The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 23

I’m Fixin’ To Present part 23 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

Ocmulgee County Deputy Sheriff James Earl Murphy had been raised up hard in a rundown trailer park. It was during his first year in middle school when he noticed he was bigger and stronger than all the other boys, which was a wonder in itself, since he had been brought up on a steady diet of white bread, baloney and peanut butter.

Young James Earl never remembered his parents. He did remember asking his Aunt Lurlene about them once and she had said, “The Lord took them,” so he had just left it at that. All he knew was that he lived with his elderly aunt in the Percy Daniels Trailer Park, and that they lived on her social security check.

Every night his aunt would go to bed immediately after the 10:30 news was over. And as she ambled down the narrow hallway she would always remind him to put the lights out and say his prayers. He knew it wouldn’t be long before he would be able to hear her soft snoring.

Only then, and once he got all the lights turned out, he would slip out the back door real quiet like and creep across the dirt road on his bare feet. He had a hiding place over there underneath the low hanging limbs of an old weeping willow tree. It was on a sight incline and gave him the advantage of having a view of the entire trailer park.

James Earl liked nighttime, especially after it got late, because that’s when all the crap went on. That was when the thieves, the dope dealers, the ladies of the evening and all the other bad folks did their thing.

From his vantage point where he lay on his belly under the tree, James Earl gained a great deal of knowledge about his neighbors and their friends and acquaintances who came and went. By the time he was 15 years old he knew which trailers dope was being dispensed from and who came to purchase it. He knew which trailers companionship was dispensed from and who came to purchase it. He came to know who the drunk drivers were, and became aware of all the criminal activity in his neighborhood.

At that tender young age James Earl knew more about the criminal elements he was surrounded by than any city, county or state law enforcement officer.

It was the effect of his possession of this knowledge that was important. He could have gone either way, but because his Aunt Lurlene had made him say his prayers every night he choose the side of the law, and when he graduated from high school he already had a mission in life—to punish all lawbreakers and low-life’s by any means necessary.

His aunt passed away right after he graduated from high school. The trailer they lived in was rented, but she had left him with $5,000 in her checking account, which he used to put himself through the Georgia Police Academy.

He graduated number one in his class and got a job on the night shift as a jailer in the Ocmulgee County Jail. Then he enrolled himself into Georgia State University, and after a period of five years earned a degree in criminology. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to a deputy sheriff position and assigned to the patrol division working on the night shift, which was right up his alley.

While he was a student at GSU, he had met a law student named Jackie Ramsey and married her a few days after they both graduated. They had stayed together for five years. Jackie made the big bucks and paid the rent on their luxury condo in Decatur, just east of Atlanta. She made the short commute into the city every day while James Earl drove all the way out to Ocmulgee County to serve each night.

Early one morning he came home to find a note from his wife saying she had accepted a position with a law firm in Washington D.C., and her attorney would be in touch with him concerning divorce proceedings.

James Earl wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming. The rent was paid through the end of the month which would give him time to relocate near his own work.

So here he was, living in a trailer park again. This one was called Shady Grove, in place known as Apt-To-Miss. Most of the time he didn’t stay in his trailer, but at the one next door to him with his new girlfriend who was just as good-looking as his ex. Her name was Candy Sue, and she was special because she really knew how to cook.

It didn’t take Deputy James Earl long before he began to venture out late at night and observe the goings on in Shady Grove. He already had a list of suspicious neighbors, but number one on his list was the one who lived way back in the back, the last trailer in the park. He had his sights set on Quantavious Cortez Carter, and he was fixin’ to nail him.