like them. “Still working on those stories?” My financial losses may have been visible from the sour look on my face or the fact that every time I hit the door and the air conditioning pouring out into the humidity of the parking lot, I’d pull off my tie so hard, some alcoholics at the bar swore up and down they witnessed smoke curl up from behind my neck. It was the “liniment lounge,” named because of the approximate average age of the patrons. There were no babes here. You might as well have hanged a sign on the door which read: “Sexy, short-dressed, foxes stay away!” “I need a beer.” My tie was already stuffed in my pocket by the time I reached for a toothpick. The food was really greasy here. A black dude cooked it in the back. But this was the only place to go in town for miles. I never got a chance to see a video poker machine in this place, and it was good because that would have screwed up the atmosphere of this juke joint. “You look like you need a beer.” “Done any more stories on Sharon Alford?” Using her tongue, Margaret had thumbed through the tickets, looking up at me with a frown, then a sneaky smile of forgiveness. Every once and a while, especially at Christmas, she would really dress up, and the atmosphere was holy with out-of-town homegrowns visiting home, exchanging hugs and gossip. “This one’s on me,” she said, grabbing a dirty glass and washing it for my Jim Beam. There were dirty jokes written on all the bar ornaments, and the red window booths’ plastic always gleamed when the Christmas lights lighted up the fake frost aerosoled on the panes. It was here in this humble establishment, filled with holiday natives returning from college, from failed careers, from miserable jobs out-of-state, from unsuccessful marriages, from the cold recesses of the outer limits of the city boundaries, that smiles were contagious during any holiday. If you were a University of South Carolina Gamecock fan, you would fit in quickly in this crowd. “I appreciate it, Margaret. I’ll catch you up next week. I’m kind of behind on my rent. I’ll get paid next Friday, and I’ll be in here right after I hit the bank. You know I’m good for it.” If I was really far behind, like $40 or so, she would politely scratch upward with her index finger and tell me privately in the dance hall, a separate room from the bar. “You look kind of flustered. What’s the matter?” “Still driving 1,000 miles a month, Bullard?” The drunks repeated every syllable. And after you left, you should have left a positive note for them to pounce on because gossip fueled the town of Mullins, full of tobacco warehouses in a county without a movie theater. Did I tell you about Al Agnew, the Air Force POW? He would hold court. His wife did our napkins for our wedding. “I can’t believe that case is over,” I sighed, fingering the golden glass of liquid. Chewing on a straw, I looked as James Docker walked in. He was a county council member, dying of lung cancer. I was hoping he would not ask me for a cigarette. It would be too hard to turn him down. Nobody turned anyone down for a bummed cigarette in Mullins. It was against the city code. “That durning woman. That’s why I left the Mullins paper, you know.” They had heard it before. Another blathering drunk. But they would do anything for a story. Just a few words dressed up and positioned in sentences, not too long, but interspersed with enough action, sex, innuendo and tragedy to make good gossip spreadable. “She sat right over there in that corner once.” “Yeah, I believe her nephew and that dude who worked with him sat right over there.” One could throw a beer bottle a few hundred times as hard as they could throw it Download 2.99 Mb. Share with your friends:
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