by Bud Kenny
When Don turned around to face the house, I spotted bits of several scars that disappeared into his beard. Then when he propped his forearms on the tailgate, and laced his distorted fingers together, it was obvious that they got him on his arms as well.
Don shook his curly white head and said, “I don’t know why they did that. Just being niggers I guess. They didn’t hurt me too bad, but it sure pissed me off. So I found the owner and bought the house. Then I came back with a tire tool and busted the windows out of the nigger’s car. When they came out I chased them back in with my tire tool. They thought I was crazy. And they were right!”
Slapping the tailgate with his right hand, Don laughed as he put his foot on the back bumper. “After I got done busting the windows, I pushed the car into the street. Then I sat down on the curb and laid the tire tool next to me. When the cops showed up, they asked who I was. I told them I owned the house. Then they asked if I knew anything about the busted windows in the car. I told them no. Then they asked why I had a tire tool. Told them I found it laying in the street. Then I said I just got back from Nam and I was thinking about buying a car. I figured if I got one a tire tool might come in handy.”
Obviously, Don had told this story many times, but it still cracked him up. “I couldn’t believe it. The cops bought it. They told the niggers to get their car out of the street. Then they got back in the police car and drove off.
“The niggers were going berserk They were yelling at the cops, telling them I was crazy and stuff like that. When the cops were out of sight I told those niggers they was right. ‘I am crazy. I’ve been to ‘Nam twice and I’m as crazy as they come. And I’ve got guns–lots of guns and I love to use them!’”
Don stopped laughing and got real serious. “Then I told them that I now owned the house and I wanted all of them out by sundown tomorrow. One of them said they had thirty days. But I knew they’d already been evicted by the previous owner long ago. Just no one had come around to kick them out yet. I told them what I knew, then I said, ‘It’s up to you. But it’s my house now and I’m going to start cleaning it tomorrow night. The first thing I’ve got to do is get rid of the rats. So I’m coming over with my guns and gonna clean house.’ The next night this place was empty.”
Don went on to buy more real-estate and at one time owned more than 200 rental properties. “I had some real dumps. So I’ve had to deal with lots of low-life scum. It seemed like I was always having to straighten out some smart ass. You know, show them what the program was. I learned early on, that if you let those bums know up front you won’t take any shit, you have a lot less trouble.”
All of Don’s tenants signed a rental agreement in which paragraph eighteen stated, “If you can whip my ass, I’ll sign the house over to you.”
“A few years ago a judge asked me about paragraph eighteen. Said he never saw anything like that. I told him I put it in there so everyone knew I meant business. He asked me if I ever lost a house that way. I told him yes, a couple of times. But that was a lie.”
“Why did you lie to him?”
“If I’d said no, he would have thought I was bragging. Nobody likes a braggart.”
Don turned around, leaned his back against the tail gate, crossed his arms and said, “See, the thing is, I like to fight. I’ve done it enough that I’m good at it. That doesn’t mean I always win. I’ve lost some.”
Over the years, Don’s fights had netted him more than one thousand stitches, and he couldn’t remember how many broken bones. In one lost battle, all of his fingers were broken against a curb by his opponent stomping on them. “The thing is, if you’re going to be a good fighter, you can’t be afraid to lose. You don’t never fight to lose. But hey, if you lose that’s okay, too. I kind of like to lose. Because when you do, you get lots of attention. Sometimes they send you to the hospital, where you lay around and do nothing but get better. And you have pretty young nurses taking care of you. Then, they send you home where your wife waits on you, and brings you soup and stuff to make you feel better. A good fighter has got to have a good woman.”
Don was married six times and had six children. “I never cheated on any of them. Don’t mess around on my wife and I didn’t dodge the draft. Who would ever think I’d be over qualified to be president.”
Slowly, he walked along the driver’s side of the pickup as he said. “Problem is, when you get my age it takes a lot longer to heal. So these days I bring a little extra help.”
With that he yanked open the door and folded the back of the seat forward. Strapped into place was an assortment of firearms that would be the envy of any SWAT team. “Things are different these days. Punks don’t carry razors and brass knuckles any more. These days, they’ve all got guns. And every punk in town knows I got more guns than them.”
Don no longer owned 200 properties. “I got rid of the dumps. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I was always on the run–hardly ever home.”
Home for Don was a four level house on fourteen acres in rural Evansville. “So now I’m down to eighty-six places. I’d like to cut that in half. Just keep the nice ones–like these.”
His mother-in-law lived in his boyhood home. “She’s never had much of nothing. When her old man died, it looked like she was going to end up in the street. So I moved her in here. She gets enough social security to feed her. I take care of the utilities.
Don also owned the house next door, which his older brother lived in. “He got shot up real bad in ‘Nam. He don’t get around too good. The VA takes care of him. When they pay his rent, I give the money to him. That way he’s got a little something extra to spend.” Don had just returned from a shopping trip for his brother and mother-in-law. He started to pull the plastic bags out of the truck cab, then he stopped and turned toward me. “Here, this will show you the kind of shit I run into every day. I’ve got this little black gal that rents from me a few blocks from here. Real sweet little gal. She’s got a baby girl that just started walking a couple of months ago. Cutest little thing. Of course she’s got no husband, and she’s on welfare. But she’s no trouble. Late on her rent sometimes, but I work with her.
“This morning, I went by to get the rent, and there’s this big buck Nigger sitting at her kitchen table. He had an empty forty-ouncer on the floor and half-full one in front of him, and her baby girl was running around the kitchen butt naked. When she gave me the rent, I asked her why the baby didn’t have any pants. She said she didn’t have money for diapers. Right then, this dude says, ‘Baby, how about holding out ten bucks so I can get some more brew.’”
Don paused, grimaced and said, “That went through me like a shot. I walked over to him, pulled out a ten dollar bill, waved it in his face and told him, ‘No, I’ll pull out ten bucks and buy that baby some diapers. And when I get back with them, you aren’t going to be here.’ Then he said, ‘Says who?’”
Poking himself in the chest with his forefinger, Don said, “‘Says me!’ I told him ‘I own the place and I ain’t renting to you. I don’t know who you are but anyone who’d buy beer before diapers is not welcome in anyplace I own. And if you aren’t gone when I get back, I will remove you.’”
Reaching under the driver’s seat, Don pulled out a 9mm hand gun and tossed it on the seat. “I figured he’d be gone when I got there. But just in case, I stuck this in my pants when I took her the diapers. He was gone and she thanked me. Said she’d never have him over again. And she’d get the ten bucks to me next month. I told her not to worry about it.”
For the past few minutes, as Don was telling us his stories, we had been watching a low riding, mid-80’s Oldsmobile creep toward us. It was baby-blue, highly polished and headed east along the avenue. Because there was no parking lane, east bound traffic had to swerve across the yellow line to get around it. We heard a redundant base line from the radio long before we saw the car. Because the windows were tinted, we couldn’t see who was inside, but every once in a while a black arm would gesture out the passenger window. And wh
en a vehicle behind them honked, a black fist with the middle finger pointing upward would emerge from the driver’s side.
Adjacent to them, on the sidewalk was a tall slender black woman pushing a stroller. She was in her early twenties with the figure and face of a cover-girl.
It was apparent that someone in the Olds was talking to her. And as they got closer to us, it was obvious she was not interested in talking to him.
They were about twenty yards from us, when the engine revved and the car roared on up the avenue. When she got close to us, Don asked, “Those guys harassing you?”
With a forced grin, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s no big deal.”
Don knelt down in front of the stroller. “Will you look at this little man! I can’t get over how much he’s grown. How old is he now?”
“He’ll be a year the end of this month?”
“Has he learned to say Grandpa yet?”
She blushed and giggled. “We’re working on it.”
Don stood up. “Tell your dad I said it’s good thing this little guy looks like you instead of his grandpa.”
While she walked away from us, the Oldsmobile stopped next to the curb across the street headed the other way. The radio was silent and a black man, wearing sunglasses, with gold dangling around his neck, leaned out the back seat window. “Baby, you and me could make some pretty babies together! Come on, baby!”
I could feel Don tense up next to me. I think the guy in the car, and the young mother did too. Because both of them suddenly turned to look at us. Immediately the man stuck his head back in the car, and it sped away.
Under his breath, Don said, “Niggers!”
I was thinking, “Ass holes!”
CHAPTER 7
AUTUMN ON THE NORTH BANK
WHEN WE CROSSED THE OHIO River into Evansville, Indiana, it meant we were out of Dixie. To runaway slaves the Ohio must have been the most beautiful river they had ever seen. Once they crossed it, they were free. That didn’t mean they were out of danger. The north bank was rife with professional slave catchers. And southern Indiana was a strong hold for the Ku Klux Klan. But the north bank was also home to many slave sympathizers. Folks who opened their homes, cellars and barns to those on the run to freedom. When we walked along the Indiana side of the river, we encountered numerous historic markers and heard lots of stories about this network of abolitionists known as the “Underground Railroad”. In Troy, we met the Efingers who, while renovating a house on the river front, uncovered a tunnel that had been part of it.
Of the large rivers that we had come to so far–the kind with barge traffic–the Ohio was by far the prettiest. The water in the Mississippi and the Arkansas Rivers was muddy. But the Ohio was shimmering and blue. Along the shore were bluffs and hills covered with oak, hickory and maples adorned in all shades of orange, yellow, red and purple. While we walked along the Ohio, it seemed like each day the valley got prettier. It was the Iroquois Indians who named it, “Oyo”, which meant “beautiful.” The French changed it to Ohio.
West of Troy, we camped in a roadside park called “Lincoln’s Ferry.” It was where the Anderson River empties into the Ohio. When he was fifteen, Abraham Lincoln got a job on a ferry that crossed the Anderson River near there. A couple of years later, he built a flat bottom boat and went into business. He rowed passengers and cargo to and from the steam boats in the main channel of the Ohio.
According to a historic marker in the park, it was this enterprise that piqued young Lincoln’s interest in government. When he was seventeen, Abe was sued by a Kentucky ferry operator for operating without a license. Representing himself, Lincoln maintained that since he only rowed to the middle of the river he was not operating a ferry in Kentucky. The court ruled in Lincoln’s favor.
Our camp at Lincoln’s Ferry was on a bluff about thirty feet above the river. It was October 9th. So autumn was really showing its colors. Late in the afternoon, as the sun approached the hill tops, I began to think about the first people who saw the river. Natives who feasted from its waters and hunted game in the surrounding hills. Surely they saw the river as more than just a provider for their livelihoods. Like me, there must have been moments when they paused to simply marvel at the way the sun shimmered across the water. While they watched the sun slip toward the horizon they had to have been awe-stuck by the orange-red rays that splayed across the heavens like giant burning fingers.
On a day like that, with fall dabbed among the evergreens, those natives must have rejoiced in where they were. Especially when the wind was still and Oyo was reflecting all that magic on its surface. Like me, did they ever find themselves with their mouths agape–mesmerized by that spectacle?
And what about young Abe in his row boat? After he delivered his passengers to a big boat mid-stream, he must have had moments like this. While his little hand-made boat plied the waters by the power of his biceps, there had to have been autumn sunsets that so amazed him, he paused and lifted the oars up from the water. With the boat drifting and oars dripping onto the surface, he must have been mesmerized by the spectacle that the Iroquois called, “Beautiful.”
In my travels on foot, in a car, bus, plane and by thumb, I’ve had my heart stolen by the beauty of lots of places. The Rocky Mountains, Pacific Coast, Yellowstone–places like that where you expect to be wowed before you get to them. But Indiana? Never was I so surprised by the beauty of a place as I was with Southern Indiana.
When I was growing up in Oklahoma, our family often drove back and forth across northern Indiana to visit relatives in northeast Ohio. In the 1970s, as I toured America with my pack pony and dog, I crossed Indiana in the north, too. Mostly, it’s flat farm land. Thus, that’s how I’d always thought of Indiana–as flat.
So I was not prepared for the rugged high bluffs, steep valleys, lush wood lands and long breathtaking views of the shimmering Ohio. I had never been in a place with so many waterfalls. They weren’t tremendous tumblers like Niagra, or those in Yellowstone. These were brooks and springs that fell over rocks and ledges down to the river. Most flowed under vines, trees and other vegetation. So, in a car you wouldn’t have noticed them. But on foot you do. In Southern Indiana, there were times when the sound of falling water was all around us.
It was certainly that way at Camp Koch (pronounced Cook)–a Girl Scout camp east of Cannelton. My mother and step-father drove their motor home up from Arkansas and rendezvoused with us there. The camp was in a small dead end canyon across the highway from the Ohio. In the back of the canyon, plunging off a high sandstone bluff, was a long skinny waterfall–the sound of it reverberated throughout the canyon. In the middle of the canyon that stream had been dammed-up into a manmade pond with an arched wooden bridge over it. A picture perfect place to teach Girl Scouts how to swim and row a boat.
At the back of the canyon, in the face of the bluff, were several caves. One behind the water fall was big enough to put a small home in. Carved by centuries of water and wind, the bluff looked like giant fingers had molded the sandstone when it was wet. The sidewalls were steep and forested with switch-back foot trails that led to the top. Vines, as big around as my arm, looped up from ferns and moss into limbs adorned with autumn.
Camp Koch was named after the doctor who gave the land to the Girl Scouts in the late 1940’s. Originally he offered it to the Boy Scouts, but they decided the terrain was too rugged for young boys. So the girls got it instead.
The Ohio is a curvy river. In some places the river twists around so much that it nearly meets itself coming and going. Although the Ohio basically runs east to west, in lots of places it’s a north/south river. In the nearly 1,000 miles that the river flows from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi there’s only an eight mile stretch where it’s straight. It’s called “Schenault Reach”, and it’s on one of those north/south portions of the river. Named after a French military officer, Schenault Reach starts just north of Derby and runs south.
Derby, Indiana was one of those old rive
r towns that had been burnt down, flooded out and carved up by ice. Before the Ohio was dammed and locked, moving ice was a big problem. In the winter and early spring, huge chunks–some the size of two city blocks – would sail down river and wreak havoc with everything in its way. In 1910, the heart of Derby was in the way. It was situated in a basin that was open to the river with bluffs and high hills around the rest of it. The wharfs, mills, warehouses and business district were all down there when a wall of ice sailed into town. It turned Derby into a giant pile of rubble. The splintered wood and busted brick was so jammed up against the hills and bluffs, that most of it was burnt where it landed.
Derby rebuilt. But twenty five years later came the flood of 1937. Again Derby was in the way, and most of it washed down steam. It never recovered.
When we were in Derby, there was still a bit of a town. It had a grocery store/gas station and a tavern up away from the river. The basin, where the town used to be, had been turned into a riverside park. Up on the hills were several homes. Some were lived in, but a lot of them were not.
We initially stopped at Ramsey’s Tavern to have a beer and inquire about camping on a spot we saw on the south edge of Derby. It was a flat place, on a bluff above the river. They told us it used to be a night club that burnt down a long time ago. No one would care if we camped there for the night.
When we first walked into Derby, gray clouds were gathering. While we set up our tent the clouds got darker, and every once in a while a heavy drop or two would splash into us. The wind picked up and got blustery, which made it hard to pitch the tent. I piled rocks on the stakes to keep them from pulling up out of the dirt when it got soaked.
With the wind and rain it would be hard to fix dinner in camp. Plus, just down the hill was Ramsey’s Tavern that supposedly had great food. So we stepped out for dinner. The special that night was two steak dinners for the price of one. I don’t recall what kind of steak it was, but I remember it being good.