Dark and Bloody Ground

by Darcy O'Brien

  She graced the dining room, where she insisted they take all their meals, with a brass and glass table and a glass-fronted oak hutch, in which she arranged her doll collection and stored her new china, crystal stemware, and silver. In the downstairs master bedroom she placed a king-size cherrywood four-poster bed for Benny and herself. The upstairs bedrooms were reserved for the children and other visitors. Renee. now had her own room and four-poster canopied bed. As for the den, she conceived of it as Benny’s playroom. There he could blast his rock and play Nintendo to his heart’s content, undistracted by the temptations of teenage sirens. To further occupy him, Sherry bought Benny a powerful motorcycle and wrapped her arms around his waist as he tore up and down the river and into town.

  In an event that Sherry hoped was a good omen and that gave her and Benny great satisfaction, Sheriff Trotter was arrested by the FBI in May 1984 and forced to resign from office. He and three other men were indicted on numerous drug conspiracy charges and were tried, convicted, and sentenced to from ten to fifteen years in prison. The FBI had infiltrated the sheriff’s coterie and bugged him on numerous incriminating occasions, including a drug-financed excursion to the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, where Trotter unwound in his suite rolling joints and unveiled a scheme to use a fruit and vegetable stand on Highway 61 as a front for cocaine and other drug dealing as well as for prostitution. He and his cohorts also hatched plans to improve their methods of peddling evidence.

  Trotter complained that law enforcement was not what it used to be. In the old days, he lamented, a sheriff could do absolutely anything he wanted and get away with it. Nowadays, he had better be careful. These and other recorded statements became the basis for one of the first indictments and convictions of ten East Tennessee sheriffs on narcotics charges during the next five years.

  Count one against Trotter alone involved a hundred and nineteen separate overt illegal acts, including discussions about the importance of murdering people foolish enough to try to stand in the sheriffs way or to horn in on his business. Although still unsure about Gene Foust, Sherry and Benny rooted for him in the special election held to replace the fallen Trotter, hoping they might at least gain a sheriff who did not have Benny on his hit list. Foust lost, however, to the FBI agent who had exposed the previous administration.

  Just as she and Benny were moving into their dream house, Sherry reached a point of desperation over his philanderings. No longer able to cope, in May 1984 she enrolled at the Ridgeview Psychiatric Center and Hospital for the first of twice weekly outpatient therapy sessions.

  She tried to convince Benny to accompany her or seek counseling himself; he told her that she was nuts and that if she cared to submit herself to the shrinks, she was on her own. He had had his bellyful of psychological counseling and testing in prison. And she had better watch what she said to the doctors, who were not to be trusted.

  Ridgeview, also known as the Regional Mental Health Center of Oak Ridge, was a well-respected facility that accepted patients, or clients as they are sometimes known in the trade, from all economic levels and charged on the basis of their ability to pay. Sherry saw at least four different clinicians, including at least one woman therapist and one bona fide psychiatrist, regularly over the next four months and off and on for a year. It may be that they would have reached different conclusions about her had she been able to reveal that she was living on the proceeds from armed robbery and other shadowy acts but, as frank as she was in other respects, she described Benny only as a construction worker, herself as an unmarried housewife and part-time cashier.

  “I’m an insanely jealous person,” Sherry said when asked to identify her chief complaint; she added that she was also depressed because she feared that her ex-husband was turning their daughter against her. Her principal worry, however, was Benny, who had spent nine and a half years in prison for armed robbery but was “basically a good man.” He had admitted to her, she claimed, that he had killed three men while in prison, but these homicides had been in self-defense. He had also beaten her and cut her during one of their arguments over other women, but he had given her the kind of love she had always wanted and had told her that she had taught him what true love really meant. On the other hand, she feared that he was going to kill her some day when she went into one of her jealous rages, or that she would kill him or herself.

  The best part of their relationship was the sex, which for her was nearly always orgasmic. She had never had an orgasm with anyone else. She felt freer with Benny because she was sure that he loved her.

  When a therapist asked Sherry why she thought she had had difficulty trusting other men, she volunteered that she believed that her problems had started with her real father, who had tried to rape her. She described how much she loved her sister and brother-in-law for raising her as their own but admitted that her relations with Louise were not as warm as they might have been. Louise was jealous of her; this had begun when Sherry was in high school.

  Sherry said that she had had sex for the first time with a boy when she was fifteen. Her mistake had been in confessing this to E. L. He had interrogated her relentlessly and in detail and, she thought, had become aroused by what she described to him. Later he had tried to fondle her, she said. She told him to stop, and he did. She also thought that Louise had sensed what was going on, and E. L. had from that point on become distant and bitter toward Sherry, at the same time that Louise resented her. At twenty-one, she married Billy Pelfrey to spite Louise, knowing the marriage could not possibly work. It had been like saying, you want me gone, I’m gone. Now see what you’ve made me do.

  “I only wanted their love,” Sherry said, “and they took advantage of that. Benny loved me the way I wanted, then he screwed me over, too.” He beat her, and she admitted having assaulted him and several of his girlfriends; but if he left her, she would lose all hope in life. She was frantic every time he was away from the house without her. She had begun leaving suicide notes lying around, hoping to shame him and inspire pity. She wished that she could crawl into someone’s lap and cry.

  Each of Sherry’s sessions, perhaps forty-five or fifty hours in all, was on a one-on-one basis. All of her therapists agreed that she should leave Benny; none advised her how to accomplish this, other than to tell her that it was a decision she would have to reach on her own, that it would do no good for her to act merely on someone else’s advice. Each discussed her attachment as neurotic and dangerous. As for a diagnosis of her psychological condition or specific steps that she might take to help herself, other than leaving Benny, none ventured to say. Months before she quit the sessions altogether, Sherry concluded that the therapists could not help her and that their only value was in letting her talk.

  She was as frank with them as circumstances permitted. She described herself as angry and potentially violent from an early age, recalling an incident from the second grade when she broke the neck off a bottle and threatened two classmates who had been teasing her. Since she had already been convicted of it, she admitted the credit card scam. She portrayed herself as a person who did not become angry for trivial reasons but who when pushed could erupt. She would have gone into greater detail about her life with Benny, including the adrenalin rush she got from armed robbery, the pleasure she took in contriving disguises for him—how crime, like sex, made her happy. But when she asked whether the FBI or other government agencies could demand to see her files and question her therapists, she was told that absolute privacy could not be guaranteed. Under the law her sessions were privileged, but there were exceptions.

  On their worksheets, which Sherry never saw, her therapists made notes and tried to categorize her and grade her progress, if any. One marked her “Overall Severity of Condition” as “Fair,” which was fourth on a scale of seven that descended from “Superior” down to “Very Poor” and “Grossly Impaired” she was considered less than “Good” but better than “Poor.” Another clinician remarked on her “casual attitude toward crime and violence,”
which was undoubtedly a reference to her bantering conversational manner rather than to her underlying feelings of erotic criminality, her intensely meticulous cleverness, or her deadly seriousness. When Sherry broke down and wept during a session, the subject was always either Benny’s faithlessness or her guilt and frustration over Renee. She did not, or could not, reveal her emotional attachment to crime and violence themselves—put simply, that she enjoyed them both a lot.

  All of her therapists took note of her jealous rages and suicidal tendencies; yet her “Community Living Skills” ranked “OK” her “Support Systems” were deemed merely “Inadequate.” “Long Range Goals” were defined as “Work through abandonment depression.” “Problems to be Addressed” included “Rage eruptions—self-esteem—poor ability to trust—intense neediness of love & affection.” Sherry might have been surprised to learn that she consistently received marks of “Fair” to “Good” on “Goal Progress.”

  The therapists were unanimous in considering Sherry of above-average intelligence but were uncertain as to how to label her according to the DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition, of the American Psychiatric Association), the standard guidebook in the field. Her first therapist initially found her “non-psychotic” and with “good motivation” but suffering from “Antisocial Personality Disorder” (DSM-III, 301.70), a condition “in which there is a history of continuous and chronic antisocial behavior in which the rights of others are violated ...,” in a pattern beginning before the age of fifteen. Some of the manifestations of the disorder were said to include “lack of ability to function as a responsible parent ... inability to maintain enduring attachment to a sexual partner ... irritability and aggressiveness as indicated by repeated fights or assaults... impulsivity ... ‘conning’ others for personal profit... recklessness ...” Because Sherry was, however, capable of long-lasting friendships and attachments and, also unlike the truly antisocial personality, did seem to feel guilt and remorse for some of her actions, this therapist crossed out that diagnosis and settled instead on the more restrictive “Conduct Disorder, Socialized Aggressive” (312.23).

  The majority of her clinicians saw her as an example of “Borderline Personality Disorder” (301.83), characterized as a severe lack of a sense of integrated psychological identity, shielded by intensely active defense mechanisms, evident in Sherry’s case in the form of wisecracking, joking, and making light of serious matters. In terms of this diagnosis, her “symbiotic ties to an exploitive relationship [and] terror at the thought of being alone,” in the words of one of her therapists, reflected her lack of personality integration, which was the result of a “very emotionally deprived” infancy and childhood.

  While she was unaware of these various and overlapping diagnoses, Sherry would not have been surprised by them and would have recognized something of herself in each of them. Her idea was that she already understood herself all too well, and that this self-knowledge, rather than inducing change, often made her want to die. She told her therapists, and Benny before them, that she believed that her troubles derived from her father’s and others’ betrayals; that she thought little of herself as a woman, had spent her life alternately trying to prove her worth or her worthlessness, considered herself a failure as a parent, and was at least dimly aware that she let Benny abuse her because it confirmed how little she valued herself. “I am the way I am,” she would state to anyone who asked, “because no one ever expected me to be anything. But I take responsibility for what I do.” That was her credo. She uttered it to herself daily and to others on request. She wondered, could a shrink know more?

  She did not consider herself helpless. She knew she was a fighter and prayed that she was a survivor. She stood up to Benny, fought him toe to toe, and so far had lived to tell the tale. What she could not help was that he had the power to murder her soul and then to bring it back from the dead.

  No one could tell her what to do about the feelings that swept over her when she tried to leave Benny and the ecstacy that she knew with him. It beat working at the Bi-Lo, that was for sure. She would die having had more than most women ever knew. True love came with a price she was willing to pay. That was the way she saw it.

  13

  LAKE CITY (POP. 2,335) WAS NOT ON A LAKE, the former Coal Creek having renamed itself when a dam was built during the Great Depression. Anyone exiting 1-75 there in anticipation of aquatics had to negotiate a phalanx of tough, seedy bars billing themselves as private clubs, a misnomer coined to circumvent local booze laws. One of these dives was operated under license by the American Veterans, another by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and one was where Benny’s regular fence tended bar. The building, a flat-roofed cinderblock bunker, a rectangle with a concrete floor, had a parking lot that looked as if it had been under mortar attack and was often the site of punchouts, stabbings, shootings, drug deals, and hasty sex. A hangout for sleaze of all types, this bar was where, late in 1984, Benny Hodge first met Donald Terry Bartley, Roger Dale Epperson, and Carol Ann Keeney Ellis Malone.

  Sherry avoided the place. That night she was at home wrapping presents, filling bowls with candies and nuts and potpourri, stringing lights and hanging balls in anticipation of what she believed would be the best Christmas ever. By New Year’s everyone would have visited—her extended family, Renee, Benny’s daughters, even Benny’s mother. Some of them had yet to see the new house; Sherry worked to make it perfect. She envisioned the grown-ups relaxing before the fire, Benny busy in the kitchen, the children romping through snowy woods with Chrissy the chow and her puppies. The kids would inquire what had become of Benny’s gorgeous Himalayan cat. Sherry debated whether to tell them that she had had to get rid of it because it loved him, hated her. As for Benny’s mom, Eula Kate Sawyers, as she then called herself—or was it Burkhart, no one was sure—Sherry had managed to manipulate a kind of reconciliation between mother and son, although relations remained strained. Eula, who worked in a Morristown auto parts factory, would rehearse the hardships of her life, praise Benny’s cooking, and probably show everyone the scrapbook she had kept of Benny’s arrests, trials, and paroles, dating back to high school. Sherry called it the crapbook; at least it showed that Eula cared, after a fashion. Sherry was skeptical of Eula’s maternal qualities. She believed that Eula visited mostly out of rivalry with her almost-daughter-in-law. You had to take what you could get; she was his mother.

  On that starry December night Benny exchanged cocaine and assorted pills and jewelry for cash in an unlit corner of the parking lot. He was ready to hit the road when the fence, mentioning that Benny had said that he was in need of a new partner, suggested that there was someone inside whom he ought to meet.

  In the bar the jukebox played the sad songs Benny tried to avoid. About twenty patrons, mostly male, stood or lounged about, many staring silently into drinks, one solemn pair playing pool. The atmosphere was gloomy as a Bible class.

  The fence introduced Benny to a man standing at the bar, a sharp-featured little fellow with a trim dark beard and dark wavy hair cut to fall over his brow.

  “Donnie Bartley, meet Biggin Hodge, the meanest son of a bitch in East Tennessee. Donnie here’s from Harlan County up in Kentucky. You know what they say about Harlan. Don’t say nothing about it! Ha!”

  Benny, fresh from a workout and a job, was clean-shaven that night. Wearing sweats and athletic shoes, he hulked over the Kentuckian. His smile flashing, a middleweight with dark brown eyes darting back and forth, Bartley had the appearance of an imp of the perverse. His hand disappeared into Benny’s, a key into a lock. He said how pleased he was to meet the man he’d heard so much about. Some of this courtliness may have been in deference to Benny’s muscles, but Bartley specialized in polite first meetings.

  “Hey, let’s get down,” he said, tossing his head in the direction of the toilet.

  The men’s room was equipped with the usual amenities—a seat-less, encrusted bowl; a basin; phone numbers, reflections
on life, and anatomical studies scratched onto the walls; and a battered coin-operated dispenser offering combs, condoms, and ProLong, an ointment guaranteed to “Satisfy Her Every Desire.” It was a tight fit in there for the two of them. From the pocket of his windbreaker Bartley produced a vial, popped the black plastic cap, sprinked white powder into the webbing between his forefinger and his thumb, and held the mound of stuff under Benny’s nose. To be sociable, Benny sucked up. He knew that that much would have little effect on him, would only level him out and then drop him down a notch, and that he would stop at one. He watched Bartley snuff up two hits.

  Bartley brought a pitcher of beer to a corner table where they could talk, or where Benny could listen. He told Benny that he was doing some dealing, chicken feed really, and he was anxious to get into something bigger. Burglary was his game; he understood that Benny was looking for a partner. There was a friend of his, Roger Epperson, who had connections, major ones, and whom Benny should meet. Roger was supposed to be showing up that night with his Japanese squeeze. Benny nursed his glass, saying nothing.

  Bartley said that he was living in a trailer over in Oliver Springs with his mother and sister and it was bugging him, he had to get a place of his own or hit the road. Up in Kentucky back in January he had been given five years on a burglary rap. It was his fifth conviction and he had figured that this was it, two or three years inside at the minimum, but he had been able to make a deal. They let him go on the condition that he leave Kentucky and not come back. Pretty funny, wasn’t it?

  “I’m such a bad dude, they figure, let some other state have me. I figure, hey, I’ll go visit my mom and sister in Tennessee. I’ll take that deal anytime, right? So here I am. But this place is locked up, man. I mean, I’m getting by, but I need more action. You got to meet Roger. He should be here. Excuse me a minute.”

  Bartley headed for the men’s room again. He was still in there when a big, amorphous man wearing a Western-cut leather jacket and cowboy boots, trailed by a tiny Oriental woman, entered and ordered drinks at the bar. Benny assumed this was Epperson and watched as another man walked slowly up to the girlfriend and said something to her. She turned aside. Epperson, in a snarl that silenced everything but the jukebox, told the man to go fuck himself and get out.