5
The four drunks had a lot of stories to tell, and we kept talking until late in the night. No sooner would one of them tell a tale than one of the others would start another story. Finally, I started asking questions about the town.
“How’d this town get started,” I said.
”Indians,” Charlie said, and then Buck added to it. “Delaware tribe. Maybe thirty of them, along with their womenfolk, lived down along Wills Creek. Maybe down about where the Viaduct is today. That was the old Mingo Indian trail, and then the white folks came, and later some people from the Isle of Guernsey, over off the coast of France came, and they named the county after them, so right now you’re in the Guernsey County Jail which also serves as the Cambridge City Jail. We did at one time have a county jail but that was back in the civil war days and we even had two ole Hunt Morgan’s rebel soldiers locked up in it one time.”
“Hunt Morgan?” I looked askance at Charlie.
“He was a rebel general during the civil war, and he’s the only rebel to ever invade a northern state. He crossed the Ohio River down around Indiana and fought his way clear up into the northern part of the Ohio, where he got surrounded by the Yankees, and had to surrender.”
“Those guys they locked up in the county jail, were just a couple young guys, looking to pleasure some of our pretty girls, so they slipped away from the camp down at Lore City, while they were fighting a little skirmish with some Yankees that was on their tail, and just slipped on up here to Cambridge, where the local police arrested them.”
“Wow,” I said. “They teach you all that in school?You guys got a fabulous memory. Old Morgan must have been quite a guy.”
“Yeah,” Buck laughed, “but that’s not the end. The story goes on. One of Morgan’s captains, a guy named John Collins, diddled a girl down there in Lore City, and she had a boy child, who later had his own boy child, who became a bank robber.”
“What would old John and his General, think if they knew that John had a great, great grandson, that robbed banks?”
That night as I lay relaxed on my bunk reliving the events of the day, I had to chuckle.
“Rent a bar stool,” I whispered.
Then during the night, I woke and then sort of laid in a daze, letting my mind wonder, and it came to rest on the young bank robber. With the heritage that he had, why did he rob banks?
Old Charlie stuck his head in my cell to tell me about breakfast the next morning, but I had already heard the steel door out in the bullpen clang. I hurried out to get my tray and then went to the table where my new friends were already sitting.
“Don’t drink that crap in your cup,” Charlie warned me.” It’s worse than panther piss. I’ll pour you my brew in just about two seconds.”
I looked down at my plate. A biscuit, with something that looked like ham gravy, and a little dab of syrup, with a cracker to dip in it, not the normal jailhouse fare. Cambridge. A town of interest.
Surely a unique specimen among the small towns of America. Many folks don’t understand that when you get busted by the cops, it’s an automatic promise of two things. You will go to jail, and you will see a judge.
Your private life is no longer private. It’s a matter of public record for anybody to see. The cops? Well, they don’t decide. It’s not part of their training. Their job is to catch you and lock you up. That’s it. That’s the extent of their authority, so it makes no sense to explain the circumstances of why you shouldn’t be arrested. Cops ears are not trained to hear your pleas.
The clanging of the door to the bullpen is the signal that precedes any diversion in the boredom of pulling time.
“Bonner, and Beckner, front and center. Time for court.”
We went together. Both of us climbing the stairs behind the cop who was leading the way. Neither of us was wearing handcuffs. These cops knew from long habit that drunks, and saloon brawlers, don’t run away.
The cop led us through a door and directed us to sit down. I glanced around the room, and the first thing I noticed was the little sign to display the prestige of the owner of the desk. Bill Bowen, Mayor. I surely had to chuckle. We were being tried by the mayor.
Apparently, the justice department budget was too small to establish a small claims court to try guys like me, along with the drunks and wife beaters, and right off I wondered if he got extra pay for sentencing prisoners.
My inspection, and my thoughts, were both interrupted when a guy entered the room, and went behind the desk. He looked the same as any businessman you might see on the street, from his double-breasted suit to his glasses. A quick glance at a piece of paper that I assumed was the docket for today, and he spoke.
“Uh, Mr.Bonner, we’ll take you first. Stand up here in front of my desk if you will, and we’ll try to get this thing settled.”
It only took me a second to get there, and the first thing he said was critical. All at once I knew that this would be a bad day.
“Last night, I have a report here that claims you took part in a physical confrontation, with two of our prisoners, who in some manner offended you. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?.. Would you care to provide us with your description of this incident?”
“The man was choking me. I didn’t want to die.”
“Hmmm, and the earlier similar incident in Turner’s saloon?
“The man wanted to rent me the barstool I was sitting on, and I chose not to pay.”
“Yes. I have that right here.” he was reading from another sheet of paper.
“Hmmm, now according to the testimony of the bartender, you advised the man that you would need to puke in your beer if you permitted yourself to rent the barstool. Is that an accurate account of your statement, regarding paying rent for a barstool?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm, very good. The solution to the incident is perfectly obvious Mr. Bonner. You sir, being a visitor to our community, and ignorant of our local humor, quite naturally failed to understand, that no one has the authority to rent a barstool, and therefore took unwarranted offense at the humor of one of our locals. I, therefore, find you guilty of assault and battery, on the person of three of the citizens of Cambridge, and hereby sentence you to ten day confinement in our local jail. Case dismissed.”
“Now Mr. Beckner, if you please. Yes. Right in the desk’s front.”
Holy smoke. I was in shock. What the heck. There was no way that anybody could be that obtuse. How long did it take him to figure out the humor excuse? And why? His local people had deliberately attacked me, a total stranger to them.Or maybe I looked like a man that they felt the need to take a big steaming dump on. I would never figure it out. My attendance shifted to Buck, the mayors next victim, standing patiently in front of his desk.
“Hmmm, now Buck, our boys have found you drunk again, but this time there isn’t a disorderly charge against you. Why is that?”
Buck
