Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

“I’ll be goddamned,” the cop who seemed to be in charge of the scene said. “Damndest thing I’ve ever seen.” He looked at Scott, who was standing a few feet away from the circle of men, still wearing the handcuffs. The cop in charge, whose black name tag read “Rose,” turned to the cop who had put the cuffs on Scott. “Bill, get those cuffs off of him.”

Scott turned around and let the officer free him, then rubbed some circulation back into his wrists. “Thanks.”

Officer Rose said, “I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t been here. Looks like she was fixin’ to drown her kids. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen,” he repeated.

Rose turned to look at the woman in the back of his car. She was holding the two children protectively against her.

“Bill, find out the name of her husband and how to get ahold of him. Then get him down here to get his kids.”

Rose turned to Scott. “Are you passing through, or…”

“I’m staying at the Barkley Motel out at the highway.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind staying around town for a few more days.”

“I’ve got a ticket to fly home on Saturday. Do you think that will be a problem?”

“No, sir. What’s on that tape of yours is pretty clear. I’m going to need that as evidence, of course. I’d just like you to stick around for a few days in case we have some more questions for you.”

As it turned out, the officer named Bill knocked on the door to Scott’s room the next morning.

“Officer,” Scott said when he opened the door.

“Morning. Want a cup of coffee?”

“Always.”

“C’mon, the department’s buying. You can ride over to Margie’s Café with me.”

Once they were seated in a booth and each had a steaming cup of coffee in front of them, Bill spoke up. “You wanna tell me what you were doing out there yesterday?”

“I told you—just taking shots of the lake.”

“Mmm-hmm. I watched that whole tape myself last night. It was the most boring hour of my life.”

“Different strokes for different folks,” Scott said with a shrug.

“I noticed something funny, though. It looked like you started running toward the car before it was obvious what was happening. It was almost like you knew exactly what was going to happen, and set that camera up right there to capture it all.”

“How would I know that, do you think?”

Bill leaned back in the booth, studying Scott.

“No idea, and that’s the worst part of it for me.”

“Take a minute and think about what would have likely happened if I hadn’t happened to have been standing right there. You saw the tape. She stepped out of the car and not only didn’t help those kids, she was backing away from them.”

“I’m glad you were there. You did the right thing, and you did it fast. But you know how sometimes you look at something, and it just doesn’t all add up? That’s the way this is.” The cop poured some creamer into his coffee and stirred. “But, that’s that. Just thought I’d ask.” He looked at Scott with a keen eye.

Scott took a sip of his own coffee.

“In any case, the Chief wanted me to let you know that you’re free to leave town. We might ask you to come back and testify at trial, but I’ve got a hunch once her attorney sees that tape, it’ll never see the inside of a courtroom.”

“Good enough. Tell the Chief thanks, and thanks for the coffee.”

Earl offered to give Scott a ride back to his room, but Scott declined.

“It’s not a bad day, and when am I ever going to be back in Union, South Carolina? I think I’ll walk.”

Scott checked out of his room and drove back to Charlottesville. He got another, somewhat nicer, room by the airport and waited for his flight to leave town.

He lay on his bed that night, thinking.

Wish more of these could have been like this, but most didn’t present a bloodless solution like I saw here. I think this is it for me. A good way to go out.

Back at the Oasis in Middle Falls, Scott fell into the rhythm of the next phase of his life. He still went out on the road, looking for veterans to offer a helping hand to, but those trips became less frequent with the passing years.

Something wonderful happened—the Oasis and its mission to help veterans took on a life of its own. Other wealthy people around the country saw the successes that they were having in Middle Falls and pledged money to build a similar village in their own community. Scott, Joe, and Sam took turns traveling to those towns and helping them get their own village for vets off the ground.

Meanwhile, word spread on the grapevine about these places where all vets could get a hand up. Whatever they needed—medical or dental care, counseling, or just a place to commune with other people who understood them—they found it at the Oasis. New people showed up every day, but new beds were constantly opened by those who felt like they were ready to face the world again. Somehow, it struck a balance and it worked.

Scott, meanwhile, spent a lot of time on his front porch, whittling, reading, and watching the raindrops fall. He spent some time each day in the community center, playing pool or just having coffee with people who got him.

The counseling center at the Oasis handled mental health needs for those who needed it most, but Scott found himself as a de facto counselor as well. There were a lot of men who wouldn’t dream of walking into the counseling building and signing up for a session. But, they had no qualms about sitting down and talking things over with Scott.

In 1998, Joe and Sam invited Scott over for dinner at their house. They’d gotten married a few years before, to the surprise of absolutely no one. They had a daughter, Chandra, named after Joe’s mother. Even as much as Joe gave away to fund the Oasis every year, they were still the wealthiest couple in Middle Falls.

They continued to live in the same little cottage that Joe had bought fifteen years earlier and showed no sign of moving anywhere else.

It was a gorgeous summer evening, and Joe had emphasized that they would be grilling steaks that night. Sam was good at almost everything, but the one exception was her cooking. Joe said that was how he managed to never gain any weight.

The three of them sat in the same backyard where Scott had first suggested the idea of the Oasis, ate steaks and once again had root beer to drink. Chandra lay on her stomach in the grass and watched the fish in the pond endlessly swimming.

“Things are going pretty good, don’t you think?” Joe asked.

“Which makes me think there’s another shoe to drop.”

“No, not really,” Joe said with a laugh. “A lot of the veterans we’re seeing are getting older and older. Vietnam is fading further in our rear view mirror. Just want to let you know we’ve managed to buy the twenty acre plot next to the Oasis, and Sam and I have been planning.”

“When you guys put your heads together, good things happen.”

Joe reached his hand out to Sam sitting next to him. She held it with a smile.

“We’re thinking we’re going to need more medical facilities than the Oasis can handle. So, we’re going to build a fair-sized hospital and staff it with doctors and nurses. We’re going to have a wing that can help dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, because there are so many vets living and suffering on the streets.”