John drove down the high towards the Georgia line. The scenery was pretty routine. Dense trees with the occasional house and the occasional peak at the lake on the other side of those trees. He passed by a group of old, rotten houses that were little more than tar paper shacks. The shacks were remnants of the old homes black people outside of town used to live.

His truck blew past a few more dilapidated buildings, these only abandoned relatively recently. Old liquor stores and bars that were spitting distance from the river. The two closest Georgia county on the other side of the river had been dry up until the 90's. Pickett reaped the benefits of being the veritable oasis in an alcohol desert. Liquor stores and saloons had littered both sides of the highway just on this side of the bridge. That stretch of highway was Saloon City back during its heyday. These little bars and stores were where Pickett at large got her nickname. When the places in Georgia finally got their heads out of their asses and allowed their counties to get wet, the ABC stores and saloons all dried up and blew away like wilted flowers in a drought.

Five miles from the bridge, John pulled into the parking lot of Ray's. There were close to a dozen cars in Ray's gravel parking lot. Ray's black Dodge truck sat parked close to the front door, beside it was Jed's tricked out Chevy Tahoe with the police grade tinted windows. John parked and headed towards the door. The front of Ray's had a sign that flashed the official name of the establishment, the brick wall on both sides of the door was plastered with ads for the beers Ray's served.

The inside of Ray's was filled with the stench of stale cigarette smoke and beer. John pulled out his own cigarette and started to walk throught he place.

[i]"When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,"[/i] Conway Twitty crooned from the jukebox in the corner. 

There were maybe ten people scattered at the bar and the tables. The usual lonely drinkers and the few people brave or desperate enough to go prowling for tail here. A normal sized crowd for a weekday night Ray's.

Friday, Saturday, and Monday were always Ray's biggest nights. Friday was people getting ready to go to the football games and then the crowd that filed in afterwards, either wanting to celebrate with a stiff drink or drown the sorrow of the loss in a stiffer drink. Saturdays were always packed with people drinking and whoring like there wasn't no tomorrow. For some of them, there probably wasn't much of a tomorrow.

Unfortunately for John, Jed wasn't among the band of sinners here tonight. He assumed he was in the back room, near that big ass safe, but he didn't know for sure. His car was here, but that doesn't always mean the person you're looking for is here.

He got a few looks from patrons as he bellied up to the bar. Nothing hostile, more sizing mhim up. Everybody knows what he did for a living and who he worked for. There are no secrets in Pickett. He nodded at Carl Roach who was at a table with Shawna Kidd. Shawna was dressed in a tight sweater that showed her rock hard fake tits, and she was wearing enough lip gloss to choke a horse. Carl looked away from John and back to Shawna, whispering sweet nothings in her ear. She laughed and pushed him away, making sure she clung to his arm as she did so. John turned away and looked down at the bar to hide his smirk. It looked as if Carl was going to have a good time tonight... that is, as long as he had enough cash. John wondered if Carl knew Shawna was a hooker. If he didn't, he sure wouldd love to be a fly on the wall when that conversation took place.

"What's so damn funny?" a gruff voice asked.

John looked up and right at Ray. The old man stood behind the bar with an empty glass in his hands.

"Just thinking to myself," John said with a laugh. 

 "Whatever. You gonna laugh at yourself all day, or you gonna buy a goddamn drink? This ain't no meeting place."

"Sign out front says a social club," John said, producing a five dollar bill. "I thought social clubs were all about sitting around and jawing.

"Not my fucking social club," Rya said as he snatched the money from John's hand.

He ordered a beer and waited for Ray to bring it to him. While he was gone, John saw Carl and Shawna leaving. Carl had a grin a mile-wide as Shawna took his hand and led him out the door.

"Hopefully he has money," Ray said, putting down in front of him a glass of beer with a large foam head. "Last guy that got Shawna all worked up and didn't have any money got a punch in the dick."

"He end up alright?"

"He's doing fine," Ray said with a wry smile. "Although he's no longer a he, at least not in the sense we'd define it."

John laughed and took a long swig off the beer in front of me. It wasn't bad. Better than what he usually drunk. He put the drink down and licked the foam from his lips and leaned forward against the bar.

"Say, Ray, where's Jed?"

It's amazing how fast a man's face can go from easygoing and relaxed to hardened. If somebody was watching from a distance, they would have assumed John had just told Ray to go fuck his momma instead of asking about Jed. He sized him up for a few seconds that felt more like minutes.

"What's it to you?" he asked.

John shot him a look that said he knew the score, that he knew Ray was bullshitting, and that they both knew where Jed was. He looked at John a few more moments, sucking his teeth and staring at him with that cold look.

"Alright," he finally said with a shrug. "Let me go get him."

He walked out from behind the bar and towards the green door marked PRIVATE in big, red letters. Jed's official job was bartender here. And, true, he did tend bar from time to time when Ray was sick or when it was really busy, but he had a more important job. A man comes in and asks for Jed specifically, he asking for more than watered down beer. Jed's job here was the only reason Ray's bar was the last honky tonk standing in the husk of Saloon City. Jed spoke for Ray's silent partner, the man who had provided the capital to get the place going and still kept it afloat.

"John Norman," Benny Rawls said, standing from his end of the bar and walking towards John with a beer in his hand. Benny Rawls was an old black man with hair that was still pitch black. Although John heard talk that Benny was around seventy, he didn't look much past fifty. Always seemed funny to him how some black people never seemed to age, but when they did get old, it hit them like a runaway train and kept pushing them down the tracks until they looked ancient.

"Hey, Benny," John said, taking a sip of my beer. "How's it going?"

"Fine, just fine."

Benny was the only black person in the room. Even though Ray had an all black night that always made Mondays extra profitable, not many black people came in on the other days of the week. The whites of Pickett County had Ray's five nights a week, while the blacks had Club 65 on the outskirts of town. It was the same with everything: undertakers, homes, churches, even the lunchroom at school would always split up between race. That was the way it worked here, and all over the south. Nobody forced segregation, it just happened. Years and had conditioned them to accept it and keep it up, and who were they to buck the trend? Hell, many of them thought, if it was good enough for our mommas and daddies then what made us so goddamn special?

"You know," Benny started after a few seconds of silence. "I used to know the old John Norman, you know. The police?"

"I always heard he was a son of a bitch," John grunted.

"He was." Then Benny laughed softly. "Old man kicked my ass one time. It was a few years before he went and died. I was young back then, and we was in town at the Hill? You remember the Hill?"

"Can't say that I do."

"Well, it was this place up on the hill just before you get into Norman. I was in there one night, drinking and making an ass out of myself. John Norman came in and looked me in the eye and said 'Boy, I'm gonna go around the block. When I get back, your nigger ass better not be here any more,' and he walked out. I laughed and went about drinking. Twenty minutes later, he came back in and saw me. He beat me upside the head with his nightstick and drug me out that place by my ear."

"Sorry to hear that." That was all he could think to say. He figured his son of a bitch comments had done a good enough job to give Benny his thoughts on the man.

"I had it coming," he said with a shrug. "I was acting like a real asshole. No telling what I would have done if I'd stayed that night. People liked to talk about all them niggers John Norman killed, but let me tell you something: Lot of them had it coming. Half of them were gonna end up being killed by someone anyway. I'm not saying he was right to kill them, I'm just saying John Norman couldn't have picked a better batch. Swear to God, I never met a white man in my life that hated niggers as much as John Norman did."

"Well," John said softly. "If it's any consolation, all his granddaughters had children with black men."

Benny pulled his head back and cackled, his beer belly shaking with laughter. "What's that they call that, karma? Yeah, I bet old John Norman spinning in his grave knowing that his great grand youngins is half-nigger."

"God, I hope so," John said with a laugh.

His happy mood disappeared when he saw the door into the back room swing open. Ray came out first, eyeballing him with that hard look again. Jed came out right behind him, his face looking like it was made of stone. It's a look that's scared the shit out of countless people before, and with good reason. Jed, the tough thug with the redneck name. But it was a nickname that came from his birth name. Jedavius or something like that. His momma had been one of those black women that thought giving her boy a unique African name meant pulling a bunch of letters out of a Scrabble bag.

Jed was a few years older than John, but he knew his story. Everyone in town did. He had been a promising athlete back in the day. Lettered in football, basketball, and track, and had a bunch of offers from schools. But then he and three other boys from school had beaten another kid with bricks over some stupid disagreement that escalated before they could cool down. That guy was still paralyzed to this day. Jed's cohorts had copped to the crime, saying Jed served as lookout. They both got fifteen years while Jed got two. His future shot to hell, it didn't surprise a soul when he went to work for Billy Brown right out of prison.

"Outside," he snapped at John as he passed by. John looked at Ray, but found no indication of what was going on in his impassive face.

"Now, wait a minute," Benny started. "We're over here having a conversation, Jed."

"Like I give a fuck," he said. "Outside right now, Norman. We're gonna talk." 

Benny quickly made himself scarce. John cautiously stepped away from the bar and followed Jed outside the door. In the parking lot he got distracted by Carl Roach and Shawna halfway across the lot, standing beside his car and arguing loudly. Apparently, his guess had been right. It struck midnight and Carl's trashy Cinderella turned into a money-hungry pumpkin. 

John looked away from that scene and right into the punch Jed was throwing. The blow to the face dropped him to the ground. Dirt from his impact flew up and covered his face and eyes. White-hot pain shot from his cheek up into his eye and down into the jaw. He was still contemplating the punch when Jed's foot slam into his side. A rib screamed in pain as the breath rushed out of his lungs in a loud gasp. He tried to yank his gun from the holster on the small of his back, but Jed slapped it away with a swipe of his left foot. The Colt skidded across the gravel and out of reach.

"Should have listened to your granddaddy, John," Jed said calmly. He brought his foot down on his and it all went to black.