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ALABAMA

by BUD TANT

January 9, 1992
Cummins Unit




Early in March 1974 I was living in an old hunting lodge sixteen miles from Bellingham, Washington, on the south end of Lake Whatcom. I shared the large, uninsulated house with four of my longhaired friends. The hunting lodge was called "Deerhaven" and over he years it had developed a reputation for being a place where anyone wishing shelter could come and be welcomed.

None of us were lazy, but none of us worked regular jobs, either. We never turned down work and each managed to find enough gainful employment to sustain Life at Deerhaven. It was an idyllic period of my life, and the memories of The Deerhaven Years will see me through these empty Prison Years.

One day I made the long uphill trek to the mailbox. We lived right on the lake and our driveway was steep, rutted and about 100 yards long. We each had a dog and we currently had a couple of spare dogs that we were watching for friends who were in Mexico, South America or Hawaii at the time. So, as I trudged up the long, steep hill toward our mailbox I was accompanied by a pack of large, frisky dogs nipping at my heels and imploring me to throw a stick for them.

We had a purple mailbox ("just take the lake road until you see the purple mailbox on the left, about a mile past Uncle Tom's Cabin. That's the place...). We didn't get an awful lot of mail. Mostly we got notices from Columbia Records telling us that we owed several hundred dollars for the albums we'd received at the rate of .01 for six albums. Many times the bills would be addressed to one of our dogs because each of us had been blacklisted by the company years before.

"Uh-oh, Bear, looks like you better remit $79.11 or Columbia House is going to send a collector around!" I admonished my devoted, overgrown Newfoundland-and-Husky- mixed best friend.

Bear just cocked his head, wagged his tail and looked at me with his bituminous-black eyes. "You can look dumb if you want to," I told him, "but when the collection agency shows up you'd better have a better story than that..."

So this particular morning as I sorted through the mail I wasn't expecting to find anything other than the usual occasional postcard from a friend in some exotic place, in addition to the bill from the record company. But this time the purple mailbox yielded up a letter addressed to me. It wasn't a thick envelope. It was postmarked "Montgomery, Alabama," and I knew it was from my lady, Linda.

I quickly scanned the neat lines. She was telling me that something very big was happening and that I should call her as soon as possible. I ran back down the hill to the house, racing the dogs.

We didn't have a telephone. Even if we used one of the dogs' names, the telephone company insisted on a hefty deposit. Now that I think about it, those dogs weren't too damned useful.

So I grabbed my big hat, found the keys to one of our many beat-up vehicles (all communal-use, uninsured beaters), and headed for the nearest phone booth, which was about 5 miles away in Alger.

I converted several bills into silver at the little store in Alger, stepped inside the phone booth and made my call. Linda answered and I felt something leap in my heart when I heard her soft southern voice rising above twenty-five-hundred miles of static-filled telephone cable. I leaned against the glass walls and closed my eyes so that I could see her.

"Buddy," she said in an excited voice, "I just got the greatest news! I'm going to have your baby!"

I nearly blacked out. My head reeled and the world began whirling outside the telephone booth. I had to grasp to phone receiver with both hands. You see, I'd left Alabama in late January 1974 under what can best be called less than ideal circumstances.

I'd been arrested in Alabama, not once but twice, for possession of marijuana. I'd taken Linda home to Alabama for Christmas and the authorities had brought their own marijuana to arrest me twice in the month of December, 1973.

The first time I was merely indignant. The penalty was a simple fine of $200 plus court costs. No big deal. But the second time constituted a felony punishable by up to 10 years in the Alabama prison system. That was a big deal. I didn't have the money to defend myself in court and I wasn't about to serve years in an Alabama prison for something I didn't do.

So I'd softly kissed Linda good-bye and gone back up to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
Now here I stood in a glass and aluminum telephone booth with news of a baby ringing in my ears. There was no question about what I would do.

"Honey," I told her, "let me get myself together and I'll be there. I'll write and let you know exactly when I'll be there, but I'm sure I'll leave here within a few days." I hung up the phone with the realization that my life was taking a momentous turn...

When I arrived back at Deerhaven my friends could see the clouds in my eyes. I told them about the telephone call and each said emphatically, "DON'T GO, BUD!" But sometimes there are things that we must do, in spite of the consequences. There was no question in my mind that this was such a time.

So, three weeks before Easter in 1974 I petted the dogs at Deerhaven for what I thought might well be the last time. I'd mailed a box of my clothes to myself c/o General Delivery, Tallassee, Alabama. I didn't have much money, but my friends each pitched in what they could before they drove me to a likely-looking ramp on I-5 South. I said my good-byes and walked away from the old car.

I was wearing an old pair of Levis, a khaki Sonoma County Sheriff's Department shirt, a huge leather Moroccan cowboy hat and my most valuable possession, a wide-eyed grin. I stuck my thumb into the blue sky and headed for Alabama and Fate...

I knew not what Fate had in store for me when I reached Alabama. Nobody knows what Fate will leave on Tomorrow's doorstep, but I'd made up my mind to take my time getting there. I decided to take the scenic route down through California and then all the way across Interstate 10. The baby wasn't due until August. I had plenty of time to get there.

I stopped in Chico, California to see friends, or maybe just to say good-bye to them. Then I hit Los Angeles and the first California Jam. There I hooked up with some fine folks from Rhode Island, and we hopped on their school bus and spent Easter week at Parker, Arizona, along with two-million other revelers, on the mighty Colorado River. Just good, clean, wholesome fun and the kind of excursion you'll never be able to buy from a travel agent. I traveled the Road of Life all the way to Montgomery, Alabama.

When I reached New Orleans I decided to take a bus the rest of the way. I couldn't afford to get stranded in some little Southern town where a small-town cop would see me as his opportunity to rid the world of hippies.

I called Linda once more and told her what time my bus was due to arrive in Montgomery. I couldn't possibly return safely to the little town where her folks lived. She was happy, and told me she'd be at the bus depot.

I've never claimed to be an orthodox Christian, but I have my faith in God and my ideas concerning any Life Hereafter. My theory is that hell will undoubtedly be a Greyhound bus which will travel for Eternity. Nobody will be allowed to get off the bus.

Each bus I've ever traveled on has signs above the front windshield. One sign says "For your convenience, this coach is equipped with a restroom in the rear." They should have one that says "For your convenience you are sitting beside a wino who will bum cigarettes and snore for thousands of miles." Or, "For your convenience, there is a six-month-old infant with an acute case of gas or colic sitting in the seat immediately in front of you, and he'll scream for thousands of miles." Yes, those signs would be appropriate. So when the old gray dog pulled into Montogomery, I was prepared for prison or any other respite from the long bus ride.

I looked around and a slightly-swollen Linda ran up and threw her arms around my neck. I picked up my pack and we left the smelly bus depot and found a Holiday Inn.

Later that night Linda told me that she had to call her mother so that her mother wouldn't worry. I begged her not to tell her ma where we were staying. It was her mother who had sicced the cops on me back in December. I'd known that all along, but it served no useful purpose to hold it against her. She did it out of love for her daughter. She didn't want her daughter living thousands of miles from home. It saddened me, but it didn't make me angry.

The next morning we got out of bed and prepared to leave the motel. Linda was concerned that her mother would be worried if she wasn't home in the next few minutes and we were still uncertain about precisely where I'd be staying. So she called her mother again. I told her not to tell her mother which motel we were staying at, then I climbed into the shower.

When I got out of the shower I asked if she'd spoken to her mother. She said she had. I asked if she'd told her mother where we were. Linda looked disgusted. "Buddy, you're not being fair to mother. Of course, I told her where we are!"

I jumped into my clothes and quickly packed my things. I told her I'd be out by the pool and to please hurry with her shower so we could leave. My instincts were telling me the sky was about to fall .

I hadn't been sitting beside the pool for more than five minutes or so when I heard sirens. I looked toward the freeway bypass and saw two unmarked cars with their emergency lights flashing as they ran the traffic light leading toward the Holiday Inn. I didn't panic. I sat quietly as the two cars screamed into the parking lot and stopped in front of the motel office.

That was my cue. I leaped to my feet and jumped the six-foot redwood fence surrounding the pool area. "HALT!" I heard someone shout, right before a series of gunshots rang out in the morning stillness. I heard the bullets whizzing past me. I was in an open field, with no cover and nowhere to go. I hit the ground and threw my hands up in the air. Within moments the cops had reached my prone body.

One cop pulled my arms behind my back and roughly handcuffed me while a second kept jamming his piston in my ear. Once my hands were safely secured, blows rained heavily on my head and someone kicked me hard in the ribs. Yes, those Southern boys sure know how to dispense on-the-spot justice.

By the time they'd dragged me around the fence and back into the waiting patrol car, Linda had come out of the room. She stood in silent horror with one hand covering her mouth. "You shouldn't have told your mama," I told her quietly as the door of the police car slammed in my face.

They drove me to the Elmore County Jail in Wetumpka, Alabama and booked me for possession of marijuana and failure to appear in court for the initial charges. They set bond at $50,000 surety and placed me in a filthy communal cellblock. I was amazed. You see, they practiced segregation in the jails of Alabama in 1974, but they made an exception in my case; they put me in the cellblock where the black prisoners were being held.

They did it for a reason; they mistreated blacks miserably and they were counting on the blacks beating me up purely out of hatred for the way the white jailers treated them. Not a bad theory, and one that would have worked had I been your average sort of guy. But I'm not the average guy and I'm not easily victimized by violence.

At first the black prisoners were relatively cordial. They knew I wasn't from Alabama and my long hair was a novelty around those parts. So the day passed uneventfully. But later that night two black brothers from Chicago were released from isolation cells and placed in the cellblock. They'd been placed in isolation as a result of their violent behavior toward the other prisoners.

They were huge. Both had shaved heads and both claimed to be Black Muslims. By the time they threw them in the "tank" it was dark and we'd all been locked up in separate cells for the night.

As the two brothers passed my cell they paused and took long looks at me. One of them sneered openly at me. When they'd reached their own cells they began talking to me, asking me questions and just generally sounding sarcastic.

One of them said, "You look like a girl to me."

Now, I weighed about 175 pounds and had a 30" waist and I wasn't even close to being feminine in any respect. Of course, I'd been in jail too many times not to realize what the guy was doing, so I just told him, "Hey, fuck you!"

He started threatening me and telling me what he was going to do to me just as soon as they opened the doors the next morning. I just told him to save his energy for the morning.

I have to say that nearly all of the blacks liked me. Except for the brothers from Chicago, those other guys were all Southern born and raised "colored folks." I could tell they didn't particularly like the two Muslims, and as I listened to their whispered conversations that night I heard several of them hoping I'd prevail in the fight.

The next morning I awoke to that miserable reality that sets in when a man wakes up in jail. I washed my face and made my preparations. I did some pushups and stretching exercises and rolled up wads of toilet paper to place in my cheeks to protect my teeth as best I could.

The Muslim was preparing himself, too, only he was simply yelling out what he was going to do to me as soon as the door opened.

Every jail has a sort of hallway that runs parallel to the cells. It's called a "catwalk." When the doors opened I stepped onto the catwalk and faced the direction the Muslims would come from. I hadn't really gotten a good look at him the night before, and as he stepped out of his cell I could see that he weighed over 200 pounds.

He curled his lip and sneered something about "white mother fucker," then he charged me. The fool charged straight toward me with his head down. I set my back foot and threw the best straight right hand I've ever hit anyone with. It landed on his forehead and he slid down, crushing his wide nose.

Gouts of blood spurted from his injured nose and he raised his arms to his head in an attempt to cover up. All the anger, fear and frustration of Alabama poured out of me at that moment. He never even got a punch in.

His brother was larger than he was, and he had started to help his injured brother, but the local black prisoners didn't let that happen. So I stood up, breathing heavily and looked at the second brother. I could see the hatred in his eyes. I knew I was going to have to fight him, too before the day was over.

I cleaned myself as best I could and sat at the metal table in the "bullpen" wondering what I was going to do. I didn't know anyone with the financial means of bailing me out of jail, so I didn't even waste my telephone call. It was a terribly black day in my life.

I heard the heavy metal keys rattling in the cellblock door shortly before noon. The heavy outer door creaked open and the jailer tole me, "Roll up your stuff, hippie. Somebody done made your bond."

I couldn't imagine who it could be, but I didn't ask any questions. Within seconds I was through that iron door.

My mind was working overtime trying to figure out where Linda had come up with the money and deed to property necessary to secure the bond. I still hadn't figured that out when I reached the booking area. As soon as I reached the booking desk I saw who my heroine was.

It wasn't Linda. Node, it surely wasn't Linda. I was shocked to see a lady named Francis sitting languidly in one of the old oak chairs. She was perhaps 37-38 years old and her husband - yes, her husband - was the owner of several cotton gins in the area. He was perhaps the most prominent citizen in a little town called Carlisle.

I smiled widely and said, "Woman, you sure do know how to start a scandal, don't you?" Francis just smiled.

I signed the many dotted lines. Francis signed beneath me and we walked out of that stifling brick building into the clear Spring air of Wetumpka, Alabama.

She drove a Lincoln. I climbed into the passenger side and she hiked her skirt up high on her well-rounded thighs and backed that baby out of there. I've forgotten Francis' last name. But that's unimportant. I like women with spunk, so I was laughing as she turned onto the highway.

"Francis," I said, "your husband is going to divorce you and shoot me."

I don't remember her husband's name at all. He was about 5'5" tall and rapidly losing his hair. It was his money that had won Francis' affection and she told me she didn't really give a good damn what he said or thought, or what anyone else said or thought, for that matter.

Francis took her eyes off the road and studied me sitting beside her. I had blood all over my Levis and shirt and my knuckles were cut, swollen and bruised. "Looks like I got you out just in the knick of time," she commented as she looked me up and down.

I agreed that she had, indeed arrived just in the knick of time.

I'd met Francis when I'd lived in Alabama a couple of years prior to my latest arrival. She'd lived next door to a girl I saw occasionally, and the girl, Sheila, was a good friend of Francis'. I'd never had an affair with her or given her any reason to think I was even thinking about anything of that nature.

"I told Sheila you'd be back. As soon as I heard Linda was pregnant with your baby I told her you'd be back. What are you planning to do?" She asked me.

I laughed. "Hell, I don't know what I'm going to do," I admitted.

She told me about a house for rent in Red Hill. She told me it was a cute house, but it didn't have an indoor bathroom. As we flew down the narrow highway she gave me directions to the house and told me who owned it. She said she'd call the lady who owned the house and arrange for me to live there if I wanted her to.

I just looked down at the two-foot of thighs and grinned.

Francis dropped me off right in front of the Hotel Tallassee. I was thanking her while she rummaged through her purse. She pulled out a wad of bills and thrust them toward me. I started to protest, but she put her finger to my lips and told me to take it. She said I could repay her when and if I ever got any money.

Then she winked at me and said, "If you ever need anything, you know where I am."

I leaned over and gave her a tight squeeze and a quick kiss and thanked her. I was free once more...

The next day I checked out of the Hotel Tallassee and my new life quickly began to take form. Linda and I bought a 1963 Pontiac from an old man who'd bought it new. Then we drove to Red Hill to look at the house Francis had told me about.

At first, Linda started to protest Francis' generosity, but she quickly abandoned her bitching once I pointed out to her that none of this would have been necessary had it not been for her phone call to her mother and her mother's predicted actions.

We found the house without any problem. It's true, the house didn't have an indoor bathroom, but it was a pretty house just the same. It was neatly painted and had French doors leading to the dining room. Only in Alabama will a person find a house that has a formal dining room, but no indoor bathroom. Go figure...

We drove down the road to the owner's house and paid the rent for the first month; forty dollars. Red Hill is a long way from the nearest hospital, and it's also twenty-five miles from where Linda was working in a beauty salon. It was agreed between us that Linda would stay with her parents most of the time.

I loved her, but I couldn't totally forgive her for the troubles her folks had caused me. When we'd gone to Alabama for Christmas after her father had announced that she was welcome in the house, but that I couldn't stay there. I'd spent the Christmas holidays in the Hotel Tallassee, and the wounds created by her disloyalty hadn't completely healed. They still haven't disappeared.

So I bought a bed and Linda brought her stereo and some dishes and utensils out to the house. Before very long I moved my pack in, and my ass just sort of naturally followed.

It was a fine little house. It sat perched atop a little grassy knoll. The breeze seemed to always be blowing and it was downright peaceful on that little hill. I found two German Shepherd puppies about eight-weeks old and began turning the house into a home.

At the bottom of the knoll a state highway meandered through the green fields and red clay of that part of the country, and directly across the highway was a one-hundred acre or so cow pasture. Show me a cow pasture and I'll show you "cow pies." Life's like that.

Now, in the deep South cow pies have a special significance in the Spring and Summer months. That's when tiny spores of psilocybin mushrooms begin sprouting from the cow pies immediately following a Spring shower or a thunderstorm. "Magic" mushrooms, if you will. That's what the Indians called them.

They are one of Mother Nature's more delicate phenomena. They rise from minuscule spores and grow up to six inches in diameter within a matter of a few hours. And they disappear just as quickly once the hot rays of the sun reach them. Get 'em quick, or you miss 'em. And, like I said, they grow smack dab in the middle of the cow pies.

I searched for work. Nobody can say I didn't try hard to find an honest job. When I'd lived in Alabama before, I'd done a wide assortment of strange things for a livelihood. I'd even caught and sold poisonous snakes. I'd creep down the creeks in the pitch black night with a dry cell battery-powered spotlight, a forked stick and burlap bags to carry the vipers in.

I caught hundreds of ill-tempered cottonmouth moccasins, copperhead moccasins, and even rattlesnakes. An interesting story, I'll admit, but it's a completely different story from the one I'm telling right now.

What I'm trying to illustrate is the frustration I experienced in my efforts to find a job. Long Hair Freaky Folks Need Not Apply. I tried the cotton mills, construction crews and everywhere else I could think to look. No luck. O.K., so I didn't have a job, but I did have friends, and I've always been a resourceful person.

Alex, one of my friends who lived in Atlanta had a great deal of money. He owned a huge nightclub called "The Electric Ballroom." He had "other interests," too. One of those included dispensing marijuana to all the "beautiful people" who frequented his flashy nightclub. My friends are like the highways; they stretch all across America. Thus, my marijuana connections. I went to Atlanta to see my friend.

I went to Alex's mansion of a house located on Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Atlanta. Alex is no longer alive, but he wouldn't mind me laying all this down for posterity's sake. I knocked on his door with my hat in my hand.

I'd done a couple of things for Alex in the past and he knew he could trust me. So, after I'd explained my dilemma, he agreed to help me. It helped Alex far more than it helped me. Alex went into a room and came back with ten-thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He told me to bring him one-hundred pounds of Guerrero Gold. I shook his hand, got into the old 1963 Pontiac (it had already been dubbed the "Red Hill Daredevil"," and drove that beast all the way back to Carrollton, Texas.

Alex paid me twenty-five-hundred dollars for the first run, and we doubled the quantity in the succeeding runs. It was dangerous work, but it was a piece of cake after hunting snakes. It paid right and it allowed me to buy a house full of quality oak furniture and all the items of furniture a baby needs.

I liked the danger involved in my job, but I had to be cautious; very, very cautious. So I learned the back roads running through Alabama. One particular dirt road I traveled frequently went from just outside Tallassee all the way past Talladega, more than sixty miles. I got to know those roads with almost monotonous familiarity. I'd fly down some of them with the reckless abandon of a kamikaze pilot steering his Zero into the crowded flight deck of an American aircraft carrier. I'd open a dozen cans of Alpo for my puppies, climb into the old Pontiac, and make my daredevil run through the heart of the Deep South. Perilous flight...

When I'd arrive back here in Red Hill, I'd go see Linda, give her some money and return to my little house on the hill. After a rain I'd cross the highway and wander around the cow pasture picking mushrooms from the cow pies. I'd carry a burlap sack and on many days I'd fill it with my magic treasure. I'd take them home, boil them and make electric kool-aide with the inky black juice.

This was my life in the Spring of 1974 as Linda grew larger with my child and the puppies turned into mulish-looking dogs.

One day I was out picking mushrooms when an old black man emerged from the door of an unpainted wooden "shotgun" shack on the far side of the pasture. I'd seen him before, but I'd never met him. I paused for a moment and watched him bend and carefully climb between the strands of rusted barbed wire fence surrounding the pasture. He walked with a stiff, upright dignity. As he drew near I could see character emanating from his every pore.

He wore a sweat-stained felt hat that had long since lost any meaningful shape until now it was merely a floppy form of shade covering his mahogany face. His hair was as white as Alabama cotton and he wore a faded pair of Oshkosh overalls. The overalls were as white in places as his snowy hair. He had on a long-sleeved denim work shirt that was faded and had been patched at the elbows. It was badly frayed around the collar, but he stood as stolid and dignified as any Brooks Brothers suit-wearing professional I'd ever seen. His feet were huge and they'd been stuffed into a pair of well-worn brown brogans. He wore no socks. It was plain to see that the man wasn't wearing any socks. Not only were his bony ankles naked, but he had also cut openings in the boots where his little toes were, to ease the painful bunions which bulged out of the leather.

He took off his old hat and extended a large brown hand. I took it.

"'Scuse me, sir," he began, "my name's Thomas Jefferson Jackson and I'm your next-door neighbor." He said it almost as an apology.

I introduced myself and told him I was pleased to meet him.

"Sir, I don't mean to be nosy or rude," he explained, "but I been a'watchin' you fer some time now and I was a'wonderin', what are you a-doin'? If you don't mind me askin'."

I laughed. "I'm picking mushrooms, Mr. Jackson."

"Well, now I see that," he allowed, "but what do you do with them?"

"I boil them and then make kool-aide with the juice," I explained.

"Well, I swear!" he exclaimed. "Now, who'd 'f ever thought a person could drink something what grows in a cow patty!"

"Mr. Jackson, these are magic mushrooms," I explained. "Do you drink?" I asked him. He admitted that he occasionally took a nip when his arthritis acted up "from time-to-time."

"Well," I said, "what these mushrooms do is make a man high. You see colors and you get the feeling sort of like the way you feel when you drink White Lightening, just before you actually get drunk. Now, it ain't exactly like that, but that's about as close as I can describe it to you."

"Well, I swear! I thought I'd heard about everything, but I guess that about takes the cake!" he exclaimed. I looked at him and his eyes were laughing. He had beautiful eyes. They were nearly as large as cow eyes and every bit as brown. He had crinkles in the corners, like dark rays radiating from the sun. Amazing eyes.

"You don't mind if I help you, do you?" he asked. I told him I'd be more than happy for the company.

When we'd picked all the mushrooms we could find, I stood up and told him, "Tom," (he'd insisted on being called "Tom"), "why don't you come over to my house and visit for a while and I'll show you how I make my electric kool-aide."

He told me he'd like that a lot. He said he reckoned he'd bring his liquor, if it wouldn't offend me. He told me he'd have to go "'splain'" to the old woman where he'd be, but that he'd be there "directly." As he started to walk away, he turned suddenly and asked if I minded if he brought his "mouth harp." I told him to bring it on.

I went to the house and started washing my mushrooms. I had picked out a Taj Mahal album, Muddy Waters, and a Merle and Doc Watson album to entertain the old man. I had ol' Taj wailing when I heard Tom's voice call, "HELLO, THE HOUSE!"

I yelled for him to come in and almost immediately he was standing beside me in the kitchen. He had an old recycled pint bottle of clear liquid in one big hand and a beat-up old Marine Band harmonica in the other. He had a grin on his face like this was a special occasion. And it was. Somehow I knew even then that that moment in my life would be etched indelibly in my memory bank.

He wrinkled his nose as he looked into the black water boiling in the pot. I explained to him how I'd strain the juice and then mix it with two or three packs of kool-aide and some sugar. His curiosity was soon sated. It was a simple process.

When he was satisfied with the mushroom mystery, he asked if I had an old jar or bucket he could put some water in to soak his mouth harp. I gave him a pot and he filled it with water and disappeared into the front room.

I kept running back and forth between my company and my magic pot. I was straining the blackish-purple juice from the pulp of the mushrooms, and Muddy Waters was cooking on the stereo, singing some sad blues number about a lady that left him down and out in New Orleans.

I'd already eaten some of the mushrooms before I'd boiled the bulk of them and I was pretty high. I was listening to old Muddy and dancing along to the song when suddenly I heard a harmonica playing a blues rift in the background. I stopped and listened carefully. Damn, I thought to myself, I don't remember that part in this song. I put the pot down and crept into the front room.

Thomas Jefferson Jackson was sitting in a big oak rocking chair with that beat-up old harmonica held lovingly between his thick lips. His cheeks had become powerful bellows and his big, strong hands slid the instrument back and forth across his wide mouth.

I've been around some. I've been to hundreds of concerts and dozens of music festivals. I've worked in three separate music stores and listened to thousands of albums. I've traveled the highways and byways of America, meeting people and listening to music all over this country, but never, never have I heard anyone play harmonica like that old black man played that $5.00 instrument.

He warbled and wailed. He made that thing laugh and he made it cry. The hair from the bottom of my spine to my neck stood on end, and I think I even stopped breathing for a brief moment. He was the best I've ever heard.

When his last note had faded in the air, I burst into spontaneous applause. "Jesus Christ, Mr. Jackson, where in the hell did you ever learn to play a harmonica like that?" I asked incredulously.

He told me he'd been given a harmonica for Christmas when he was a small boy. He told me how his family had all played one instrument or another. He actually seemed to blush and was obviously quite embarrassed by the fuss I was making over his musical ability. The man should have been a millionaire, that's how good he was.

I got to know Thomas Jefferson Jackson quite well that Summer. He taught me many things that I'll cherish forever. It was old Tom who taught me that happiness isn't a place, it's a state of mind. It's a state of being that comes from opening one's eyes to the beauty of life. He was impoverished if his wealth was to be judged by his worldly possessions, but he was a mighty rich man.

He would clasp his huge hands as he spoke quietly. His hands were works of art. They were made of the same rich mahogany that his face was made of, only his hands were burled like the roots of the mahogany tree. Large veins coursed the length of those huge hands. Those mighty hands had held the long leads of plow harness while he followed mules up and down the endless rows of cultivated land, from sunup to sunset under the merciless Alabama sun, year after year. His powerful hands had picked the fluffy cotton from millions of cotton bolls until the hands full of cotton turned into mountains and finally, bales of cotton for his white land owner. Those hands had chopped monstrous piles of firewood to keep his family warm in the Winter; had delivered his babies from his wife's womb; had removed his hat respectfully in the presence of white people who saw Thomas Jefferson Jackson as a nigger. Marvelous hands.

Thomas Jefferson Jackson didn't know precisely how old he was. He had been born to parents who had been born slaves. He'd never driven a car or truck, and he didn't read or write. He'd never been beyond Alexander City, no more than 30 miles from Red Hill.

But that didn't mean Tom was uneducated. No, Tom could tell the weather by watching insects on the ground. He knew how to doctor sick livestock, and sick people, too. He believed in Good over Evil. He believed in Heaven and Hell, but, most of all, Thomas Jefferson Jackson believed in God. Everything that happened was attributed to his God, and he never questioned God.

Tom was my best friend. My "work" kept me away from home for days and even weeks at a time, but I never worried about the place or the dogs because Tom was my friend. When I'd return home from my perilous travels, I'd often find a burlap bag filled with mushrooms on my back porch. The dogs were always well-fed and happy, too. Like I said, a man with Thomas Jefferson Jackson for a friend didn't have to worry himself with any misgivings about his house being taken care of while he was away.

When I'd arrive home, Tom would give me a decent period of time to relax and clean up, then he'd come and "HELLO, THE HOUSE!" and we'd sit and talk while the stereo played in the background. Tom was nearly as fascinated by the stereo as he was fascinated by Life. I, on the other hand, was fascinated by Thomas Jefferson Jackson.

All things must pass, and so, too, did this era of my life. I returned home one morning and found a note tacked to my back door. "Linda has gone to the hospital to have the baby," it said. It had been written by a friend of Linda's whom she worked with. I flew to Lee County Hospital in that old Pontiac.

On August 13, 1974, a baby girl was born in Opelika, Alabama. If you'd have read the "Tallassee Tribune" on the 15th, you'd have seen that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tant, Jr. were the proud parents of a baby girl, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces. Her name was Tasha Rene Tant.

Linda and I had talked during the preceding months. The whole time she was growing larger, my court date for the marijuana which had been planted on me, drew nearer. I took Linda and the baby home from the hospital on August 15, and was due in court August 19. I was a troubled young man.

I'd done more than pay a hospital bill and buy furniture with my ill-gotten gains; I'd also retained the services of a high-power legal mouthpiece from Montgomery. He was reputed to be the best attorney in the state. So, after I took Linda and the baby to her mother's house, I went to see my lawyer.

I sat in his opulently-appointed office until I was allowed in to see The Great Man. When I entered his office, he was looking at a manila folder filled with long court documents. The first thing he asked me was if I had any money. I started to protest his price-gouging tactics, but he held up a hand to silence me.

"I don't want any more money," he said, "I just wanted to tell you that if you have any money to leave Alabama, you should go back to Washington or some other distant place. I've talked to the prosecutor and they won't plea-bargain with me. They're determined to send you to prison for ten years. And one more thing," he continued, "if you ever tell anyone that I advised you to flee this charge, I'll tell them you're lying."

I was dumbfounded. I asked for a refund of part of the retainer fee because he'd never even been to court with me on the charges. He told me he'd be more than happy to refund a portion of the fee, however, he was merely one member of a large firm of attorneys. He said that I'd have to wait around until the first of the month when they had their partner meeting. I sighed with resignation. Fuck you very much, Mr. Attorney!

I left his office and drove slowly to Linda's people's farm. I remember the clarity of that day vividly. I remember the incessant buzzing of the insects and the smell of cotton poison permeating the air. I remember the heat waves radiating off the bubbling tar of the road as I steered the Red Hill Daredevil toward the farm for the last time. I remember the pain in my heart.

I arrived at the farm, ignored the fish-eyes stare of Linda's parents, and proceeded to Linda's bedroom in the rear of the big house. Linda was lying in bed with a pink bundle of little human being beside her. I picked up my daughter and held her close to my chest. I sat on the side of the bed and told Linda what the attorney had said.

Her eyes filled with tears and she said despairingly, "Oh, Buddy, we've lost each other..."

All I could do was hold her tightly. Our tears intermingled and fell onto our tiny daughter's blanket. We'd known all along that I couldn't live in Alabama, and she surely couldn't leave the security of her parents' home now that the baby had been born. We sat there silently, holding each other for a long time.

Finally, she asked, "Where will you go?"

I just shrugged. It was so hard to talk. "I don't know. Maybe I'll go see Bob and Jody in Virginia Beach and decide from there."

I kissed her and squeezed her tightly. Then I bent down and kissed my little daughter's red face. "I'll always love you, Linda," I told her. She told me she'd always love me, too.

I stumbled blindly from her parents' house and got into the Pontiac. It felt like The Last Ride in a hearse as I pulled out of the long driveway and turned toward Red Hill.

I pulled into Woodall's Music in Tallassee and went inside. I had rearranged my emotions as best I could and my step held a steely purposefulness. I knew what I was after. I walked directly to the glass display case containing harmonicas. I pointed to the most expensive harmonica in the case. It was a long Hoehner blues harp. It had two slides on it and it was priced at $35.00.

"I'd like that harmonica," I told the snotty lady waiting on me.

She pulled it from the display case, put it in the manufacturer's box, and rang up the sale on the cash register. I asked if she gift-wrapped purchases and she said she didn't, but the department store across the street did.

I took my change, thanked her and walked across the street where, for a nominal fee a friendly saleslady wrapped the gift in silver paper and attached a red bow to the package. This done, I drove back to Red Hill.

When I arrived back at the little house, I packed my clothes and did a little quick cleaning. I didn't want Linda to find a mess when she brought our daughter to the house. I didn't actually expect her to live there permanently, but I thought she might stay there for a while until she found something better.

When the house was in relative order, I opened four cans of Alpo and sat on the back porch while the puppies demolished the pile of meat. I held them when they'd finished their meal. They worshipped me. I was the only human being they'd ever spent time around, and I'd fed them the best dog food in the market. They had grown to mulish-looking animals with gigantic ears. I'd never tried to train them to do anything except stay in the yard, but they were aggressively protective, nevertheless. They'd literally chew the tires on any strange vehicle entering my driveway. They were good dogs.

I stuck the shiny silver package in my back pocket and crossed the road to the wide pasture. Old Tom was standing in front of his weathered shack, watching my approach with his wizened eyes shaded by his burled hands. I hadn't seen him since my daughter had been born, but he'd figured something like that had happened when I'd come home and then left in such a hurry. Yes, Thomas Jefferson Jackson was illiterate, but very few things escaped those liquid brown eyes of his.

He ambled down the rickety wooden steps and extended one of his magnificent hands. He didn't look me in the eye. No, in Tom's infinite wisdom he knew the pain my eyes held, and so he left me the dignity of avoiding my eyes. I took the hand and held it.

"Tom, Linda had a baby girl. We named her 'Tasha', and she and her mother are both fine. They're at Linda's mama's house right now, but I expect they'll be coming here before the month is out. I don't know if they'll stay here. Fact is, I don't know what's going to happen to any of us. But I'd appreciate it if you'd sort of look after the place and the furniture and feed the dogs for me. Like I said, I don't know if they'll live here, but if they do, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on them for me, too. I've got to leave, Tom. These folks want to send me to prison and I don't think even ten years in prison would be enough for them."

Tom knew about my trouble with the law. He hadn't said a word as I'd spoken, but I saw his brown eyes had an unnatural brightness to them. "Mr. Bud, you don't got nothin' to worry 'bout. I'll take care of the house and the dogs, and if your woman and the baby decide to live there you can be sure ain't nuthin' bad ever gonna happen to them as long as ol' Thomas Jefferson Jackson has breath in this old body."

We stood there motionless, neither of us looking at the other. Then I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the silver package. I held it out to him. Tom stood frozen with shocked surprise. I couldn't talk any more, so I extended the package closer to him.

"Now, you ain't got to give me nuthin'", he stammered.

I placed the shiny package in his hands. His hands shook as he looked from the package to my face. He held the silver package as if it were some rare and precious piece of art. He held that package in much the same manner that I had held my baby daughter only an hour before.

"Open it," I said quietly.

Those big, skilled hands suddenly turned into clumsy paws as he fumbled to remove the tape and ribbon. When he finally unwrapped the gift and lifted the lid of the box his jaw dropped open in an imitation of the gaping box itself. The moisture in his eyes turned into rivers and ran down the banks of his ebony cheeks. His strong hands had a nervous breakdown and began trembling uncontrollably. He forgot how to speak. His mouth opened and shut mechanically as he fought for words.

"Oh, Mr. Bud...," he began. "Mr. Bud, how am I ever gonna' know how to play sumptin' like this?" he asked.

I smiled. "You'll figure it out, Tom. You'll figure it out."

There was nothing left to be said. We hugged and I breathed in the scent of wood smoke, cheap tobacco, pork grease and Time that the old man exuded.

"I won't ever forget you, Tom." I promised him.

Thomas Jefferson Jackson just stood there silently. I turned and started back across the pasture.

"You come see me, Mr. Bud!" he shouted after me. I just turned and nodded my head.

I walked back across the pasture and fought my way through the puppies who were jumping up on me and licking my hands with every step I took. I went inside the pretty little house for the last time. I picked up my pack and a small suitcase. Then I stood in the doorway and looked back at the beautiful furniture and the little house that had been my home for the past five months.

They were good dogs. They knew something Earth-shattering was happening in their young lives, because I didn't get in the old Pontiac and I didn't cross the highway to the pasture. Instead, I knelt and took my dogs into my arms one final time. Then I arose and, with all the willpower I possessed, made my voice tell Sundance and Little Bear to "stay" for the last time.

They sat with their mule ears cocked alertly and watched me walk down the bubbling highway.

When I reached a curve about a quarter-mile down the road, I turned and looked back one last time. I paused for a moment and allowed my eyes to scan my Past. An old man stood in front of a rundown shack out across a lush green pasture. He waved his arm at me and I returned his wave.

Then I turned and walked off down the highway so the dogs wouldn't see my tears. I found a secluded stand of pines off to the side of the road and spent an hour or so rearranging my emotions.

This done, I put on my hat and my smile and stuck my thumb into the blue August sky. I rode a series of cars, vans, trucks and school buses all the way to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Took the Road of Life all the way...

Blood Cows
Blood River
Dark & Evil World
The Farm
Bloodbath
Free Chewy

FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL

Kelly Duda and Concrete Films have produced a documentary which details the corruption and greed that led the Arkansas Department of Correction to spread death from Arkansas prisons to the entire world. Hear the story from the mouths of those responsible for the harvesting of infected human blood plasma, and its sale to be made into medicines.

Duda's award-winning film unflinchingly documents the whole story the U.S. government and the state of Arkansas have tried to keep hidden from the world.

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to order your own copy of
"Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal"

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to visit the
Factor 8 Documentary website

Please help spread the word about this important film,
along with the urls to the linked pages.

Read my Dreambook! Sign my Dreambook!

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