Southern Discomfort

CHAPTER 1

GRADING THE PLOT

"Grade elevations of the surface area around a structure are indicated on the plot plan....This grading operation involves removing earth from areas which are higher than the prescribed elevation (cut) and filling earth into areas which are below the prescribed elevation (fill)."

My swearing-in ceremony was held on a hot and humid Monday afternoon in Colleton County's oldest courtroom, a big cavernous space paneled in dark oak and weighty with the stone-footed majesty of nineteenth-century law. The high vaulted ceiling is plastered with acanthus leaves; pierced brass lanterns hang down on long black cords above solid oak benches. Now that three bright-colored modern courtrooms have been added on to the top floor of the new jail annex, this part of the courthouse is used so infrequently that the air was cool and musty even though the place was jammed with well-wishers and a bailiff said the air-conditioning wasn't working right.

If and when we ever got around to the actual robing—put a microphone in front of some people and they never hush talking—I knew I'd appreciate the room's coolness. That heavy black garment had started out miles too big, but Aunt Zell had gathered and stitched and cut and hemmed till it no longer swam on me. Not that I'm the dainty flower of southern womanhood God probably meant for me to be—I came out of my mother's womb a size fourteen and it's been a struggle to get down to a twelve ever since—but Carly Jernigan had been six one; and back when he served two terms on the district bench sometime in the late seventies, he must've weighed two-forty easy.

My sister-in-law Minnie was the closest thing I had to a campaign manager when I ran for judge, and since Carly Jernigan had been Minnie's mother's oldest brother, his widow thought it'd be nice to pass his robe on to me.

"I'm real sorry about the smell," Miss Abby apologized the day she and Minnie brought it over to Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's house, where I live.

A homemade potpourri of rose petals and heartleaves fills a Chinese bowl that sits atop a Queen Anne chest amid the formality of Aunt Zell's pink and green living room, but its delicate fragrance was blotted up by coarse mothball fumes the minute I opened the long fiberboard coat box.

"I've had that thing hanging on my back porch for a week," said Miss Abby. "Ever since Minnie told me you were going to be appointed. I'm afraid it'll have to get dry-cleaned before you can stand to wear it, though."

After pricing new robes in a catalog of judicial accoutrements that a soon-to-be colleague had loaned me, a dry-cleaning bill was nothing; and I sincerely meant it when I told Miss Abby how much I appreciated her generosity.

Nevertheless, a faint aroma of naphthalene still met my nose whenever Aunt Zell shifted the robe from one arm to the other as we bowed our heads that afternoon for Barry Blackman's invocation. Barry is pastor at Bethel Baptist Church. Sweetwater Missionary Baptist was actually my home church, but the new minister had only been there two months whereas I'd known Barry forever—in fact, he was the first boy I'd ever kissed for real—so it was nice that I could get him to come pray God's blessing on my new career without hurting anybody's feelings. (Politics makes you sensitive to stuff like that.)

We'd already been called to order by Ellis Glover, Colleton County's clerk of court, and we'd been welcomed by Pete Taylor, current president of the county bar association.

Programs rustled up and down the aisle as Barry said Amen and returned to his seat in the old jury box. My brother Haywood's Stevie was videotaping the ceremony and he took advantage of the momentary stir to switch camera angles.

Ellis came back to the microphone set up in front of the high carved bench where the Honorable Frances Tripp reposed in unselfconscious dignity. Forever a politician, Ellis spent the next ten minutes recognizing just about everybody in the audience. He began with the elected: two state representatives, four judges, the sheriff, three mayors, a police chief, six county commissioners, four members of the school board, and the register of deeds.

(If Colleton County ever goes back to electing dog catchers or town criers, our clerk of court will recognize them, too.)

We clapped for two preachers, the head of the Democratic Women, the head of the Democratic Men, the leader of the county's Black Caucus, the president of the local Jaycees, a fire chief, the dean of our local community college, and somebody from the state auditor's office who had innocently wandered over from Raleigh on other business and now had to wait till I was sworn in before courthouse routine would return to normal.

After at least a third of the crowd had stood for polite applause, Ellis asked anxiously, "Now did I miss any body?" No one leaped up, so he said, "Then how 'bout I ask for all of Miss Knott's family to stand and be recognized?"

There was a slight hesitation, then another third of the audience got up—all my brothers and their wives and children, cousins, aunts and uncles and finally, from his seat beside me, my father, like an Old Testament patriarch, still vigorous and straight-backed even though his hair was silvered by more than eighty years of hard living.

Running for district judge was not Daddy's idea of what his only daughter should be doing with her life. Not ladylike enough. Not by a long shot. But back in his younger days he'd been one of the biggest bootleggers in eastern North Carolina and when an anonymous mud-slinger started linking my reputation to his towards the end of my campaign, he changed his attitude. Far as he was concerned, judging the scum of the district might not be a ladylike occupation, but by damn, nobody else but him better try to tell me I couldn't do it. He'd even pulled strings to get me appointed after a disastrous runoff primary last month.

I was still a little sensitive about that.

"Will you just quit it?" scolded the pragmatist that lives in the back of my skull. "Half the judges on the bench today were first appointed. It's not like your daddy ever killed anybody to put you here."

"Then how come he knows where so many political bodies are buried?" asked the preacher who shares the same skull space.

A valedictory tone in Ellis's voice brought me back to attention. "—of the North Carolina Court of Appeals will administer the oath of office."

Down from the high bench came Judge Frances Tripp, a majestically tall black woman who moves with such solemn deliberation it always comes as a surprise to realize there’s an infectious sense of the ridiculous down below. A narrow ruffle of white lace banded her neck above her dark robe, and she looked like Justice personified.

We met her at the microphone and Daddy held out my mother's Bible. I placed my right hand on the worn black leather, lifted my left, and listened attentively as Judge Tripp said, "Do you, Deborah Stephenson Knott, solemnly and sincerely swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States; that you will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of North Carolina, and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof; and that you will endeavor to support and maintain and defend the Constitution of the said State, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, to the best of your knowledge and ability; so help you God?"

"I do," I said firmly.

"Furthermore, do you solemnly and sincerely swear that you will administer justice without favoritism to anyone or to the State; that you will not knowingly take, directly or indirectly, any fee, gift, gratuity or reward whatsoever, for any matter or thing done by you or to be done by you by virtue of your office, except the salary and allowances by law provided; and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties of Judge of the District Court Division of the General Court of Justice to the best of your ability and understanding, and consistent with the Constitution and laws of the State, so help you God?"

The words flowed over me like the sanctified anointment of some sweet-smelling oil.

Solemnly and sincerely, I swore again that I did.

Frances smiled for the first time and held out her cool thin hand to shake mine.

"Welcome to the bench, Judge Knott."

Applause almost muffled out the "Awww-right!" from one of my enthusiastic nephews.

Aunt Zell came forward with my robe. I was wearing a splashy red-flowered dress that flamed against the somber oak and leather of the courtroom. It was a dress I'd chosen deliberately because I'm theatrical enough to enjoy symbolism. I was a nun taking holy vows. I was Wisdom abjuring Vanity. I was deep water preparing to run still, by damn.

Aunt Zell handed the robe to my father and he held it open for me, settling its weight onto my shoulders. The zipper ends went together smoothly and every inch of red-flowered silk disappeared beneath the heavy black fabric. As Daddy escorted Aunt Zell back to their seats, I turned to the audience and spoke of my gratitude for the trust now placed in me.

My remarks were simple and direct.

And short.

Good politicians know enough to quit talking before people realize they're tired of being talked at. My name was going to be on the November ballot after all; and even though it was only a formality, since I was unopposed for Perry Byrd's seat, I still aimed to rack up a bunch of votes. * * *

Weddings, funerals, christenings—most solemn ceremonies are followed by food and fellowship, and a swearing-in is no different. Once all the official documents were signed, we followed the crowd downstairs and through a soaring two-level glass atrium that links the new part of the courthouse with the old.

The shiny brass-and-glass design harkens towards the twenty-first century. It's filled with green plants and sunlight, and it's become a popular setting for receptions, which is probably why Julia Lee won't use it if she can help it. She had directed the Martha Circle of the First Methodist Church to set up their tables in the gloomy rotunda of the old courthouse.

Julia—she's John Claude's wife and therefore my cousin by marriage—gets herself elected president of the Historical Society about every other year, and she thought I ought to stand right where a long line of Colleton County judges had stood in bygone years to greet all the colleagues, friends and family who had crowded against these selfsame marble walls to wish them well.

Julia sometimes gets carried away and forgets that those walls aren't all that historical nor all that old either, if truth be told. Yes, court had been held on this site since the late 1700s, but this particular building was erected in 1921, not 1821. Even so, the rotunda was a better choice for this sweltering July day. Modern air-conditioning couldn't keep the sunny atrium as cool as the thick marble that surrounded us; and Carly Jernigan's robe not only smelled like a wool horse blanket, it was starting to feel like one. * * *

One of the Marthas handed me a cup of slushy lime punch before I took my place in the receiving line. Too sickly sweet, but at least it was cold and wet.

Against his wishes—"I'm not an invalid and I can damn well stand"—they had brought a chair for Daddy and he was holding his own court at the far end of the line. For the last few years, he doesn't leave the farm all that often, so there were lots of folks to crowd around and shake his hand, glad to see him again.

I stood with Judge Frances Tripp on one side and John Claude Lee, Julia's husband, on the other. John Claude's an older cousin and the current Lee of Lee & Stephenson, the law firm where I was no longer a full partner.

Genealogy is still the favorite parlor game in every southern house that still has a parlor; but for those who don't really care who fits in how, here's the Cliffs Notes version: my mother was a Stephenson, her mother was a Lee. Lee & Stephenson, Attorneys-at-Law was begun in the 1920s by John Herman Lee, my first cousin twice removed on Mother's Lee side, and old Brixton Stephenson, her paternal grandfather. My younger cousin Reid, Brixton's grandson, is this generation's Stephenson.

If you're any good at this sort of thing, then you've already worked it out that, while I'm cousin to Reid and John Claude both, they're no blood kin to each other.

But unless you've got some reason to worry about whether or not you could get a fair trial in my courtroom, the relationships are moot at this point and you don't really have to keep it all straight. The firm of Lee, Stephenson & Knott had gone back to being plain old Lee & Stephenson again. I was legally out of it, and all my personal clients had been shifted to John Claude or Reid, who has trouble keeping his pants zipped, but who's a damn fine attorney.

That's a personal opinion, though, and I promise you it's not something I'm going to let bias me. Sooner or later they'd both be pleading cases before me and I planned to be totally objective.

"Long as you don't bend over backwards to be fair," said John Claude when I was cleaning out my office in the 1867 house his great-grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) had built half a block from the courthouse. John Claude's mother was once his second-grade school teacher. His hair is silver now and she's almost ninety yet he's never forgotten the way she always took the other child's side in any dispute.

"Don't you worry, not one little minute," I soothed. "When it's your turn to take out the kickball, I won't give it to anybody else." * * *

The receiving line from hell continued to snake past. My fellow attorneys were amiable and friendly, but their joshing remarks lacked the usual barbs.

When Judge Perry Byrd had his stroke, I was in the middle of a runoff campaign for a different judge's seat. Then, instead of getting better, as his doctors had originally thought, Byrd had another stroke and died just as my own campaign crashed to a halt at the runoff primary. In North Carolina, when a judge dies or resigns in the middle of his term, the local bar associations get together and present the governor with a slate of candidates from the judge's same party. Because I'd polled enough votes to force a runoff in the first place, I was put on the slate as a courtesy, but it was generally thought that Chester Nance, a white male ADA from Black Creek, would get it.

To everyone's surprise—everyone who didn't know about the keg of Republican dynamite my daddy was sitting on—our Republican governor appointed me.

I'd been kicked up a notch in the pecking order and as they passed through the line, I could feel my colleagues already beginning to distance themselves from me. No more sharpening our spurs on one another before the bar. Now I would be above the fights, judging their words and deeds, and nobody knew for sure what sort of things I might let ruffle my feathers. They'd be walking on eggs till they got a feel for my way of doing justice.

I just wished certain elderly cousins and aunts would exhibit a similar reticence. In the same breath, they could offer congratulations—loving and completely sincere congratulations— and still make it crystal clear that the next time they hugged me in a receiving line, they sure hoped I'd finally be wearing white satin and orange blossoms.

"Oh, it'll have to get a lot colder than this," I said sweetly when Aunt Sister asked if becoming a judge meant I was about ready to settle down.

She gave me a blank smile and passed on, but Frances Tripp put her lips close to my ear and murmured, "Like when hell freezes over?"

"Give or take a few degrees," I muttered back.

All around the rotunda, my brothers and their wives and children were clumped in animated conversation with friends and relatives. Among the teenage girls helping the older women of First Methodist serve were Seth and Minnie's Jessica and Herman and Nadine's Annie Sue. I was glad to see that Annie Sue and Herman seemed to be speaking to each other today. A lot of days, they didn't.

From infancy, Annie Sue had tested the limits of paternal authority; but she'd turned sixteen this spring and now that she had her driver's license, she wanted more freedom and less accountability than ever. According to Minnie, they'd had a monumental clash last weekend. I didn't get all the details; but I gather it involved a broken curfew and confiscation of car keys. Nothing new there except that both my brother and my niece had lost their tempers and Herman had warned Annie Sue—and in front of her friends, which made it twice as humiliating—that she wasn't too big to get a switching if she didn't apologize at once.

"In the same breath as she apologized, she swore she'd never speak to Herman again as long as she lived," Minnie had reported with a shake of her head. "Herman's way too strict, but that child's sure got a talent for pouring kerosene on a hot fire."

I watched her pour Herman a cup of punch with every appearance of daughterly affection and hoped their reconciliation would last a while this time.

A moment later, my spirits were buoyed by the sight of Lu Bingham beaming at me from across the rotunda. The Marthas had set out silver trays of miniature ham biscuits, cucumber sandwiches, and pecan puffs to go with their lime punch and butter mints, and Lu was loading her paper napkin to the spilling point. She has a way with young people and seemed to be bantering with my nieces. Even across the rotunda, I could hear her booming laughter.

We'd gone all through grade school and high school together, but I was still fighting to stay a size twelve while Lu had long since surrendered to an eighteen. On her, though, it was okay. She looked solid and comforting and infinitely capable of shouldering the responsibilities of the world. Not a bad thing since she was the guiding spirit and most of the muscle behind WomenAid.

WomenAid. Women helping women to cope with life's sour lemons—from Cambodian refugees to a battered wife in one of Dobbs's oldest families. My internal preacher nodded approval, but the pragmatist was slowly shaking his head.

Now why was the thought of that nonprofit organization suddenly making me uneasy?

Even as I continued to smile and accept congratulations and good wishes, I kept a wary eye on Lu. She was working her way through the crowd, probably hitting on everyone she spoke to for a donation. She was an ace at writing grant proposals and getting corporate funding, but much of her support came from the grassroots level and working every crowd seemed to have become an automatic reflex.

A member of the Black Caucus momentarily halted the line in front of Frances, and Lu, who would seize an opportunity with the best of them, slid into the gap. Crumbs of pecan puffs showered down the front of my robe as she gave me an enthusiastic hug. "We're so proud of you! And it's going to be such great publicity having a judge out there swinging a pick."

For a moment, I thought she'd said "picket" even though she, of all people, would surely know that judges can't walk a picket line.

She grinned at my bewilderment. "When you spoke to the volunteers of WomenAid in May. Remember? You said you sure wished you could take time off from campaigning and pitch in. Here's your chance. Saturday morning, seven o'clock. While it's still cool. Don't forget to bring your own tools."

(Stevie chose that moment to turn his camera back on my face just as it was beginning to sink in that I was going to have to put my muscles where my mouth was. My brothers think it's a real funny four-second sequence.) * * *

By five-fifteen, the reception was finally winding down and Frances and I ran upstairs to pick up our briefcases and get out of our robes.

Hers was a cool summer-weight—winning two elections must give a judge the confidence to buy a second robe. As she unzipped, she said, "Didn't anybody tell you judges aren't supposed to make campaign promises?"

Promises made in the spring have a way of coming due in the fall. I knew that. But this was only summer.

"It wasn't really a promise. Besides," I sighed, "I thought they'd be finished building before I finished campaigning. If Perry Byrd hadn't up and died—"

"—you could've got credit for singing with the angels? Without having to show up for choir practice?" She shook her head and laughed. "Child, you really are a politician!"

Back downstairs, the Marthas were packing their left-overs in Tupperware boxes, and after I thanked Frances again and said goodbye, I went over to the table and yielded to the temptation of a single pecan puff. It tasted like fluffy buttered air.

"You didn't eat a bite," said one of the Marthas at my elbow. "Let me fix you a plate."

"Fat cells are just as fluffy as pecan puffs," warned my internal preacher, who also keeps a running total of calories consumed and energy expended.

"Better not," I said regretfully, fishing for her name.

Gladys. Gladys McGee. A sweet face, nondescript body, appropriately Martha-like in a beige-and-rose two-piece dress. The wife—no, the widow of one of Dobbs's independent businessmen. Insurance? Real estate?

Accountant. That was it. Ralph McGee, CPA. A small office next door to my bank, two blocks down Main Street from the courthouse. He'd kept the books for my brother Herman's electrical contracting business. A bit of a domestic bully, I seemed to recall. Gladys had been an attractive blonde once. She couldn't be much past forty, but her hair was now that indeterminate color between light brown and gray. Despite low-keyed makeup, she looked older than forty, and there were deep lines beside her mouth and around her eyes. Continuing grief? Maybe Ralph hadn't left her very well off? And wasn't there a daughter?

The teenage girls who'd helped earlier were gone now like a chattering flock of bright-feathered birds, but among them had been Herman's Annie Sue and a pretty honey blonde.

"That wasn't your Cindy I saw before, was it?"

The worry lines smoothed and Gladys was pretty again when she smiled with maternal pride. "Don't they grow up fast?"

"She's gorgeous!" I said, with only a little exaggeration. I recalled now that Annie Sue had grumbled about how strict her friend Cindy's dad was. Even stricter than Herman, who half the time acted like it was the 1890s if Annie Sue could be believed.

Still smiling, Gladys went back to packing up the pecan puffs. "She's a little headstrong, but a good child, too. It's so easy not to be these days, am I wrong? I'm sure you see plenty of that in court. It's been hard on both of us, losing Ginger and Ralph in the same month—"

Ralph I knew about, but who the hell was Ginger? Then I remembered that Cindy had an older sister.

—much too young, of course, but she and Tom had been sweethearts since eighth grade and we promised that if she'd at least finish high school, we'd give them a nice wedding right after graduation. And then, only two days after they got back from their honeymoons—"

I knew what was expected of me. "It's been such a shock to everybody. Ralph was still young, wasn't he?"

"Only forty-six," Gladys agreed. "But then they always say that the younger you are, the more serious a heart attack is."

I tried to sound concerned and interested. "And he'd never had any heart trouble before?"

"Not a bit." She snapped the lid shut on the pecan puffs and one of her friends took the box and added it to a growing pile of plastic containers at the end of the table. "He'd had some summer flu—least that's what Dr. Bhagat called it. I thought it was too much tension over Ginger's wedding myself. Sometimes you have to wonder about these foreign doctors. Am I wrong? But Ralph swore by him. Anyhow, when he went to him with the flu, if that's what it was, Dr. Bhagat said his liver was a little enlarged and his blood pressure was high, but his heart was just fine. Maybe if he'd gone to an American doctor..."

She shrugged and shook her head sadly.

As a lawyer, I should be inured to how people can go on and on with the most intimate details of a loved one's final days. Nevertheless, I was relieved when Julia Lee came over to wind it all up. She really is wasted as John Claude's wife. She should have been running a corporation somewhere. No detail was too small to escape her notice.

"Don't you want to take some of those cucumber sandwiches?" she asked. "You've paid for them."

I looked around for Aunt Zell. It's her refrigerator.

Julia correctly interpreted. "Zell already left and she said for you not to bring home anything you weren't going to eat yourself. She's put Ash on another diet. He ate too many chimichangas when he was in Mexico and she doesn't want him tempted."

She gave my hips a critical glance. "The Martha Circle usually gives Lu Bingham whatever's left over, if the client doesn't object. She can give you a receipt for the IRS."

Put like that, there was no way I could gracefully claim some of those yummy little cucumber sandwiches. Already Lu was piling them into a capacious cardboard box.

"The kids at our day care love it when I scrounge party food," she said.

She popped a cucumber sandwich into her mouth and happily licked the mayonnaise from her fingers.

Sheer willpower—okay, sheer willpower and Julia's basilisk eyes—kept me from wrestling her to the ground for one.