(I took the picture above as Kellie and I walked at the fairgrounds two or three weeks ago. The sun was up above the dark cloud on the top not quite down to the horizon yet. None of these pictures ever have anything to do with the Dewey Lynne story, or so it would seem.)
Part 1: What I Did While I Was in Prison
My ghostwriter begrudgingly informed me the other day that we were down to five regular readers of my story. He didn’t bother to explain why or how he even knows this, but I don’t suppose that it really matters. I don’t know who you are, five readers, but thank you for divvying out this valuable time of your life to an old man who feels the need to share all that he still remembers of his past while he still remembers it. What we reveal to one another may make a difference one day, and it might not to either of us or to none of us. Fate, a higher being, or cultural and social influences may have more to say about the significance of this set of recollections than you or I ever will. I still believe that my tale is a story that a lot of people need to hear—if for nothing else but their own safety. The chaos that swirls around a man, even when he has nothing but good intentions, is a very, very dangerous whirlwind. You really need to learn how to recognize it and stay away from it if you don’t want to reap it. In the end though, if you can’t figure out who and what you are, whatcha gonna do to stop it?
Before I went off to prison, I had my day in court. The entire proceedings was a farce because, after swearing on a Bible before God and a room half-full of good, decent human beings, everybody involved in the case lied. The prosecutor lied because he only knew what the drummed up witnesses told him. The witnesses lied because either Moe Stanley paid them to lie or threatened to kill them and, besides, to a man, they were the scum of the earth and never cared a lick about religion, honesty, or charity. Moe Stanley lied because he had spent three and a half years of his life pursuing a cartel connection to drug trafficking on I-55 that he had never found and would never find because, if it did exist, he was too stupid or corrupt to find it, and all he really ever wanted anyway was a convenient lollipop stuck on a stick and ready to lick. That turned out to be me. I was like the Dum Dums they hand out down at the bank drive-up window except I only came in one flavor: Unlucky.
Finally, I lied because I could not possibly implicate Stainy in anything to do with me after telling him that I would keep his name out of it and also because on some of the dates when I was accused in court of activities related to the I-55 drug connection, I was really and truly involved in drug-trafficking, racketeering, or even murder at different places a few miles south down the same stretch of highway. Therefore, my general method of prevarication was to answer the questions asked of me in seemingly foolish double entendres. Even the judge started feeling sorry for me at one point after I had answered either the prosecutor or my pro bono defense attorney with “I cannot tell you where I was on that date.”
“Son,” the weary judge pleaded with me, “Perhaps you honestly cannot say where you were because of the fact that you don’t remember, but you could at least say with certainty where you weren’t.”
“No, sir,” I responded to him in all earnestness, “I was taught not to lie by my folks, so my answer remains as I said it. I cannot tell you where I was on that date.”
It’s funny. I don’t remember that judge’s name, but that very same judge had his fifteen minutes of fame a few years later when he presided over the trial of the West Memphis Three. You know, those retarded emo boys who supposedly killed three smaller schoolboys in a drainage ditch and cut off their winkies for devil worshipping rituals? I can say with all honesty, having studied the case a bit myself, that this more famous trial presided over by this same flustered judge was almost as much a farce as mine. At least none of the people lying about me had ever pretended to be my friends like the witch boy’s friends did. I have a feeling that the two ludicrous trials even took place at the same court house. It kinda seems like it was. I would have to check that out on the Internet or find my copy of Devil’s Knot. They made that book into a movie a while back, and I watched it. I don’t remember much about it. My real life has been full of more chaos and evil than what can be dreamed up by an investigative reporter. Go figure.
Anyhow, for the next three months, I rode back and forth from the Mississippi County jail to the court house in Jonesboro, Arkansas in a crappy old Dodge van refitted as a jail on wheels. I think that I was carried up there about once every two or three weeks for court though my sense of time then has almost no meaning as I look back on it. Also, that part of Arkansas is flat cotton, soybeans, and rice fields, in other words, about as plain and unmemorable as my thoughts and activities during the same period. Mostly, I rode in the van by myself because there weren’t any other federal prisoners incarcerated with me, and my trial took place in federal court. I had only a surly, fat, caterpillar-mustached driver to keep me company. If we ever spoke, I don’t recall. He clicked and unlocked my handcuffs and manacles with a silent and indifferent precision at each exchange point. That is the only impression that remains of him in my mind. Also, I have no memory whatsoever of the Mississippi County jail, it jailors, or its inmates. I always figured that was a good thing. What that lack of remembering means is that nothing bad happened to me while I was in the place. I wasn’t threatened, attacked, bullied, or raped. I have no reason to believe that anybody in the Mississippi County jail done me any wrong. A feller doesn’t forget those who done him wrong nor the places where he was done wrong. However, I think I might oughta apologize to anyone out there who I might of met during my three months in the Luxora, Arkansas Correctional Facility if told you I would remember you and think about you when I got out. I didn’t think about you, I don’t remember you, and I offer no excuse except that you did nothing to or for me worth remembering.
Phew! Well, I have been thinking as I wrote the first couple of pages here that I’m not sure that I want to tell my five readers which federal prison I was sent to to weather out my time of five years minus time served, which came to 57 months, for transporting illegal substances across state lines with the intent to sell. Here’s why. I may want to write out about some of the people that I met while I was there. Some folks in the joint were interesting characters, both those who were guarded with me and those who guarded me. The problem is that the criminal underbelly of society might of heard some whispers of the name “Dewey Lynne Bugler,” and they might be interested in the type of information that I am putting out there on the Internet. They might also have a desire to make sure I’m not dropping hints that might lead investigative agencies back to them. Hmm…what am I gonna do?
I reckon it may be best if I keep the place and time of a feller’s incarceration or of his or her time of employment at a prison a secret unto myself. I don’t know if or when I might tell some of the things I heard and saw in the hoosegow, but best not to take a chance that I might let slip some useful information to a bad man seeking revenge. It is a dish best served cold, so I’ve heard, and any that might be put on a plate would be mighty damned chilly by now. Who said that? Shakespeare? Revenge is a dish best served cold? I know it from Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn. Don’t let me fool you into believing I’ve got a lot of learning. I’ve seen a lot of movies.
Suffice it to say that I spent my three years, which is 57 months minus 20-something months for good behavior, at an institution that was close enough to my hometown that my brothers Chad and Aubrey came to see me fairly regular, but far enough away from home that Mama never came to see me nor did any other family members nor any of my so-called friends from high school. I don’t really blame anybody for not coming. Who wants to go see a man in an orange jump suit through a wall of Plexiglass? By the way, you didn’t talk on a phone when you visited this prison. The Plexiglass had holes drilled in it so that you could hear one another well enough if the prisoners on either side weren’t talking too loud to their visitors.
No, Flo, Mama did not come and visit me-not even once. How the hell would you know?
Well, as you can tell, Flo is reading over my shoulder and trying to insert her opinion into this story, and I don’t like it. She thinks that she is gonna tell me something like she knows anything. Flo hasn’t been hanging around here for more than a year or two—or maybe five at the most. She doesn’t know anything about Mama or Daddy. She doesn’t know anything about my time in prison. I still don’t know if she’s my housemaid or my girlfriend. I can’t remember the last time she crawled into bed with me, so I’m gonna guess she’s my maid. See how she likes that. Teach her to open her mouth like its full of something worth hearing.
Anyhow, I’ll tell you good folks what really happened with Mama while I was in prison in the next part. Don’t let Flo tell you nothing, you hear me?