The afternoon was winding down when a shot rang out in the neighborhood. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The ear-cracking noise doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Was it gun-play or another backfire from a worn-out muffler? Or was someone shooting a snake? No one is disturbed. A day or two will pass before a neighbor questions the event. There’s fierce independence in the middle-income community of Thompsonville, a hamlet in the mountains of North Georgia.
There’s a store in Thompsonville but no red light. If you blink while on your travels, yup, you missed it. It’s just another sleepy bedroom community, but with a story.
The people here need something they never had — good law enforcement. The law enforcement they’re getting is roadblocks on holiday weekends, speeding tickets, and fines for insurance violations. There’s one road in and one road out. Highway 157 serves Walker County well as a fundraising toll road. Locals try not to use it much anymore.
These mountaineers are tired of seeing crooks released immediately after stealing their property, and when someone gets busted with a handful of crystal meth, they don’t like seeing them get out faster than they can get through a KFC drive-through.
Drug users and burglars get released on their own recognizance with only a $20 bond in this area. Now you know why country people are slow to warm up to. Bondsmen aren’t happy either. During Halloween, the children are dressed in full body armor when trick-or-treating. The people have good reason to keep a loaded gun by the door and a couple more by the fireplace. You have a better chance of spotting Bigfoot out here than you do trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
The police are tired of hauling in the same violators that they don’t anymore unless the crime rises to murder or maybe rape. But if you forget your court date for running a stop sign in this area, you’ll sit in jail for months unless you come up with big money for your bondsman. It’s a two-tiered system. The have’s are bankrolling it all. The have-not’s are laughing, smoking meth, flipping meth, drinking, and picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot of the local convenience store. The combatants are few but garner much of local conversation. I hear talk of what could be — ‘if only someone would step up and unload.’ 38’s are being traded for 357s, and talk of installing camera equipment fills the air.
There are not a lot of people in Thomponsville. It’s not on a map. You may find it on an out-of-print coal mining map from the 1920s. It’s a 25-minute drive from Chattanooga, but it might as well be 250 miles away — a place time almost forgot, It’s peaceful. It’s a vacation 365 days a year for most of the gray-templed mountain people — the politically incorrect crowd calls them hillbillies, rednecks, hicks, and squatters. People call ‘em a lot of things. Doesn’t seem to faze them. You hear them sound off, “It’s hard to get mad at city folks — I feel sorrow for them.”
They may have a point.
Most people in the area are good. But the same few misfits keep people on edge. They have no skills or money. They live in burned-out trailers gifted to them by others' misplaced sympathy. They’re tough hires because of their prison tats and rap sheets. They’re outcasts. They wander around talking to clouds and wearing out shoes. Every cent in their pockets is going for crystal meth or fentanyl. The cops want them dead. They are not alone.
The frustration of the police is well known. They spend time processing individuals only to see them back out before sundown. The desire for a cot and three hots is overwhelming them. One of the trailer-dwellers asked for his bond to be revoked so he could go back to jail. He went back in and was booted out in the street a day later. Nobody wants to feed them. Walker County has issues. Property tax doubled this year. What are we getting? Temperatures are rising in the hills — and It’s not due to global warming.
The hills have eyes — and they’re bug-eyed wide open.
A couple of years back, I heard banging on my front door. I own a small house in the hills, a studio, a getaway from civilization. I feel it’s needed — but maybe I’ve gone too far. Any knock on my door is somewhat surprising. I open the door and a friend of mine from the area walks in. It’s my shade-tree mechanic, and he says, “I just shot a meth-head."
I said, “Great, let’s celebrate. I don’t have any champagne, but I have beers.”
“No thank you,” he says, “the police want to talk to me.”
“That makes sense,” I replied.
Among being mistaken as a narc by the townspeople when I first moved to the area, which I never refuted for obvious reasons, I guess I’ve become a quack lawyer in these parts to some. That one semester of business law in college was foundational in building my reputation as a legal scholar — a regular Clarence Darrow. I gave him a few words of advice.
Things worked out just fine and the shade-tree mechanic was back home working his magic that afternoon.
The cops say do not kill anyone unless, well, you know, wink wink, they threaten you on your property with bodily harm. It’s like the Lincoln County Wars with regulators but no Billy the Kid or Pat Garrett.
The shooting was justified. The perp was denied permission to enter but insisted on visiting anyway. Said perp is a known felon and drug addict. After being told to clear out, the assailant said he was coming in. Seems he wanted private time with a female inside. The 22 caliber bullet, fired through a window, entered the mind-numbingly dumb man’s chest cavity, near the heart, ricocheted off a bone, and exited through his shoulder. He’s fine. What he lacks in sense he makes up with in luck.
Did the perp have a gun? Did Johnny Cash enjoy happy hour?
The meth-head still, mysteriously, wonders why the shooter had to squeeze the trigger. They passed each other walking down the street months later. Jailbird said, “Man, you didn’t have to shoot me.”
True story. But names have been omitted because you shouldn’t talk about your cousins and neighbors.
Stacey Alexander