[alloallo3]

Synopsis: A snippet from a larger work. In 1968 a police chief in Clinton, La has his breakfast interrupted.


In all the living world, Police Chief Ronald Hattaway only loved two things. The big one, or at least the one he talked about, was LSU football. For four months each year Hattaway’s step took on a noticeable bounce, and his big cheeks a red fall cheeriness. From August 15 to January 1 (if the Tigers made it into a big bowl game), he was a man happily possessed.

At 6:00 a.m. each morning, seven days a week, he’d pick up a Morning Advocate from the stand in front of the Piggly Wiggly. Then he’d drive slowly over to Eula Mae’s, the cafe owned by Eula Mae Edwards and her husband Johnson. The old cafe sat in the middle of Hardwood, the oldest, poorest, black neighborhood in Clinton. Like the shacks that surrounded it, Eula Mae’s was constructed of rusted tin and raw pine boards. It squatted within encroaching tangles of kudzu. Decades of atomized grease had painted the interior of the building as black as the cast iron pans that hung over the cast iron stove. Hattaway always said that having breakfast each morning at Eula Mae’s was his way of keeping his eye on the niggers, but that wasn’t the case. That was just a useful excuse he could put forth to his deputies.

Because his deputies had a decided propensity toward confusion, it was often necessary for Hattaway to fabricate reasons and excuses they could understand. Certainly they would have been utterly dumbfounded had they known the real reason for his daily visits.

As Clinton old-timers knew, Eula Mae had worked for Hattaway’s mom and dad 30 years before, back when Ronald was just Ronnie. She’d helped raise him up.

Each morning Hattaway would sit at his table in the corner, back to the wall, face to the door. If the morning was cold, Johnson would have built a fire in the trash burner near the table, and Hattaway would enjoy the radiant heat and the crackling of hot wet pine. He would read about his beloved Tigers in his mammy’s warm embrace, and for a few moments he was utterly, completely content with the world.

All of which goes to explain the anger that swelled in Hattaway’s heart when on this particular morning he noticed just to the left of the grey columns of his Morning Advocate a white cuff with a white hand extending from it. His eyes fixed on the hand, then rose from it, his anger growing with the movement. Soon he was looking into the face of one of his deputies, surely the only one who had the poor taste to show up here. The deputy stood uncomfortably close to the Chief, who knew neither the reason for this strange appearance or the odd propinquity. Perhaps the deputy was encloaking himself in the protection of the chief in this uncomfortable place, or perhaps the man was simply exhibiting one of his myriad social incompetencies. The Chief was certain only that this intrusion was unwelcome.

“Hullo, Bull,” Hattaway sighed.

The man grimaced. He expected the other deputies to call him Bull Connor. But his boss? He thought about correcting the sheriff, pointing out that his name was John, and pointing out too that the sheriff had known him all his life. But he changed his mind, and put on his professional face. After all, it was just one more insult. One more reminder. “Hello, Chief,” he finally said, and paused. He was trying to follow the rules -- the southern rules for conversation. He couldn't get right to business, he had to first do a little socializing. He glanced down at the paper, and gratefully seized on the headline. "How're the Tigers lookin’ this year?”

Hattaway ignored the gambit. “What do you want, Bull?”

The deputy grabbed the back of a chair. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Yes,” said the Chief. “I damn sure do. In fact I mind you bein’ here at all.”

“All right then,” said John. “Sure.”

They were silent for a moment before Hattaway spoke. “I ast you, Bull, what do you want?”

“I’d like a few days off. I need some time off.”

“Well then,” said Hattaway, lowering his paper, “whyn’t you just quit? That way you could have all the time off you could possibly need.”

“You know I’m not gonna quit,” said John. “Ain’t no way.”

“All I know is, that’s the only way you’re gonna get any time off. I expect you in your office today and every day from noon to eight o’clock. I don’t expect anything else from you. ”

Hattaway had a sudden thought, and he looked up at the big deputy. “That said, please do take some time off. Give me an excuse,” he said sourly.

“Nope, no sir. Not gonna happen, “ John told his boss.

“Then lemme eat my breakfast in peace,” Hattaway said, lifting again his newspaper. “Leave me the hell alone.”

John stood still for a moment, staring off at nothing in particular. Then he turned and walked away.

Hattaway opened again his newspaper. But he could feel something, like someone was watching him. When he peered over the top of his paper he realized he was right. Eula Mae stood beside her stove, glaring at him, her fists on her broad hips. In one fist she clutched a chrome spatula.

Hattaway cringed. How many times had he seen that posture?

Goddam it all, he thought. Goddam it all. I’ll never hear the end of this one.

[Ambrose]

You write with an air of professionalism and experience. I'd be interested in reading the source work.