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Tag Archives: “Don’t it Make you Want to Go Home” Joe South
…A double barrel dose of help: Kenty Johnson has money saved up and Kenty Jr. has the fresh blood of knowledge…
A.O. is taking his new lease on life in, in the spirit in which it is presented. Even as he watches familiar landmarks pass by as they ease up to his Virginia Street address. He is thinking about the future.
Maggie is waiting on the front steps of their house. What a welcome sight. There too are daughters Alpha, Laura and Zillah and their families. Maggie is seated in a wheelchair, one and all waving a hearty ‘welcome home’.
“Thank you, gracious Lord,” he proclaims tearfully.
But that isn’t all. There are other familiar faces.
“What’s Kenty Johnson doin’ here?” Dr. J. Kenty Johnson is with his son, himself a newly minted doctor.
“I needed a reliable source of information about your situation and Kenty came to mind. He filled in the particulars of your life, practice and such. AND he mentioned that his son was looking to make a difference in the Tallahassee community. And did we say that he fresh from medical school? A double barrel dose of help: Kenty has money saved up and Kenty Jr. has the fresh blood of knowledge.”
One month ago, Alpha Campbell would have been bloated full of irrational pride, having suffered in silence for the better part of a decade. He was determined to find a way out of their money struggles and did not need outside help.
We all know what path that led him down.
“Well boys, don’t you think it is time we roll up our sleeves?”
Upon hearing Dr. Alpha O. Campbell utter that inclusive statement, his nurses who were hiding in LBMH for fear of their lives, come sprinting out the front door.
Somehow, Laura Bell Memorial Hospital looked whiter than normal that day… From down the street, a car streaks to the emergency side entrance, a man screams out, “My wife’s water just broke! Please help!”
“Scrub up, you Johnsons; we have a baby to deliver… Edwina will get you gowns and get her to the second floor…”
… “So now I won’t know anybody,” Alpha complains, aware that he already stands out on the Tufts University campus, like a wart on Mona Lisa’s nose…
“Don’t play that race excuse in my around me, Campbell. Besides, if that were the case, the last case I take at Beacon Hill would be Campbell vs. B & O Railroad!”
It took a while for the subtle hint to sink in.
“Last case? What are you talkin’ bout, James.”
“I have given my notice to the partners; I am leaving Boston for a nonexistent practice in Tallahassee. Heck, I was just above the janitor on the list of partners, staring five Hamilton bottoms right in the face, so-to-speak. Father has told me that most of the lawyers in Tallahassee are state legislators. Nobody there to deed land or bring suit against those mad motorcar drivers. Do you know that more people died from crashes last year than in the entire Spanish-American War?
“And we miss the panhandle.” He gathers in Abbey’s hand. Boston is crowded and dirty, as are most cities in the Northern Colonies.
“And nobody knows anyone. There isn’t anyone like crazy old Edna Finkle around. Up here, people like that are put into what they call a sanatorium, threats to society they say. I did one pro bono case…”
“Pro boneho.” say what, Alpha wonders?
“Pro bono, you know, without fee. I fought to keep a street urchin from going into the worst orphanage I’ve ever seen, got a couple in Cambridge to adopt him. One of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”
“And it nearly got you dismissed from the firm,” reminds his wife, who remembers the icy stares from James’ cohorts.
“That is the very reason we are moving back. That baggage car you had planned on riding in, Alpha, there is no room, filled to the roof with our things.”
“So now I won’t know anybody,” Alpha complains, aware that he already stands out on the Tufts University campus, like a wart on Mona Lisa’s nose. Even master DaVinci could not have made him blend into the scenery.
“In four more years you can do the same thing we are doing. There aren’t any more doctors than there are lawyers down home, at least the kind that save lives, not take ‘em.”
“Say, don’t you have a brother in New Jersey? Perhaps you could see him more often,” Abbey innocently suggests.
“Both times I took the ferry to the Boardwalk, he was in jail.” Alpha hangs his head in shame.
“Anything serious? We could stop and get him out… I know some judges in Atlantic City.”
“Whores and stealin’, are you good at those things? If you were to keep him out jail, he’d ‘bout wear your pro boneho out. Hardly worth the skin on his sorry bones.”
Time for a country lawyer to go home. The country doctor will get there eventually.
…The Governor has granted you special dispensation…
“You have a visitor, Doc Campbell.” The voice of guard Lightfoot pierces the night, routing the man from a spasmodic sleep. It feels like he has been daydreaming with his eyes closed.
“I ain’t been been killin’ no white girl!” yells the doctor incongruously, with conviction.
Standing before his 6×8 foot cell, is R. Worth Moore, the attorney who was unsuccessful in refuting the testimony of the dead girl’s mother. Her daughter, in a deathbed revelation, tells her mother that it was a Tallahassee doctor who performed an abortion on her. Whether or not the privileged evidence is true, the six white males on the jury believe so. Go ahead and disregard the known fact that her then “family” doctor was a Doctor Sapp, who practiced medicine 10 miles north, in Havana. He is white; any potential holes in the testimony?
“Wake up, Doc… do you want out of here or not?” Lightfoot has a heavy hand.
You can almost smell the fresh air of freedom from inside this hell-hole.
“A.O., I’ve come to take you to be with your Maggie!” Attorney Moore looks more disheveled than normal, because of the early morning hour, but not too far from his typically crumpled appearance; being a widower, he does not have his suits pressed as much as he should.
“Say what now Mr. Moore?” he mutters in a surrealistic daze.
“The Governor has granted you special dispensation. I’m here to take you home for the funeral. Alpha is waiting for us in my car.”
“Mr. Moore went over the warden’s head, Doc,” says the guard. “Now get on your Sunday clothes before someone changes their mind.”
Moore has brought the doctor’s best fall suit with him. Prison cannot take away this proud man’s dignity and the way a man dresses is the outward expression of that. Prisoner Campbell is suddenly transformed into his former self; the one who operates in the realm of the respectful and respected, as opposed to the regulars at Starke, molester, murderer and thief. How did he ever get lumped in with this motley crew?
The metamorphosis is completed when a renewly proud man strides confidently through the open cell door. An emotional Attorney Moore sniffles in concert with his tears, much as he had done after his closing statement on February 2nd, 1956.
“If they’ll give me my bag back, Worth, I‘ll give you somethin’ for that.” He thinks of others before self. If one’s life motto can be summed up in six words, write the previous sentence down in The Book of Life, alongside the quiet doctor’s name.
school? A double barrel dose of help: Kenty has money saved up and Kenty Jr. has the fresh blood of knowledge.”
