The Scummers

Prologue

ix Prologue How does a man come to this? In 1961 I was ready to kill a man. I meant to do it. I was going to try, or so I thought. But somebody else beat me to it. Question is, would I actually have done it? That same year, I may have killed a man. I don’t know for sure. I never found out. Question is, did I mean to do it? Death, time and again, in a single year. How does a kid from Crum, West Virginia, come to this? How does any man come to this? In 1956 I was run out of Myrtle Beach, Horry County, South Carolina, because I worked with, and lived with, black people. I am not black. I am a blond, blue-eyed white man from Crum, in Wayne County, West Virginia, where no black people live. When I got to South Carolina, I had no idea I was not supposed to like black people. Or work with them. Or eat their food. Or live with them. Or make love to one of their women. All of which I did. And so I paid the price. It was painful. When I lived in Crum, I wanted out. I wanted out so intensely that I would have done anything, anything, to make it happen. Even though I knew a girl there who would live in my mind for the rest of my life. Yvonne. x But Yvonne didn’t stay there. And neither did I. I found my way to Myrtle Beach. I had never seen the ocean, and it was magic. But that’s when I made the crucial mistake—I fell in with those black folks. I was an ignorant hillbilly with no particular skills. After Labor Day, when all the tourists went home, there was nothing for me to do. Couldn’t get a job—there were no jobs. Except one. I could work on a small fishing boat, owned by a black guy, and worked by other black guys. It was hard, manual labor—pulling oars, paying out net so heavy it tore the skin off your hands, even through heavy, soaked gloves. But working with black men meant that no white people would rent a room to me. And so I lived with the black people, in their rural slum. And so I was “asked” to leave. By the white people. But I did not want to leave Myrtle Beach. I was in love with a girl there, a white girl, a girl from my high school years in Crum, West Virginia, a girl like no other. Yes—Yvonne—who had found her way to Myrtle Beach before I even got there. She was not looking for me, at least not in the beginning , but found me there, nevertheless. But I had no choice. I had to leave. I had defied the written and unwritten laws of segregation. To stay in South Carolina would have been possibly fatal. I had to hit the road. And so I did. Alone. Without Yvonne. I love being on the road, alone, no one knowing where I am, no way of finding me. But, even on the road, a life must be lived. And xi I lived mine. I even kept journals that tried to say what was happening , and maybe why it was happening. The journals did not work out too well. For a while, on the road, life was made up of whatever the hell came down the pike. All in all, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly good. It just . . . was. But life has a way of fucking with your plans, even when you don’t have any. Because at the end of the road, I found the army. No, that isn’t quite true. The army found me. And in a very short time, I wanted to become a killer. And I may have succeeded. I put away childish things. It took a while. I tried. At least I think I did. How does a man come to this? Fuck it. I’m tired of thinking about it. It’s over. I know that, now. I don’t keep a journal anymore. In fact, I think I’ll take the boat out and just read a book. —Jesse Stone Canada or maybe Mexico Honduras? Who the hell cares? ...