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The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. —JOSEPH CONRAD
What is known is that in 1805 in the dead of night a group of white landowners, chafing at the limits of their own manifest destiny, set fire to the last remaining indigenous village on the teardrop-shaped peninsula that would become Charon County.
Blood and tears. Violence and mayhem. Love and hate. These were the rocks upon which the South was built. They were the foundation upon which Charon County stood.
There is a sense of chaos that can seem to move with its own order. When a chaotic situation becomes rote, there are certain patterns that emerge from the repetition.
The unrelenting atavistic panic that sprang forth from the deep recesses of the animal part of our brains. Fight or flight went from an abstract concept in health class to a necessary component of survival.
“You don’t know the things I’ve done. I tried to stop, and they said they’d kill my little brother. The Angel, he never took off his mask. But Mr. Spearman, he liked for them to see his face. He liked that a lot,” Latrell said. The words came out in one long sentence like a chant.
Titus thought the truth was somewhere in the middle. Evidence could be tainted. Your gut could lead you astray. You had to find a balance between technique, intuition, and the truth.
Men like Scott, men consumed by their egos and their desire to assert dominance at the top of hierarchies only they could see, didn’t have the capacity to set aside their petty aspirations even in the face of death. They craved power and control in any quantity or amount they could find.
The one based on blood and wine magic had failed them, in Titus’s opinion. Structure became his religion. Discipline was his crucifix against chaos.
Yet he knew from firsthand experience that writing the reports was the most important part. It was the record of how you upheld or dishonored your oath. In a perfect world that record was sacrosanct.
Disrespect was a pestilence. If you let it go unchecked it would infect the entire department. That was doubly true if you were a Black man. No matter how much folks protested to the contrary, their preconceived notions carried weight when they dealt with you.
Titus didn’t have the heart to tell Darlene that no one told anyone all their secrets. Even the people we loved kept pieces of themselves hidden away from the light.
Focus on the details. Force the pain and the perversion to the periphery and zero in on what could be used to make the case. He’d noted that there were usually two people in the pictures.
Waiting for the world to shed tears for your pain was like waiting for a statue to speak.
“Terrible people can do good things sometimes. But they like doing the terrible things more. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Titus said.
But secrets can be corrosive. You hold it in, and it starts eating your insides. Pretty soon you find yourself willing to do anything to stop the pain.
We all choose to be skeptics when the truth is inconvenient.
Sometimes grief is love unexpressed. Other times it’s regret made flesh.
Titus had no illusions about who or what he was. For many people he was the devil. He accepted that. Only he was a devil that chased down demons.
“They killed kids, Pop. Latrell, Spearman, and a third person. They tied them to a table and cut on them and … and … then they killed them and buried them under a willow on Tank Billups’s land. They killed them. Black boys and girls. Did things to them. Things I can’t even say because I don’t want you to have that shit in your head,” Titus said.
“Evil is rarely complicated. It’s just fucking bold.” Titus touched the brim of his hat and left.
A person like this, someone who could do to another human being what you see in those pictures, once you strip away all their masks there’s nothing there. They are just a shell. So they fill it with fantasy, with desires that would make a normal person vomit.
It’s my home and heart. And because I love it, I’m hard on it. I’m brutally honest about it. Because I know it can be better than what it is. But it can’t get there if we keep pretending that it’s some utopia on the Chesapeake Bay. We have to look at Charon and see the whole picture. Even the ugly parts.
Small towns are like the people who populate them. They are both full of secrets. Secrets of the flesh, secrets of blood. Hidden oaths and whispered promises that turn to lies just as quick as milk spoils under a hot summer sun.
“Shit, man, you asked and I’m telling you. What I got to lie for? Latrell ain’t the first person I heard say it. Lot of people think Jasper got one of your boys in his pocket.”
“He talks an awful lot about God and the Bible, but my mama always said the devil can quote the Good Book as well as any angel. And Elias is as close to the devil as I wanna get.” She took a long drag off her cigarette.
“I don’t know! I don’t have a half brother!” Scott yelled. “DNA says otherwise. See for yourself,” Titus said. Was there a hint of satisfaction in his voice?
