a simple photograph

There is a photograph from the day of the murder.

Oddly enough the Sanders had arranged to have a photographer present after the church service to take a family portrait. Prior to the family members being posed, the photographer took a photograph of the house’s roof-line including the kitchen roof and the window of Lucy Liza. The family had hired not just a fine photographer, but one of the newly formed Southern Artists of the Fotographique.

The artistic photograph of the window and roof line was very likely taken while the killer was in the room with the girl and may have been taken at the moment of her killing. Even though it seems to be a very simple photograph, it has now become a valuable piece of evidence in a murder trial as well as a valuable artifact for several auction houses.

once a view

On his way to work, a twenty-year routine ended, he paused and sighed deep, held the camera still, froze that familiar view, and now on some mornings he’ll hold the foto sight in his hand for a long time, pondering a return visit, wondering what's changed.

the entrepreneur (vi)

Walt Disney World opened the gates to The Magic Kingdom in 1971. Sea World Orlando opened in 1973. Dan could feel the migration of families of four or five in air-conditioned cars, moving smooth along the Interstate 95. If they stopped in St. Augustine, they stopped for half a day, still able to get to Orlando by dark. They stopped to see the fort and to walk around a little. But museums seemed to be a commitment of a little cash and a little time and these families were in a hurry to spend money on something a bit more sophisticated. It was time to get out and avoid being the last kooky attraction left standing. On the first day of May, 1974, The Old City Hall Museum closed without fanfare never to reopen.

Dan sold property to a company from Miami with Japanese backing and plans to gut the building and divide up the space for upscale shops. No more museum, no more attraction; just The Old City Hall Arcade Mall.

The Old City Hall Museum had become a landmark in the community, and people were surprised that it was closing, but not surprised that Dan left without a word, without an interview for the paper, no goodbyes or even parting shots. He just paid his bills, took his money, and left, some say to live in the islands.

the entrepreneur (v)

Through all the success, Dan remained “odd,” being removed from the usual business circles of church, civic club, country club, and clan. He was at the Great Door of The Old City Hall Museum every day it was open, which was every day except Christmas and Easter. He was the last one to leave, everyday, walking the three blocks to his home. He left for lunch at 11:30am, stopped at the bank to make deposits, then the post office, then home for lunch. He had a housekeeper and a handyman that cared for his home which had been steadily restored over the years.

In 1965, St. Augustine celebrated its 400th birthday and Dan his 50th. He used this coincidence to announce the opening of a new exhibit at The Old City Hall Museum. A full page ad in the Sunday’s “Record” described the new display as a “Museum of Ancient Mystery and Misery, Deceit and Misfortune.”

The ad copy was strong. “Since the day Cain raised his hand against Able, mankind has sought ways to deceive and corrupt the world by bringing the horrors of disastrous misfortunes onto each other. This educational and honest exhibit revels history’s most vile misfits and the unspeakable adversities they once brought on their fellow human beings.”

The Chamber of Commerce protested and with the the Association of Attractions of St. Augustine started legal action against Dan. The “Record” would take no more adverting from The Old City Hall Museum that mentioned the exhibit, and ran an editorial calling it “...disgusting and near pornographic. In a city where history is so important, this is not the message we want to perpetrate. This is not the history we should portray.”

The City Commission appointed three former mayors to visit the exhibit with a history professor from the University of Florida to determine the historical accuracy. Their report said that the some artifacts may have been most likely what they were to be, everything was more or less authentic, and nearly all was unrelated to the city’s history. The panel added that the exhibit “...portrayed the city in a negative light, as if authenticity is not important. It continues the image of St. Augustine when it was cluttered with roadside attractions, and not genuine historical attractions.”

After eight years and court battles that went to the Florida State Supreme Court, Dan had won every fight, but now he wanted to fight no more.

the entrepreneur (iv)

When the city relocated into its new municipal building in 1899, it was a sign of civic success. Gone was the dusty old wooden building dating from Florida’s territorial days and in its place stood a brick center of power, solid, square. In it was all the officers and departments of the city, but a half century later government had outgrown the city hall and relocated again. The city considered itself lucky to find a buyer.

St. Augustine City Hall before it became The Old City Hall Museum

At first Dan lived in the old fireman’s bunk room because it had all the required facilities, but later moved a couple of blocks west into a neglected Victorian house. The old building offered a court room, a jail, a fire station, an auditorium and lots of small rooms that were former offices. In 1954, just five years after opening, The Old City Hall Museum, was the most popular attraction in the city except for the fort. Part of the reason was because there was so, so much stuff in his museum.

The courtroom was now the High Judge’s Chamber and the jail the Inquisition Museum. The auditorium had a map of the Atlantic Ocean from the English Channel to the Gulf of Mexico with St. Augustine centered as the most significant place in the world in 1565. Hourly, the lights would dim and small colored lights--yellow for Spain, blue for the England, red for the France and all pirates--would illustrate the trade routes and the various unsuccessful attacks on the city.

The former offices of clerks and typists were filled with an array of collections Dan had purchased from other museums or, mostly, estate sales of hoarders. There were sea shells and rocks, cigar box tops and hair combs, knives and playing cards, fountain pins and broaches and cuff links, rattles from rattle snakes and hundreds of sharks’ teeth. With each collection went a story about the collector and the struggle The Old City Hall Museum went through to secure the rights to display this one-of-a-kind-in-the-world-collection.

the entrepreneur (iii)

The day following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dan gave his notice to Philip Davidson. He would remain through New Year’s, but then he was joining the Navy. Figured he could at least be cooking in a kitchen and not out in a tent.

He stayed in the service through V-J Day and was discharged in Jacksonville the week after Thanksgiving, nearly four years to the day he’d given his notice at The Alvarez House. He took a bus to St. Augustine, and found that he was one of the fortunate ones--his job was waiting for him. Tourism was picking up steadily after the war, and St. Augustine was a magnet to young families.


Even with a good steady job, Dan was restless. He had a hard time fitting in, some would say. He worked hard, had become the manager of The Alvarez House, but had no family; spent what time he was not at work in his apartment at the rear of the guest house or sitting in the Plaza reading. No one knew much about him, and while the town was shocked when he up and bought the condemned old city hall for $80,000 cash, the community was not so surprised when he quit his job, moved into the old building, and announced the city would have a new attraction.

the entrepreneur (ii)

Dan stayed in the CCC for the maximum time allowed, two years. During that time he worked in four camps around Florida as a cook. He figured that was the best way to be assured of a meal.

In the last days of 1936, he was “booted out,” as they called it when a recruit reached the end of his service. He traveled back to Rocky Creek to retrieve his savings of nearly $350 and visit the graves of his parents. He then returned to Florida by train along the Southern Railroad through Macon then down along the coast and into Jacksonville. Hiring was just starting for the winter season and he quickly found work at the Washington Hotel as a breakfast cook. After the winter season, he continued to follow the railroad south working over the next few years in hotels in Daytona, Palm Beach and Miami.

The Alcazar House, St. Augustine



New Year’s Day, 1940, Dan was working at a private brunch for Philip and Fina Davidson, owners of the Miami Beach’s Palms Court Hotel where he worked. Davidson asked Dan if he’d like to work at a guest house they’d bought in St. Augustine, called The Alvarez House. The idea of working in a small place and not a hotel, being well paid, having his own kitchen, and being out of the Miami heat in the summer was appealing, so he went.

the entrepreneur (i)

Dan MacArthur walked the three miles from Rocky Creek to Eufaula, and then took a train to Tallahassee to meet up with other recruits assigned to Gore’s Landing. The Civilian Conservation Camp was near nothing. Closest town of any size was Ocala and that was 30 miles through the woods. But three meals a day, hard work with a purpose, a place to sleep out of the weather; these were all things Dan didn’t have. Life had to be better that what his first 19 years had been.

In addition to the security, he’d get $25 a month, $5 of which he got to keep and the rest sent to his family, except he had no family. When he joined the CCC, Dan asked Deacon Hamilton if he would take the family portion, use half for the three country churches the circuit riding preacher served, and save half until he left the CCC. Most of Dan’s family was buried at two of those churches, so he figured it was as if he was giving the money to his Ma and Pa.

Dougal MacVahey

Asking people to call him Dougal MacVahey may have made him feel he was getting in touch with his Highlands past, but it wasn't until he played The Valley's Red Clover and the others quietly sang the now famous words of Robert Burns, that Darth finally had a really fine day.

mesmerized

Amos took a long swallow of Sprite, then another and another until his eyes burned a little. He set the liter bottle back in the refrigerator and closed the door quietly so as not to wake Millie who still slept deeply. The sensation of the cold carbonation, slightly burning as it washed down his throat was soothingly satisfying.

He went into the study, unplugged the fully charged laptop and walked into the den, sat on the couch in the dark for a full minute, quietly, then opened the computer, hit the start button and waited for the light of the screen to illuminate the keyboard so he could type in the password. The clock on the DVD player was flashing 12:00am. Power must have gone off after he went to bed, but the clock on the cable box, always the most accurate, the one he set all other clocks in the house by, read 3:38am.

When the laptop was up and running, he went to his email first. Over the last three weeks he had subscribed to half a dozen breaking news services: New York Times, BBC, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and the Times Picayune. He had news summaries from all and all said the same thing:” Latest Attempt Fails.”

He opened the web browser and the now familiar yellow and green page opened, the sun flower sun, its white hot center, with pedals cooling to a safe green as it expanded away from the center. BP Global felt like his new home, not just his new home page.

He clicked on the link to the ROV’s live cam, a never blinking eye that watched the flow from the broken pipe. He waited while it loaded and for a moment he thought “What if it stopped. What if I just happen to be one of the ones who looks and sees it stop, sees the last wisps of the black cloud dissipate.” He felt a shiver of anticipation watching the corner of the video screen “buffering 28%...43%...69%...92%..." and it opened and he saw what he had seen for weeks. A familiar sight and the shiver turned to sinking.

Amos pulled his hands back from the keyboard and folded his arms and just watched. The billowing clouds rolled out of the craggy end of the grey pipe. and floated up. Amos would watch one part of the cloud until is rose out of sight at the top of the screen, or until it folded into another cloud and disappeared. Then he’d drop his eyes a little and catch another fold following it out of sight. Then another.

Even though he’s been watching the live feed for a couple of weeks now, everyday, in a near trance, Amos would forget that it was not a real cloud he watched, floating in blue skies, dissipating high above. It was oil, thick and black and was billowing through water and not dissipating. But the rolls and puffs did look like clouds, not clouds of a fine summer day, but ones on the front of a fierce thunder storm. Dark.

His stare blurred and his thoughts floated to an afternoon when he and his father lay on a creek bank near his grandfather’s farm. Tired of fishing, tired of not catching anything, they lay back and looked at clouds. The deep blue Wisconsin sky was filled that summer day with bleached white clouds and a breeze, high above, that pushed and twisted the clouds, pulled them apart and pushed the pieces together again in new shapes. He and his father each tried to identify shapes, and pointed t them out to the other one, but the breeze kept them fluid and ever-changing. He could see a lion’s face or a chair but could not communicate fast enough so that his father would see what he saw. It was fun trying though and the afternoon was perfect.

Amos set the laptop on the couch beside him and went into the kitchen and took another long swallow of Sprite, longer than before, until the cold liquid hurt his throat and he could feel it flowing down his esophagus.

When he returned to the couch he had to refresh the view. The screen was blank. “Oh, maybe,” he whispered out loud. "Oh maybe it stopped.” He waited and waited through the buffering, but the image was just as before. Same black clouds, billowing, unending.

He moved away from the streaming video and skimmed the newspaper summaries he’d received and the news was all the same. Nothing was working, oil was now in the marshes, third generation fishermen were convinced there would be no fourth generation, tourism officials were worried the summer season would be lost, naturalists were trying to catch and clean pelicans, the President was not engaged, the parish presidents were enraged, and there was no end in sight.

Amos knew that even when the black oil smoke stopped, the oil in the water would remain and, like a cancer would eat away at the life around it. No, like an infection, untreated. The broken pipe was like a serious cut that even after the bleeding stopped would be infected and would only get worse as time passed. The Gulf would suffer from gangrene, and have to be amputated from the living seas. The Gulf of Mexico would become a Dead Sea.

Herman, the warehouse foreman, had told him to “Turn that damn thing off,” when Amos was watching the streaming video of streaming oil the week before. It was a slow day at the warehouse where he worked. Shipments of cardboard, which the facility handled, were always slow late in the week, heaviest on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A shipping clerk has nothing to do between shipping orders, so he was watching the spew-cam as his co-workers called it. He usually was able to quickly minimize it when someone came into the office, but he didn’t hear Herman walk up behind him.

“Why you watching that? Ain’t a damn thing you can do. You think that mess is gonna affect cardboard shipments in Central Wisconsin? Maybe you ain’t gonna get shrimp or red fish, but who cares. Get out and sweep off the loading dock or stack pallets. Do something where you can see results and stop watching that stupid oil. Gonna drive you crazy.”

Herman might be right, but Amos had to watch. When he turned on CNN or Fox or MSNBC, and watched someone explain something, the plume was there, in the corner of the screen. Wolf Blitzer kept it running in the "Situation Room" and Fox and Friends would check in with it from time to time. Everyone was watching. Everyone was waiting for someone to do something. When there was a blizzard, it ended and it melted. When a hurricane blew across Florida, it ended and the sun came out. Earthquakes were over in minutes. And after each disaster, people cleaned up and started over. But not this time. This was going to be forever.

It was nearly 6:00am and Amos had to wake Millie for she needed to be at work early.

He closed the laptop and walked through the kitchen towards the bedroom, stopping to drain the last of the Sprite, gulping it, feeling its carbonation burn his throat as he swallowed.

“At least I can feel that,” he said to himself as he threw the bottle into the trash.

*** *** ***

ten stories

The quilt came the winter following the two best years ever for the grove, and not just for Jacob’s grove but for everyone along the Ocklawaha Valley. Steamers increased their runs from Eureka and even farther up river for more than six weeks to get the picking down to the St. Johns, then to Jacksonville and north by train. A boat captain told Jacob one morning that the oranges he was loading, the ones Jacob picked the day before, would be sitting in a silver cup on a white table cloth in some fancy hotel restaurant in New York City in less than four days. Jacob was stunned.

With the money from the second good year, Inez insisted that some be set aside for new winter clothes. She ordered the fabric and worked on the clothes through the summer so come fall each girl would have two new dresses and the boys a couple of new shirts. She also started collecting scraps of clothes and some flour sack towels that were worn out beyond patching for a new quilt for the winter.

When she finished it, just before Thanksgiving, she and Jacob had one particularly delightful evening looking at the quilt. They sat up in bed with it spread out over their legs and laps, rubbing their fingers along the varying textures and colors, along the seams, some deep and others subtle, and telling stories. Each patch stirred memories and a story and often another. By the end of the evening, they counted up ten people whose stories were woven in the quilt. They sat quietly, then slid down under the covers and slept soundly.

parable of lemon and peas

On the day after Jesus was placed in his tomb,
and the day before he disappeared from his tomb,
he took several little known strolls
in the countryside around Jerusalem
including one in which he stopped by
Rankey’s Place, drawn there by its beautiful garden.

Rankey’s brother-in-law, Marty, and his sister, Jewel,
were working in the garden and stopped to chat with Jesus
as well as to offer him some water.

In particular Jesus commented on two plants,
a pea vine and a lemon tree. He said it thrilled
him to see a plant that held both the bud and bloom,
the flower and the fruit, all at the same time,
together, for it gave him assurances that this life,
and the past life, and the next life,
were all one life,
a grand circle.

He thanked them for the water
and went on his way.

Simon Paxter's house

The last time he’d walked off that porch and across the dusty yard he was seventeen and was going to war. He kept walking out to the road and on down the highway and caught a bus to Shelby. It was a long time before he could no longer hear his mother crying and his father cussing. Their alto and bass blend trailed after him for days as he was processed into the army and only grew fainter as his soldier-self grew louder.

Simon opened the car door and stepped out into the yard. He closed the door behind him, took a couple of steps and then stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked slowly to the left out across a long abandoned cotton field, and then to the right, down through the bushy branches of young oaks along an unattended fence row.

He continued walking to the house; the only sound was his shoes crunching against the sand. When he reached the first step, he paused, noticing the stillness. He had waited for this moment, had thought about this moment, and now wanted to make it last. He stood in front of the worn plank steps and heard northing. There was no breeze, no sound. He strained to try to hear a sound, but there was none. The silence made real the absence of life, and that’s what he’d returned for.

Olgy Rainer's house

All that remained of the oak tree was a piece of its trunk nearly as high as the house. Right where the first limbs had begun to branch out away from the trunk, they were all cut off years ago, soon after Olgy had left. With no man living on the place, Sarah and Josie and Ruby all had to do all the work and cutting firewood closest to the house was the easiest. Olgy knew that is what had happened.

The rising sun warmed the rear of the house where the kitchen was, and threw the oak stump’s shadow all the way across the yard. Made Olgy think of the huge sundial he’d seen in one of the plazas at the Columbia Exhibition in Chicago. He pulled out his pocket watch and saw that it was nearly half past six. He looked at the tip of the stump’s shadow and saw that it pointed down the hill to the dilapidated remains of the smoke house. In a way it was telling time by pointing out its passage and its toll on the small farm.

The shadow fell as it did the day he’d left, he figured, since it was about the same time of year. He didn’t remember the shadow, but he knew he'd left in February. He knew he'd walked out the back door into the morning light and turned toward the road and away from the barn. He couldn’t remember if he looked back of not, but for over twenty years he’d always ended his story of leaving Hickshaw Ridge with “...and I didn’t look back.”

It did not look as if any one was awake. Olgy didn’t know for sure who if anyone was living there. Sarah probably remained, but Josie and Ruby must be married and living off somewhere else by now. Or perhaps no one was living there, even though the yard looked clean swept.

Olgy started thinking he might have made a mistake by returning without writing first. He thought that if he left then, right then, he could do so before anyone knew he’d been there. Maybe he’d come later that day. That would be better. But after a few steps he pause,d and looked back at the house once more. That's when he saw smoke from the chimney and heard the back door open.

tradition

February 16 was when Horace would repaint his entrance and the front wall of the house that faced the street, because February 17 is San Antonio de Robin’s feast day. It is a special day for Horace because his parents observed the day as did her family for as long as anyone could remember.

The origins of the day are sketchy, but it is thought that as farmers were preparing for the spring season by clearing land and commencing planting, so too village merchants could use this time of year for preparing their “fields” by cleaning, repairing and painting their shops. Especially those facing the village Plaza or along its main street.

In early February Horace would go to Hamblen Hardware, order the paint he needed...red, white and green...along with sufficient brushes, stirrers, rollers and drop cloths. Horace remembered painting with his father when he was young, and then for so many years when it was just his mother and he. For the last 27 years it had been just he.

This year, though, he though would be his last. Customs for the sake of customs made him weary now. They had become burdensome, and he wanted to be burden free. Traditions, he had slowly come to realize, are not about tomorrow, only yesterday. He had lived yesterday and decided he did not need to relive it.

Horace took his cup of coffee and walked out onto the street to look at the freshly painted entrance. It was bright and clean. His family for generations back would be proud for they would know the date, see the handiwork, and relate across the years.

He imagined the wall a year from now, faded and dirty paint peeling and flaking off...very much in need of refurbishing. But it would not get it. Horace would not paint the entrance. The future would now be different than the past.

journey's end

Carman stood in front of the door for what seemed like a day, but it was only a full heavy minute. It was clear no one had been in or out of the door in the coquina wall all season. The ivy proved that. She was not totally confident that she could open it. With all the rain and the hot afternoons, it may be swollen tight into its frame. She’d have to try. She had come so far and given up so much of her life for this journey. Twelve more feet and through that door and her journey would be over.

the tobacco auction

Martin stood on the steps of the King Star Hotel and watched Tryon Street move by at a bustling pace against the autumn afternoon chill. He’d worked really hard for the last eight months to get a solid two acres of tobacco to flourish, and then traded his labor to the Holts for time in their curing barn, and now he was in Charlotte about to make some money at the Laurel Creek Auction House.

Martin, and his cousin Frank, had driven the 140 miles from Roan Mountain over four days, following one creek or another out of the mountains, spending the nights camping on the banks between the creek and the road, then eating just caught trout before getting back on the road. Where there were roads, they were bad. The worn truck eased over each hole and navigated the ruts as it swayed under the weight of its overloaded flatbed piled high with tobacco, wrapped tight with burlap.

The Postmaster on Roan Mountain had given Martin the name of a tobacco warehouse owner and broker that was well known for handling small allotments, so that was their first stop. The man had an efficient operation. In less than two hours Martin had a receipt for his tobacco, and a twenty dollar cash advance on what it would bring on the next auction set for the day after tomorrow.

Martin felt a sense of accomplishment standing here on the busiest street in Charlotte. He had made it to the biggest city he’d ever heard of, had money in his pocket and were about to get more, and did not want another night of cold fish and sleeping on the ground. Tonight there would be hotel rooms, a shave and a bath, and then dinner in a place with table cloths.

All those months of work had been worth it. Martin was ready to reap his harvest.

Cedar Cat

There was a cedar tree, a very old, tall cedar tree to the south of Abram’s house, standing on the edge of the marsh that he saw each morning when he woke. Lying in bed, his eyes still blurred from sleep, the top of the big, bushy tree was what he saw first every morning. In the shadows and silhouettes in the moments before dawn, Abram would slowly trace the tree line, including the old cedar, with his eye sight.

Abram had lived in the house near the marsh for over a decade, and each day he saw the same sight, the same tree, and even as it grew, he still saw in his mind’s eye the same image in the silhouette of the cedar.

He saw a cat. Everyday he saw a cat...a cedar cat.

Rachel's dream (vi)

The cockroach quickly began to walk the length of the boardwalk and Rachel followed along. It stopped occasionally to explore, to feel its way and she would pause as well, watching it enjoy the stroll. The boardwalk, and the embankment on which it sat, dead-ended into a wooden fence higher than her head, making it the far back corner of the vacant lot.

When the bug reached the dead-end, it stopped and waited for Rachel, as it had since it was small just as the many other times she’d released it. The roach acted as a well trained pet. But instead of placing it back into the box, Rachel placed it on the ground in the dirt surface of the vacant lot. Immediately it used its many, many legs to begin to dig a hole, not a burrow into which to escape, but a broad open hole like a dog would dig on a hot day, seeking a cool place to lie. When big enough to get into, the bug laid in it and laid still.

Rachel picked up a twig and passed it over the bug, making a faint shadow. When the shadow passed over the bug, its body became completely transparent, something she had never seen. She moved the twig and its shadow, and the bug was visible again. She did this several times in amazement at the creature’s ability to camouflage itself so completely, to protect itself so efficiently, to adapt so miraculously to an environment for which it was meant but had never known.

It was then that the songs of birds, whose names Rachel did not know, and the cool breeze came into her window, swept across her face, and woke her.

Rachel's dream (v)

When she started to back out, her way back onto the street was blocked by a truck pulling a flatbed trailer on which sat a bulldozer. It loomed over her and her car to the point she sensed it could topple off and crush her and her car, but she was not frightened. Rather than turning right, back out onto the street, she turned left, further into the lot, thinking there was another way out.

As she drove she saw the lot was covered with survey stakes sticking out of the ground, and driving to avoid them was like driving an obstacle course. She reached the back of the lot and saw there was no way out because the lot was bordered by a high embankment which ran along a crudely constructed boardwalk that even when it was new must have been very quickly thrown together, and now, long neglected, was beat and battered and seemingly unsafe. Then she got out of my her and looked at the boardwalk, its sporadic boards were about shoulder height.

Rachel held a small match box in her hand which she held up to the boardwalk’s surface and released from a it a cockroach that grew to the size of her hand. It actually had the appearance of centipede and cockroach combined: hard shell, antenna, but with many legs and jointed body allowing it to twist left and right and maneuver quickly. She knew she had kept and cared for the bug since it was very small, had taken it many places unfamiliar to a bug, places bugs don’t go, or at least aren’t seen because they are places inhabited by people and a bug is not safe in those places.