Brown ribbon, its shiny surface spinning, a neon crimson bead the size of an insect eye
Download 2.99 Mb.
|
|
Carroll Campbell is against the idea. What about a lottery? “I think that that’s not a way to run a state. A lottery is not going to pay for education in this state. The people who put their bet on the lottery are really misleading the people of this state.” Campbell, who is a consultant in Washington, D.C. with a home in Georgetown, thinks that a lottery would eventually hurt the state. “Most small states that have had a lottery, the lottery has gone up. Politicians accept the money, and the lotteries come down, and they have to raise the taxes. That’s exactly the way it works.” Beasley is noticeably absent at this rally, however he was at the controversial event at Bob Jones University at which Bush failed to castigate the school’s policy on interracial dating. The anti-Catholic controversy was brought up this morning in my R.C.I.A. class. People are real pissed off but willing to forgive. Campbell’s nose is as brown as a Texas steer. “I think it’s a good event. I think it’s a good chance for young people to get some knowledge about what’s going on in the country. We’re talking about world events. You’re talking about local events. You’re talking about a lot of things, not just somebody up there singing Johnny One-Note. “That’s the real thing because too many speakers get up there and stay on one thing. He threw it open and took everything that they threw at him. I think that demonstrates his knowledge. I mean, this guy’s good. I heard somebody say one time that they don’t think he’s real smart. “Well, I don’t know how he graduated from both Yale and Harvard if he’s not real smart. This is the kind of stuff that they try to put out there to try to denigrate you from the other side.” When asked if he was glad the incident with the handgun and the airplane was over, Campbell responded. His handgun was returned after the incident at a Columbia airport. “Oh yeah. It didn’t ever really happen. That’s the whole thing about it. It got so blown out of proportion. That was the darndest thing I’d ever seen,” he said laughing. Would the same thing happened if a black citizen had been caught? Campbell then grips my elbow tightly, answering. “It happens all the time. It happens all the time. They told me in the Columbia airport that it happens about 10 or 15 times a year. it’s not loaded at all. It’s kind of in a bag. And most of them were women, and they just forgot that they had them.” I play the comment back on my tape recorder to our female Democratic Party chairperson in Horry County, and she tells me she’s glad I asked the question. Later in the week I buy a pager which I lose for several months and find again after having to buy another one. Breaking down to buy a pager is the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. Everyone knows where you are all the time. The worst thing about pagers is that they beep. And beep. One feels like James Bond, however, even with the lowly numeric contraption. The first thing you do is give out your beeper number to family, friends and business associates for global positioning stakeouts. Big mistake. Don’t give your number to the wrong person, or you’ll be making pay phone calls from here to eternity. It’s like a good friend said, “If you want me bad enough, you’ll get ahold of me sooner or later.” I spent the freelance check from the American Planning Association’s PLANNING magazine (www.planning.org) on this beeper. Can you write off pay phone calls? One of mine fell in a toilet once. Advice: flush it. And turn it off in church. If enough human beings haven’t passed away from record 2000 traffic fatalities on U.S. 501 yet between Conway and Myrtle Beach, just try to focus on that strobing car in front of you. You’ve just passed the new sign at Coastal Carolina University. At first it seemed as if a modest sign would be erected this winter as construction workers cemented the base together. In my rear view mirror the bright yellow sign is still clearly visible at Carolina Forest, and my cornea still has the image burned of an animated display all over the retina. North Myrtle Beach had the wisdom to incorporate ordinances protecting innocent motorists from glaring, gaudy, sometimes tacky electronic billboards, the kind that are usually erected in front of an adult entertainment establishment with no zoning. The messages CCU are flashing usually don’t have much to do with education, the school or driving as you stare, ignoring the bumper ahead. “Don’t look at this sign,” would be a good message. “Don’t drink and drive.” Maybe the Alligator Adventure animated sign, the Alabama Grille sign and the NASCAR Cafe flashy distraction could turn off the power for just a week. It would be easier to drive. Passing through Dillon Ace-Hi Advertising had a billboard during Christmas blasting video poker opponents for keeping car taxes. Come summer all the video poker establishments that close could turn into churches and reinvent urban sprawl. Do the same people who make video poker machines manufacture Myrtle Beach voting machines? There is one governmental council in Horry County that has an agenda item to include “press comments.” It’s the Loris City Council. Wonder why the Horry County Council doesn’t do it? Why put a limit on public input or council input? Some politicians complain about the hours, complaints and sacrifice. Sunlight is the best antiseptic, somebody said. What is a young turk? That’s what Campbell was calling all the new GOP blood. Must be the juvenile fowl from the month of November who gets a photo op with the President before the holiday that celebrates the Pilgrims lost hayride. A turk. It’s what the Republican leadership in South Carolina is calling everyone hanging out with Sen. John McCain. “Any of a breed of swift saddle horse developed in Turkey,” Webster’s says. Here it is. It says (See Young Turk.) “Any of a group of younger people seeking to take control of an organization, party, country, etc., from an entrenched, usually conservative group of older people.” At last year’s inauguration there were a slew of S.W.A.T. team snipers on top buildings during the ceremony. Does Horry County or local police department have programs where citizens can turn in handguns? Did you expect the Second Coming Jan. 1, 2000? Why don’t they put seat belts on school buses? Was Mary Tyler Moore ethically correct for substituting her TV story for her rival’s in the ABC show last week? Where is Lou Grant when you need him? Film at 11. If you ever wonder what happens to a criminal case after North Myrtle Beach detectives, Loris Police Department officers and the prosecutor gets through with it, you should visit Courtroom 3 in Conway sometime. In this tiny venue on the first floor a thundering voice can be heard outside the opaque window. It sounds like a man is yelling at somebody. He is. It’s Circuit Court Judge Hicks Harwell. A young black defendant stands accused of crack cocaine infractions, and another man faces a charge of attempted armed robbery while others face indictments before the judge for justice to be served. This is the day The State just announced Harwell’s reelection as a judge. It’s not Court TV. It’s not Judge Judy. This is the real thing. If you are unemployed, retired or bored, you should visit the Horry County Courthouse sometime to watch how justice is served, and when Harwell is in town, it is real entertainment. Harwell administers justice with backwoods personality, a mix of the down-home charm of the late Jerry Clower and the preacher persona of Watauga County, N.C. Solicitor Tom Rusher, whose pitched summations invoke quivering hellfire. There is a message today in this courtroom. There is one person seated in the pew. And there is one administrator of justice. If the defendant decides to listen, it might be of benefit. If he doesn’t, that’s Harwell’s concern. After I left the Florence Morning News, I consulted him about suing the paper, but he just suggested that I call the managing editor a son-of-a-bitch, which I never could do. The odds were against me. “You understand you are giving up your right to a trial by jury?” Harwell asks the young man. The Truth in Sentencing Act is not just a piece of paper. Judges have to proceed by law through every proponent of legal jurisprudence to be fair to a defendant. This defendant gets the taxpayers’ money’s worth. Harwell’s voice has quickly risen to a loud volume. The drama in this courtroom is rising. A lecture is coming. The defendant’s plea is guilty. His attorney is court-appointed. “You understand you are not going to be able to face your accuser and deny or rebut or challenge the charges?” he asked. “Has anyone mistreated you?” The attorney notes there was a minute amount of cocaine found. Harwell’s Southern accent is intoxicating, his courtroom style riveting, commanding attention and compassion. Some judges might let a drug defendant off lightly, dismissing the case as just another headache, hurrying through the motions. “How many years you been practicing now?” Harwell asks the attorney. The judge banters with one counsel, who says he takes court-appointed cases a lot, and Harwell chats, recalling the days when he did the same as a young attorney. “The General Assembly won’t appropriate the money. We don’t have the money. We’ve got 19,000 people, and we’ve got 19,000 in a place for 300. We can’t do this. Don’t bother us anymore judge,” Harwell continues. “All they do is stay out and get right back into dealing and drinking and crack cocaine. He’s strung out, and he’s hungover, and until he sees the need to face the addiction and get some treatment, he’s going to be back in jail, and he’s going to be violated, and just as sure as the sun goes down this afternoon, and comes up in the afternoon, it’s predictable. “Well I can’t do it judge!’ That’s a lie. All you’ve got to do is ask the probation officer the address, the telephone number and where it is and go to vocational rehab, and they’ll put you in the program, and the state will pay the money, and it won’t cost you a cent. And they’ll tell you how to follow it up and get some treatment. AND YOU CAN STOP BEING A CRACKHEAD!” Harwell is yelling. “If it happens again, and it’s going to if you don’t get that treatment, go in there for five years! You want it, you get it! Anybody serving time wants to be out but not give up the drugs.” An older gentleman in a suit is nodding in the audience. Deputies are nodding too. “You’ve got to think about what you are doing. You are strung out. You are hooked. You better take some responsibility and get that monkey off your back,” he said. “I’ve spent enough time. I hope that didn’t roll over you. “How old are you now? Twenty-three,” Harwell continues. Hardened criminals sometimes shut out comments during court, but this defendant is listening, as are the police officers in the room who nod to every phrase. “Everybody treats me bad! Everybody treats me like a baby!’ And you’re a grown man! You want to be treated like a boy? Does it insult you, a black male, for me, an old white judge, to call you a boy? Well that’s what you’re acting like. You want to be treated like something younger than a boy with no responsibility. You want to be treated like a baby. “You’re going to be treated like a man the next time you come to court! You be ready. If you do the crime, and you’re messing with drugs, you be ready to do the time. I don’t care how good a lawyer you’ve got. “Nobody likes to spend $19,000 a year to put people in jail!” he hollers. “They’d rather put it in the public school system than waste it on somebody blowing something up their nose.” ************ TO: MARK via e-mail just got back! diane let me get my expensive banana republic cologne as reward! i snuck two 10 buck bottles! i was proud. diane was too.....they applauded me. saw asshole florence morning news editorial page editor who later got fired and who had given our m.e. a videotape of me calling in wbtw telling on a call in show the gubernatorial candidates in 1995, including nick theodore, that i was doing an investigative story on marlboro county and what was their opinion on prostitution and the need to clean it up... videotape......they had been dragging ass and killing the story. so he was sitting by the florence paper’s then and current lawyer, honcho demo nick zeigler, and i gave them both the finger from the back row! assholes indeedio, my good friend! we hit stores....blew off conference....they served crapty salmon.....saw old colleagues......i am nonetheless quite renown and infamous amongst these jaded queers. bonus day in my catalogue of dreams. ********* I just broke down in the kitchen, blubbering as I looked at the new award on the wall. The Confederate flag flew proudly above a business near Kiawah Island as we drove into the front gate area of this plush coastal community. The doctor had just called the cell phone to tell me the best gut surgeon in the state from Charleston wouldn’t be able to accept me as a patient because he didn’t take this kind of health insurance anymore. The award is a 2nd place plaque for feature writing in the 4,000 and above weekly category for the story about Hank Alexander, the story which got a rare photo of Marilyn Monroe in circulation, one with a sexy close-up look at all those chest freckles. Whew. So after flopping down on the back row, I listen to a Nashville firm of libel lawyers put on a mock trial with the publisher of the Sun News sitting in as the defendant, a reporter accused of sending a libelous e-mail about her publisher. She had allegedly questioned whether or not the boss had Alzheimer’s, but he was only on Darvocets, so the audience got a chilling look at how pesky attorneys can be, asking probing questions, quizzing the reporter about her work record and job performance. My stomach started hurting, however maybe it was from the coffee. I’ve been trying to drink decaf, but this morning I had sneaked in a cup of high-test. In the line of fire, the linear scope between me on the back row and Ms. Paula Ellis, the defendant, sat a person whose appearance became familiar after I adjusted the focus on my peepers. Richard Whiting, former editorial page editor at the Florence Morning News, sitting right beside Nick Zeigler, the Florence Morning News attorney who had deemed my whorehouse story libelous and unfit to print. He’s a big Florence County Democrat who prides himself on being a historian as well as a degree mill executioner. With merely seconds to decide on my strategy as they both turned to acknowledge me, I had already noticed my blood pressure zooming, the pulse rise, the perspiration, a tightening of the chest and a gripping sense of doom. I erred on the side of insanity. It was a decision based on the formula, untested, that this would be the only way to erase the absolute threat that their presence was able to wreck the proudest day of my life. It was the outstretched version of the digital Hollywood hello I chose, the finger stretched to its maximum length without being bent. It’s instantly recognizable, the “Easy Rider” method. Suddenly, I felt an addictive sensation, the feeling you get when a Sunday paper stretches out after you pop the red rubber band around it. Doing it without its rubber whip punishing you with a backlash is a professional touch. I didn’t make eye contact with them again, so I don’t know if they saw it or not, but I was hopeful the defendant didn’t think I was shooting her the bird. It was inevitable that I would run into Whiting again during the session, but there he was as I turned toward the exit, standing there, outstretched hand, begging for me to talk to him. My wife reminded me that getting the award was the best payback. So I told him Glenn Puit was going to visit again from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and that my wife worked for Catholic Charities, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I split. Mark writes me after reading my columns: “My God!! I can’t believe they’re publishing this stream of consciousness!! What do those poor people think when they read your column over their morning coffee?? You beat everything, Bullard, you really do. You’re one of a kind, and that’s the truth.” ******** Block, cube, drug store dope, goma, Mary, morphina, Morphy, mojo, mud, Murphy, dreamer, first line, God's drug, M, MS, Miss Emma, Mr. Blue, morph, junkie analgesics. To: Former Gov. Beasley. i can't wait to read your journals. thanks for talking to me. i've already transcribed it. it was a good excuse to be able to miss buck limehouse in loris today...caught him on the flipflop in north myrtle however for an interview...i loved this charlotte observer cartoon so much, i called them and got them to fax it to me. this is my story in today's new catholic miscellany on the hispanic conference.... http://www.catholic-doc.org/miscellany/miscellany.html the fella who wrote the companion piece (on the spartanburg operation) to my trucker's motel story in point was alex todorovic, who was reporting for u.s. news & world report live from kosovo i think about the same time you were there....it was the time of the protests....he was dispatching to a bunch of other dailies too. i'm sorry about your mother's passing, and i said a prayer for you all when mary wood was at mcleod. i'm going on the 24th at conway hospital for an operation on diverticulitis and my faith and my wife are the things keeping me buoyed. i voted for you, and i'd vote for you again. i voted for mccain also. i hope the media treats you well so you can come back if you wish later. i think the media, for the most part, knows you did a courageous thing on video poker and the flag, and everyone knows in their heart of hearts you did the best thing for the state of south carolina. i know it must have been hard standing up there the night you conceded. i saw it and it was something. the wounds will heal in time. folks treated you mighty poorly before, during and after the election, ones who voted for you too. when i got the fax from gary with the TIME story, i went to the myrtle beach city annex where hodges was live on wis with you, i think, before his "town meeting" before a picked crowd of demos. i was interviewing ms. hodges outside and showed her the fax and she was reading it, it appeared to me, for the first time, and i asked her straight up what she thought of this kind of stuff in a campaign. she appeared a little disappointed and surprised over it, and said it was personal stuff and about that time vida miller, wayne gray of the city council and sally howard (h.c. demo chieftain) came up, and somehow one of them grabbed the fax from me and they walked off with it, just as pretty as you please..... i apologized profusely to ms. hodges for "my fellow democrats" and was mad. i went in, and as hodges p.r. henchman asked me to wait until after the q&a to ask a question, almost like touching my raised arm to pull it down, i walked down the aisle, aiming at john jenerette, shooting a photo, and walked to the mike. i asked him if what he thought about the time article which came out that day. everybody was real quiet. he said, "what article?" the next day he admitted he knew about it days earlier. one other thing i wanted to tell ya....at the holiday inn west, at a carolina entertainment video poker lobbyist meeting i went uninvited (for a second time) and was kicked out of the meeting (2nd time, 2nd meeting). but this time i had a camera. outside in the hallway, where there were hodges signs being distributed later, a guy with carolina entertainment came up to me and said..... "if you take a picture, i'm going to take that camera from you." i replied, laughing at him, "ah, no you ain't, buddy." he was walking toward me when john reyelt ( a chamber member and owner of gold rush saloon) got between us and told him curtly he better stay away from me. i ain't never been in a fight before, but i broke a guy's collarbone in a SHS football game at legion field in laurinburg. but i was ready to go with this fella. that's how rough it got that october. i caught major abuse from the video poker moguls because i decided to do a slew of stories about these folks called christians, the little river methodists and betty bibbey who met you in murrells inlet i believe when the casino boats were hovering. i was proud of my BW photo on the front page of The Guardian, published by the S.C. Chamber, with Christians holding hands in the sanctuary of 1st Methodist Myrtle Beach. The Carolina Entertainment folks were on the back row incognito as spies, later leaving, but i looked at that fella and raised my camera at him like it was a trophy. i'll never apologize about doing as many stories as i can about christians and their views because i know it's the right thing, and because i know my parents would be proud of me. so i can empathize with you when you talked about how going against the grain can be tough with consequences. and of course, trucker's motel is still open. take it ez, and thanks for all you have done for the state of south carolina. anytime i can do anything for you, please don't hesitate to let me know. ************ Jay Bender, a Columbia attorney who usually represents the S.C. Press Association,
In that case court documents showed that the article was not edited by editors before it was published. The Myrtle Beach Herald published an article recently, stating that articles are proofed by individual reporters with no other revisions. Bender was asked if this was normal procedure with newspapers across South Carolina. “I didn't see the statement that you referred to in the Herald. My notion is that somebody who writes a story can also edit the story.” Are articles usually read by an editor? “No. I think in smaller papers it's not always read by anyone other than the person who writes the story,” Bender said. “I mean, it requires care on the part of the person who is doing that, but as far as I know, it's not a universal practice to have a chain of editors Download 2.99 Mb. Share with your friends:
|