The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 95 (The Final)

I’m Fixin’ To present part 95 (the last) of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

It turned out that Ocmulgee County Deputy Sheriff James Earl Murphy, who convicted people in his own mind based on their lifestyle, was a victim of his own mischief due to enemies from within when his criminal conduct was exposed via a video tape from an anonymous sender showing him illegally removing drugs from the evidence room inside the sheriff’s office.

The tape was received in the mail by the editor of the Ocmulgee Disturber, who scanned pictures from the video and ran the story on the front page of the next weekly issue of the newspaper.

Needless to say, the story caused bedlam to break out all over the county and an internal investigation was immediately launched by the sheriff’s department, which resulted in Deputy Murphy being relieved of duty and arrested on the charges of theft, giving false testimony, tampering with evidence and a few others.

He was eventually banned from service in law enforcement and convicted as guilty on all charges and was sentenced to five years to serve on probation and some heavy cost of court fines and fees.

A few months later he was arrested again. This time the charges were for violation of his probation via failure to report to his probation officer and failure to pay the court ordered fines and fees. And this time he was locked up in the Ocmulgee Jail and put on probation hold, which meant he could not have a bond set and get bailed out of jail until his court date was assigned.

After languishing in jail for two months his case was scheduled on the Probation Violation Calendar.

James Earl expected to again be facing his old friend Judge Thurston J. Garfield, III, however he was shocked when he heard the judge had also been removed from his duties and that there was a new judge in town, who promptly sentenced him to five years to serve in the state penal system, with credit for the time he had served in jail.

James Earl quickly adapted to prison life, where he portrayed himself as an undercover agent, who while posing as a cop, had got railroaded, knowing that most convicted cops never did well in prison. But he swiftly established himself as a force within the walls, where he acquired jailhouse tattoos, established his own laws, and even established a relationship.

Candy Sue Collins, the lady with the dual feminine blessings of being lovely to behold and a talent for cooking comestible southern dishes, but who was cursed with the habit of falling in love with flawed partners, had a much better fate befall her.

Sometimes in life when a good person works very hard at something they love, the combination of their labor, their talent, and the alignment of the stars results in them being blessed with the appearance of Lady Luck. That’s what happened to Candy Sue.

Lady Luck was represented by the appearance of a scout for a TV cooking show, who was traveling from Macon to Athens, when he stumbled upon Granny’s Kitchen in Apt-To-Miss, where he discovered Candy Sue’s collard greens and crackling cornbread. And that’s how she ended up as a writer and a chef in the test kitchen of a giant conglomerate in Los Angles, and where she fell in love with another man with no future.

Back in Apt-To-Miss, Leon Walker, the lonely and lecherous landlord of Shady Grove Mobile Home Park, and the mall at Apt-To-Miss, became so addicted to pain pills until in desperation he shot himself in his other foot just to get some more. Before that supply dried up he managed to get himself diagnosed with chronic arthritis and taken under the care of a group of pain management physicians, and thereby assured of an uninterrupted supply of his new darlings.

The mall became a burden to him so he sold it for a tidy sum and subsided on his income from the trailer park and his army pension, which were more than ample to keep him supplied with cold beer, Crown Royal and frozen entrees. In the space between his doublewide and one behind his he had had a concrete patio poured and had it adorned with a picnic table complete with an umbrella and a big barbecue pit.

He spent a lot of time out there these days playing dominoes and drinking with his new neighbors—the ones who had rented the second doublewide on the right. Sometimes his new neighbor’s girlfriend would join them, and he liked that because she wore real perfume.

Judge Thurston J. Garfield had been stunned when he was formally notified that he was the subject of a violation of ethics investigation by the state attorney general. Immediately after his last court session, the one where a prisoner had escaped, he had been officially relieved of his judicial duties pending the outcome of the investigation and possible prosecution.

But then when the attorney general’s office had informed him that immediate retirement from the bench was an option to end the investigation, he immediately accepted.

The judge’s wife Velma was relentless when she discovered her social status had been seriously wounded when the word got out about the judge, so she filed for a divorce. The results of which she got the gold mine and Thurston got the shaft, but only because he didn’t care anymore. His mind and his heart were elsewhere and he had enough cash stashed away to get him by, so he used a little bit of it to establish himself a new residence.

It had been a cold night, but it warmed up real nice that day. Florence had served him up some country ham and eggs for breakfast and then they had gone back to bed for a little while. Later on Thurston decided he would go out and play some dominoes and drink some liquor with his neighbor and landlord.

It was a beautiful day in Apt-To-Miss, Georgia when the judge walked out of the front door of the second doublewide on the right.

And this is fixin’ to be The End.

(www.teddunagan.com)