Southern Hospitality

Roger awakened to the sound of voices. He looked at the large clock over the doorway of the room.

It was a few minutes after midnight, and Deputy Kearns and Deputy Hazelit were debating why Kearns was several minutes late in relieving Hazelit. It ended with Hazelit telling Kearns, “Jes wait until the next time you all are waiting on me, jes wait.” With that he put on his coat and stormed out of the room.

Kearns looked over at Roger and said, “How you doin boy?” Roger responded, “Fine until you and your friend woke me up. While you are here, please pour me a glass of water.” Kearns poured the water and said, “Jamie and those boys really did a job on you. You musta really pissed them off.” Roger grunted and said, “Yes, I guess I did. I fired Jamie at the plant a couple of months ago and he threatened that he would even the score.”

While he was sipping the water, Roger asked, “Why do you hate blacks so much?” Kearns looked puzzled for a moment and he responded, “I don’t, it’s just that they have their place and we whites have ours, which is the way the good Lord made things. The Klan is still around, but not like it was twenty, thirty years ago.

Why over in Henderson County, they’re doing a food drive for poor whites and blacks for Christmas. I remember when I was a boy, two of my uncles were in the Klan and they were always trying to get my Dad to join, but he always said no. You see it’s like a system, we stay on our side of the line, and the blacks stay on their side, and we all get along fine. Things go bad when someone don’t know which side of the line they belong on. Roger said, “I was just wondering have you ever thought about what your life would be like if you were on the opposite side of that line?” “No, cause that tain’t never gonna happen.”

Roger said, “My head is killing me, I’m going try to get back to sleep, thanks for the water.” Kearns nodded, turned off the bright light, and lay back in the visitor’s chair as Roger tried to find a comfortable position.

As Roger sought the respite of sleep, he could not help but wonder how he got here in this hospital, cuffed to the bed and charged with murder. His mind drifted back to an afternoon in early spring when a phone call put all the wheels in motion. If you think about it, it is often a phone call that changes our destiny . . .