Bobby Cole - The dummy line

“Dad, can I get a horse?” Katy asked.

“Katy, horses are real expensive. And besides you already have four cats, a dog, two hamsters, and a goldfish!”

“If you don’t let me have one, I’ll tell Mom how much this turkey club costs.” She giggled, pleased with herself.

“I see, so I guess you’re gonna blackmail me now to get everything you want?” Jake remarked with frustration.

“Maybe.” She giggled again.

“Go to sleep, Katy.” He shook his head in admiration of the way she’d set him up. He knew this was only the beginning.

The county’s principal thugs were all gathered at Johnny Lee Grover’s double-wide. Johnny Lee was the self-proclaimed ringleader. His resume included several stints in juvenile detention facilities and various county jails, plus one eighteen-month stretch at Draper Prison in Elmore County just north of Montgomery, Alabama. Prison time had been rough on him. Johnny Lee had had a cellmate nicknamed Meat who had scarred him more than just emotionally. To this day, Johnny Lee wouldn’t bend over in the shower. He curtsied. None of his running buddies knew about Meat. Johnny Lee had never held a real job for more than a year. He purposely dressed and tried to act like Kid Rock. Johnny Lee was fencepost-thin and almost always wore a wifebeater. His own momma considered him “wormy-looking.”

Johnny Lee’s group of outlaws dabbled in a little bit of everything illegal. They consumed and sold drugs; they had attempted to build a meth lab but couldn’t quite comprehend the recipe; and they had an old still in which they made really bad corn whiskey. They considered themselves state-of-the-art crime lords. Everybody else thought they were two-bit thugs. Mostly they stole cars, four-wheelers, guns, and about anything they could fence quickly. In summers they poached alligators in the Black Warrior and Alabama rivers. They knew every back road in the surrounding counties.

The sheriff knew Johnny Lee’s group was bad news and kept a watchful eye on them, but they were never caught with the goods, and no one would dare testify against them. The gang was masterful in the art of intimidation. From barn fires to dead cattle, they kept everyone quiet. Local law enforcement had a running joke that they could never get a conviction on the gang because all of the members shared the same DNA.

In early April, it was still too cold for the guys to hang out and skinny-dip down at the sandbar on the Noxubee River. In true redneck fashion, they loved to sit on their tailgates, drink Old Milwaukee, and listen to Hank Williams Jr. and David Allen Coe.

Johnny Lee’s outlaws included Tommy Tidwell, who weighed in at a shade over 325 pounds. He was always eating something. His favorite meal was fried chicken wings and potato logs-the real greasy kind you get at a gas station. Everybody called him “Tiny.” He followed orders methodically. Johnny Lee had met him in the Dallas County jail a couple years back and recruited him to join his team.

Reese Turner was second in command. He and Johnny Lee were first cousins. Since grade school, he had run with Johnny Lee and would walk through fire for him. Both their mothers had done time in Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, Alabama, for stealing payroll checks, so the boys had carpooled together on Sundays to visit them. Reese was smarter than Johnny Lee, which wasn’t saying much. Reese premeditated his crimes. Johnny Lee was more reactive. Reese’s real talent was his ability to think two and three moves ahead. He spent his days surfing the satellite channels watching James Bond movies. He said they gave him ideas.

“Sweat” Lawrence was the muscle. He had been in the Marines for ten weeks when he was caught holding a colonel’s daughter down, forcing her to have sex with him. That was his style. Fortunately for her, some MPs came by and interrupted the party. The military police called it attempted rape, but they couldn’t make the charges stick because she had been promiscuous with several of the enlisted men. The colonel had a heart attack listening to Sweat’s unnecessarily graphic interrogation. The Corps wasted no time having Private Lawrence dishonorably discharged and sent home before the beloved colonel recovered and killed him.

As soon as Sweat arrived in the area, he fell in with Johnny Lee and never looked back. He sweated profusely, all the time, and never went anywhere without a hand towel. The doctors called it hyperhidrosis. Sweat rarely spoke. When the group needed something done, he was their man. He had yet to disappoint.

What this gang lacked in brains they more than made up for in pure meanness. There was nothing they wouldn’t try. They were a pack of opportunistic wolves. Whatever came their way, they worked it for what they could squeeze out of it. They had killed a rival poacher for running their gator lines and then buried his body in an abandoned well. Getting away with that murder gave Johnny Lee and his entire posse a sense of invincibility.

None of these guys had serious girlfriends. Johnny Lee had a few women who hung around for crack cocaine, but as soon as they got their fix, they left. Tiny had been married once for about six months. His wife had left him while he was driving a truck to New Orleans. She had taken everything including his prize coon dog, which he was convinced she had sold on eBay. She sold everything on eBay.

The group’s ultimate goal was to steal enough to buy custom motorcycles. Choppers, to be more exact. They stopped everything they were doing on Monday nights to watch Orange County Choppers on the Discovery Channel. They liked the grumpy old dude. The group envisioned having crimson and white bikes in honor of The University of Alabama. To Johnny Lee’s increasing frustration, he could never get a return phone call from the guys at Orange County Choppers.

By ten that Friday night, the gang had started growing restless. It had been a slow week. Johnny Lee’s main fence in Meridian, Mississippi, was complaining about his lack of productivity. Johnny Lee was contemplating burglarizing a group of cabins on the Tombigbee River. These rarely yielded much, but there was little chance of getting caught. By the time an alarm system alerted the sheriff and he had arrived, they were long gone. But Johnny Lee needed a large score to satisfy everyone. His big opportunity was the Green County dog track. He had spent years trying to figure out how to rob it. He knew the security protocols were much more sophisticated than his gang could ever crack. But it was a dream fueled by greed. Johnny Lee especially liked it because it would be a cash haul and he wouldn’t have to split it with his fence. He would make enough to get his Orange County Chopper and more. He just had to keep thinking. So he kept drinking Jack Daniel’s and well water. He had been drinking steadily since about seven that evening, and he was feeling no pain, growing bolder by the hour.

Reese suggested that they rob the Cypress Inn on the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa. This was prom season and spring formals for the sororities, which meant the place was always packed on the weekends. Reese wanted to escape in boats and be picked up downriver. The idea had merit. It sounded to Johnny Lee like a James Bond flick. What would they do with the boat? There would be too many people around…too many potential witnesses. But still he liked the idea.

Johnny Lee clicked the TV off and looked at the group. His gang.

“Well, what do you boys wanna do tonight? It’s after ten,” Reese said.

“I dunno…hey, did ‘Bama win tonight?” Johnny Lee asked.

“Nope, we lost nine-seven,” Tiny replied. “We’ll get ‘em tomorrow. Our ace is pitchin’.”