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It isn't always Big Brother who's watching.  Sometimes, it's ....
 

Little Sister

by

Connie Chastain
 

Excerpt

Ainsley stepped through the front room of System Solutions, Incorporated, and made her way to the back office on the left, Shelby's office.  It was vacant, although his laptop was on the desk, open and powered on.  She moved to the right to look through the next door, which was Randy's office.  Also vacant.  Finally, on the third try, she found a living person.

"John Mark," she said faintly.  He was seated at his desk, engrossed in a trade journal, and he jumped slightly when she said his name. 

"Ainsley!  What are you doing here?  We thought you were supposed to be in Mississippi another month."  He got up and came to the door, where she was leaning against the jamb and gave her a quick hug. 

"Is Shelby here?"

"Yeah, he and Randy are at dinner in the break room.  Are you all right, darlin'?  You look awful."

"Thanks."

"I mean, you look like you feel awful."

"I do.  I need a place to crash and burn for a little bit. Is there a place I could lie down for a while?"

"Sure is.  Remember the nice big couch in the break room?  We've all three crashed there, at one time or another, working late.  It's almost comfortable, if you're exhausted. Come on back."

He walked with her down the back hallway, announcing to Shelby and Randy as they stepped into the break room, "Guess who's here."

"Hey, hey," Randy said, standing up from the small bistro table cluttered with Arby's bags and cups, to give Ainsley a squeeze across the shoulders, while John Mark went to a cabinet to retrieve a pillow and blanket. 

"Looky here," Shelby said, also standing to lean toward her and kiss her cheek.  She was very cognizant that he didn't embrace her.

"John Mark said I could crash on the couch.  I'm sick and sleep-deprived."

"You look it," Shelby said. "What are you doing here?  I thought your, ah, 'internship' was supposed to last through August."

"I wanted to go home but I don't have a home, so I came here."

Shelby and Randy gave each other perplexed looks.  "I'm not sure what that means," Shelby said.  "Your home is at 1328 Cloverdale Road in Verona."

"No, that's my parents' empty house.  Home is where your family is..."

She turned and walked unsteadily to the couch and murmured her thanks to John Mark.  She turned back around to look at them all.   "I came here because I have a request.  A huge favor to ask of you three."

"What?"  Shelby said.

"When I catch up on my sleep and get cleaned up somewhere... I want to talk to y'all together.  Please.  Would that be possible?"

"Clean up somewhere?" Shelby repeated.  "You mean, like a room at the Holiday Inn?  Ainsley, what's got into you?  You know you're welcome at my place."

"Why, thank you.  You're such a hospitable man," she said, lying on the couch and covering up.  She turned to face the back of the couch so they couldn't see her cry.

She slept until almost five, when the office closed, which meant she caught up on five of her 14 hours of missed sleep.  Shelby gave her the key to his apartment and sent her there to shower and change, while he stopped for pizzas, soft drinks and ice.  The gathering would be around six.

Physically, the edge had been taken off Ainsley's fatigue, but she was still a basket case emotionally.  And so, when the group was seated around Shelby's table, their paper plates stacked with pizza slices from take-out boxes on the kitchen counter, Ainsley was almost too uptight to eat.  She choked down one piece of pizza, listening to the conversation around her. 

She tried to remember the last time she had been with all three of them like this, and couldn't.  The bantering and business talk could almost remind her of how things were in the old days, when Shelby was her Bubba, and John Mark and Randy were her other-brothers, and they all three loved her without reservation.

But they had been boys then, with no haunting memories and no adult responsibilites.  They were men now.  And now, everything she said, everything she did, seemed to get on Shelby's nerves, and her other-brothers, while they could be as sweet as ever, were so distant....

Eventually, supper was done, the paper plates empty except for crusts and crumbs.  She was the one who had called this gathering, and it was time to get on with it.  Shelby looked at her pointedly and said, "You have the floor."

She couldn't look any of them in the eye.  At length, she said, "I wanted you all to come here so I could apologize to you.  To let you know how sorry I am for sleeping with the enemy."

"You mean that figuratively, of course," Shelby said.

"Sleeping with, yes, that's figurative.  But the enemy is real.   I don't know how I could not see his true colors for almost two years. I'm not trying to blame anyone for anything.  I just want y'all to understand why.  Or at least, I need to try to explain, whether you understand or not.  After you all left Verona, and  I graduated from JHS, and Momma and Daddy went to Guatemala, I felt abandoned.  I understood why everyone left, but I still felt like--"

"I didn't abandon you," Shelby said.  "We kept in touch."

"Let her explain," John Mark said curtly.

"Shelby, I went from seeing you nearly every day, morning, noon and night, for my whole life, to seeing you a few hours three or four times a year.  We talked on the phone for a few minutes every week or two.  And that was it." She cut her eyes left and right.  "Saw and talked to you other two even less than that. 

"As far back as I can remember, you three had taken care of me, played with me, watched out for me, paid attention to me, did things for me, bought me things, made me laugh... my whole life.  Except the few short times when you'd go hunting, or go to camp, or go on vacation with your families, you were there around me, all the time, and then, all of a sudden, after y'all graduated from high school, you left.  All three of you were just... gone.  I was all by myself."

Shelby said, "Things change when you grow up.  That's just ... life."

Randy looked at Shelby in reproach."That's really cold, man." 

"So then, when I was a junior at VSU, I met Harry Talton.  And I knew from the beginning that he was an atheist and a liberal and a leftist and and the very antithesis of you three.  But he was nice to me and he spent time with me and he made me laugh....  At first I suspected that y'all would strongly disapprove of him, but then I realized I couldn't remember the last time any one of you showed the slightest interest in what was going on in my life..."

"And then, in Biloxi, things started happening that made me wonder if loneliness wasn't such a bad thing, after all.  I mean, preferable to what was happening there, anyway." 

She paused so long that John Mark prodded her.  "What happened in Biloxi?"

"So much...  First of all, and least of all, the 'internship' was a lie  The whole reason for going there was a lie.  Basically all we did for three months -- or in my case, two months -- was volunteer work, cleaning out the files cabinets and making copies and ridiculous stuff like that.  There was no academic credit for it like Harry said there would be.  It was a joke, it was just a way for that place to get free labor. 

"Then, Harry started changing.  Brandon Gilmore's right hand man is named Keith Woodley.  His title is publications director, but he's really over a lot more than that.  He wields enormous power in the organization.  And he and Harry got to be buddies, and Keith's outlook, his approach -- almost his personality, it seemed -- started to rub off on Harry.  It got to where Harry wasn't much of a gentleman."

Not certain what to ask about that, the three waited silently for her to continue.

"To understand, you have to know about Keith, and the one friend I made while I was there.  When we first got there, she was the receptionist.  Her name is LaFasia Ryder, she is from New Orleans.  She had been working there maybe a year when we arrived, and about half that time, she'd been getting romantically involved with Keith.  About a month after we started, she resigned her job and moved in with him."

Ainsley told her quiet, listening audience about her encounter with the bruised and beaten LaFasia in the supermarket.  "I told her to get out, to leave him, nobody should have to put up with physical abuse, but she... I guess she was afraid. 

"So Harry was turning into Keith, Junior -- I even called him that, hoping it would make him mad and make him think, snap him out of it, but he didn't care--"

"What are you saying?" Shelby interrupted.  "Did he hit you?"

"No, no, he just continually harassed me to do all this leftist stuff like go to pro-abortion rallies and support feminist causes and demonstrate to raise the freaking minimum wage.  His stuff.  He was trying to convert me to being a leftist, like him.  And he was always after me to move in with him.  He knew, all the way back to my second or third date with him, my beliefs about that.  So I reminded him over and over why I couldn't do that, and he got to where he would say really nasty put downs about me and my stupid moral standards and my religion and the Baptist Church and the Bible...and God... 

"What really did it for me was when he called God my 'imaginary friend.'  I finally had enough and I decided to come back home two days ago.  I decided to come here and see if you would let me back in," she said to Shelby, "and if you wouldn't, I didn't know what I was going to do.  I know; it was kind of a half-baked plan but I just wanted to be around some good, decent men, for a change."

Shelby frowned and shook his head.  "Back in?"

"Back in to being a family." 

Shelby looked like he wanted to reply to that, but something -- whether it was Randy's earlier reprimand, or something else -- made him hold his tongue.

She told them about her last day in Biloxi, her visit with LaFasia, and the disk her friend had given her. 

"She told me,  'Promise me you won't look at this until you get back to Georgia.'  She said maybe that would give her some time.  I didn't know what she meant by that, but I hoped it had something to do with her getting away from Keith.  So I promised, and I asked her what was on the disk, and she said it was Keith's life insurance policy.  I suspected she didn't mean that literally, of course, but I had no idea what it did mean.

"It was late afternoon by then, too late to leave, and so I planned to go the next morning.  But I couldn't sleep. Finally, about two a.m. I couldn't stand it anymore, and I thought, Why do I have to wait until daylight to leave?  So I got in the car and drove straight here, stopping only to buy gas and snacks and go to the ladies room."

"I'm pleased that you got out," Shelby said.  "And that you're here." 

"And thankful your trip was safe," John Mark said. 

 "Two nights without sleep.  Angels must've been riding with you," Randy said.  "Um, can I see that disk your friend gave you?"

"Sure.  It's in my purse," she said, pointing to her brown leather bag sitting on the kitchen counter.   Shelby reached behind him and retrieved it and handed it to her. 

While John Mark started clearing away the paper plates, Randy got his laptop from the coffee table where he'd put it when he arrived.  He set it on the dining table in front of him, powered it on, and slid in the disk Ainsley gave him. 

Shelby sat quietly across the table from his sister, seeing superimposed on her woman's face that of her four-year-old self holding her hand up to his mouth to be kissed... or her five-year-old's face, covered with blood and screaming in terror...or her twelve-year-old face telling him earnestly, Who do you think I'm gonna believe?  Some damnyankee?  Or you? 

He had not thought of these things -- had not remembered -- for so long.  Somehow, when he had erected a barrier to the bad memories of the past, it had blocked the good ones, too.  Or, at least, to the feelings attached to them.  And now that whatever icy barrier had protected his heart all this time seemed to be thawing, melting, how much pain, sorrow, guilt, regret was waiting to ambush him?  But then, how much love, how much joy, how much peace and forgiveness?

"Little sister," he said.  It was the first time he had called her that in two, three years. "You're not the only one that's sorry.  And we are family, even if I haven't been acting like it.  We have a lot to talk about, over time."

"So does that mean it would be okay for me to come live in Jax?  I really don't want to go back to Verona.  It's so empty."

"Oh, you bet you can move to Jax," Shelby said. 

John Mark jumped in and warmed to the subject.  "Hey, we'll help you find a condo at the beach if you want one. You've got all that money now, you can afford it."  He winked at her. "You could probably live out there three, four months before your money's all gone.  But we'll find you a job, too, for some steady income--we know nearly everybody in the business community in this town--so you won't have to freeload off us.  Because honest labor is dignity," he intoned. 

Shelby added, "We know lots of guys, too, so we might even find you a new boyfriend -- somebody a lot better than that atheistic, left-liberal, pinko-proselytizing, sexual-harassin' Harry Talton."

"And we'll all go to Southgate Baptist Church, and make the choir even worse than it already is," John Mark continued, "and we'll beat all the Church of Christ people to Morrison's every Sunday.  It won't be exactly like old times.  But that's pretty close."

Listening to the repartee, Ainsley laughed for the first time since she'd arrived.  It was starting to feel like old times....

"Y'all aren't gonna believe this,." Randy said, breaking into the moment.  He was staring at the laptop screen, incredulous.

"What is it?" Shelby said.

"A text document file, labeled 'Introductory Narrative.'  Presumably written by Woodley--"

"Introductory narrative?" John Mark said, sneering.  "Leftist pedantry. 'Introduction' would've been sufficient...."

"Like the Jabberwock would know about brevity," Shelby remarked.

"Hush up and listen," Randy insisted.  "It says, quote, on this disk are accounts and documentation of racist, anti-semitic, anti-gay hate crimes and other far-right incidents staged and/or financed by the Southern Social Justice Group to be used by the organization for fundraising purposes, unquote.  He says, ah...  there were staged cross-burnings, mock lynchings, outbreaks of spray-painted swastikas, arson, other kinds of property damage, all designed to provoke escalations beyond what was initially staged.  They would then be cited in the group's publications or fundraising letters as proof that the organization's work was a continuing necessity and deserved generous contributions.  What a pack of charlatans!  Y'all come around here and look at this stuff."

"What, there's not enough pre-existing meanness in the world for those people?" Shelby replied.  "They have to make crap up?" 

"Don't make sense, does it?” Randy murmured.  “Unless it was targeted in some way."

Everyone scooted their chairs around next to Randy's to see the screen and read the conclusion of Woodley's text document.

"Now my partner in crime is going to be the next governor of Mississippi.  If any of these things come out, he will certainly wish to establish his innocence by blaming them all on me.  The information on this disk, and the source documentation in my safety deposit boxes, will insure that he cannot. If I go down, he goes with me, governor or not."

"Yes, he's gonna run for governor," Ainsley said.  "It's a well-known secret around the SSJG.  He'll prob'ly get elected, too.  He's gonna make a big deal out of the flag vote last year and make it into the governor's mansion by stepping on a lot of 'neo-Confederate' racists and such."

"At least he's consistent," Randy observed.  "And if politics at that level is involved, this disk might be life insurance, or it might be a death warrant."  He closed the text document and the screen went back to the root directory. There were numerous folders in it.  Most of them were named for the years from 2001 back to 1988, a few years after the SSJG was founded, one folder for each year, but there were other folders with a variety of names, as well.  One was labeled Facilitators.  That caught Randy's attention and he clicked it open to find a word file with photos of four men, with names addresses and other information beneath each one. 

"Freddie Jarman," Randy read under his breath.  "2204 Rockland Terrace, Little Rock, Ark.   He looks like a fine, upstanding citizen, don't he?  Nice long criminal record -- theft, assault, vandalism, robbery...  So that's a facilitator."

"Henchman to instigate fake hate crimes," Shelby mused.  "Hey.  Go back and open 2001.  I want to check something."

"Ah-ight," Randy said, opening the 2001 folder to reveal two others in the subdirectory.  One was labeled "Pensacola, FL" one "Knoxville, TN." 

"Pensacola," Shelby directed, and Randy clicked it open... 

"That's what I thought.  That cross-burning last year," Shelby said.  "Y'all remember reading about that online?  Gilmore tried to implicate the Dixie Legion in that." 

John Mark and Randy both remembered it.  "That's what cost a Legion member in South Carolina his job," John Mark said.  "He was in Columbia, if memory serves.  Either of you ever hear what happened with him?"

"Sandy Boutwell, I think his name was.  Mass e-mailing a few months ago said he's doing all right.  Some other Legion members or somebody at his church or something found him another job," Shelby reported. 

Both repelled and fascinated, the group made their way through Keith Woodley's documentation of the incident. The facilitator on that job was the upstanding citizen-thug Freddie Jarman.  He'd made two trips from Little Rock to Pensacola to stage it.  It had cost the SSJG $2,000.  They had barely made their money back featuring it in their online publication because nobody in Pensacola had been provoked enough to "escalate," as Keith called spontaneous community reactions to the staged events. Keith had included scans of newspaper reports from the Pensacola paper, which had interviewed and quoted Gilmore.  He had .wps files of news reports off local television.

"Un-buh-lievable," Shelby muttered, "staging something like that for the sole purpose of blaming it on innocent people.  What kind of mind does it take to operate like that?"

"Um, one that's sociopathic, or greedy in the extreme, nor both ," John Mark offered.

Randy clicked a few more year-links at random, and skimmed the files within them.   Arson of a black church in Texas, 1996; Jewish family harassed with spray painted swastikas on their vehicles, guns fired randomly into their yard by unknown, drive-by assailants, North Carolina, 1989; a dummy lynched at a high school, with Confederate flags as a backdrop, north Alabama, 1998... 

Open, skim, close.  Open, skim, close.   Randy was flashing through the screens so fast his companions could not keep up.  He ascertained that some years had up to half-dozen folders representing staged incidents, and others only one or two.  All the folders he saw were named for places located in the South.  And he also noted that the folders were not uniform in content.  They all had at least some biographical information on the people involved and most had newspaper scans, but fewer had video files of TV news reports.  Some had .wav files of telephone conversations with the facilitators or other audio files.  The contents of each incident folder was was unique to the incident it documented. 

"Evidently, Woodley surreptitiously recorded some of his conversations with Brandon Gilmore when they planned these events, because he converted those recordings to .wav files, too, and included them in some folders," Randy said, pointing to the occasional .wav file labeled "BGilmore" with a number and date following.

"Buncha crooks," Shelby muttered.  "And it goes all the way to the top.  The 'Gov'nuh' knew all about it, those audio files prove it."

"Yep," Randy said.  "And now we know, and there's no way to unknow." 

The implications of his statement didn't dawn on his companions right away.  Ainsley was too immersed in regret, Shelby was still thinking about 'Brando Gimme-more' and John Mark was preoccupied with something else altogether.  Barely audibly, he said, "Ah, Randy, just for larks, open 1993."

At the suggestion, the three men exchanged startled looks.  Randy turned back to the computer, fingered the track pad and clicked on 1993. 

There was one folder inside.

No one moved or spoke for several moments, or breathed or even blinked.  Their faces went white and all they could do was stare at the name under the folder, which seemed to dim and brighten against the blue background, like an ember burning into their eyes.

Verona, Georgia.

Wedged between his two companions and slightly behind them, John Mark put one hand on Randy's shoulder, the other on Shelby's, an unconscious gesture of support and bracing, as if in anticipation of an impact.  With trembling fingers, Randy opened the folder ....