Excerpt from "The Estonia System"

CHAPTER ONE

APRIL 14, 1934

It is a beautiful spring morning in Jimtown, a small southern village in Estonia County. The economy is trying to break out of the great depression. The shock that people had experienced left them wondering why something that terrible could happen to them. Estonia County has survived better than most small southern towns.

This particular morning is really phenomenal. The sunlight is beaming through the trees with extraordinary bright shafts of light. Grass sprouts are pointing upward, reaching for the warm sun. The creek, rushing and muddy all winter, has settled down to its regular slow, clear trickle and the birds are singing mating calls in the budding trees while building nests. A strange calm invades a body that can only be experienced at this time of year. It is a time of gentleness and appreciation of nature because Lady South, is both showing you her best side.

Near the center of the little town and across a dirt street from the Eubanks General Store, sits a white frame house with a wide front porch. Extra awnings had been added to protect the occupants from the elements and provide shade. It is the home, with adjoining office, of Doctor Aaron Waters, general practitioner, an astute observer of human nature and home-grown authority on the town and its occupants.

Next to his driveway stands an old faded sign that is hard to read. Above the letters is a folded fist with a long, oversized, index finger pointing to a small office on the side of his house. Doc considers himself to close to retirement to have it repainted, claiming that, "Everybody knows where my office is located anyway, so why waste the money."

Today, dressed in work clothes, the rotund doctor sat in the shade of his porch. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the temperature was beginning to rise. A big man by any standards, his hulk occupied the entire seat of a heavy rocking chair. He slowly swayed to and fro and the heavy chair groaned with each motion. Another rocker held the straw hat he had worn while preparing his garden for its annual crop of vegetables. He wore heavy, red suspenders to hold up his trousers that were stretched to their limit over his extensive paunch. His boots showed traces of fresh dirt.

From his position on the porch he could observe the traffic coming and going at the Eubanks store, something of considerable interest to Doc, as he was the source of most of the gossip in the town.

The Eubanks General Store building stood alone on its lot and was identified to strangers as that long, unpainted building with the rusty tin roof and a porch across the front. A large, faded, soft drink sign on the roof of the porch disclosed that they had found it. The vacant lot on the side of the building, well behind the two gasoline pumps, was strewn with cases of soft drink bottles. A cleared passageway led to a loading dock on the side and near the rear of the building. For years Doc had warned the manager, Willard Link, that mosquitoes breed in rainwater collected in empty soda bottles and it should be stopped. Each year Willard promised to take care of the problem. Each year nothing was done.

Doc was a little weary from his garden work. He decided to take a nap and kicked off his heavy work boots. Then he laboriously twisted his legs, one at a time, over the knee of the other, to rub and scratch his toes.

It was during this exercise that his eye caught the movement of a car rolling slowly down the street. That was unusual at this time of day in Jimtown. The car stopped in front of his office and the young driver seemed to stare at the sign for a long moment before removing himself from the driver's seat. Still staring at the sign, he headed for the front door of the little office.

"Can I help you, young fellow?" Doc called from the porch.

The driver stopped and shaded his eyes with his hand, looking toward the porch. The bright sunshine made it difficult to see. "Yes, sir, I'm looking for Doctor Waters."

Doc laughed, "You've found him, but I ain't open today except for emergencies.---You got an emergency, young fellow?"

The younger man smiled at the portly physician, "No, sir, may I come up?" all the time walking toward the porch.

"Come on." He motioned to the young man who was now approaching the top of the steps, "Take my hat off that rocker there and have yo’self a seat. What can I do for you?"

The hat was moved to the bannister, and the stranger sat down. "Doctor, my name is Lyle Green. I'm a feature writer for the Greenberg Post Dispatch."

"Glad to meet ya, Mister Green. Everybody here-bouts calls me Doc. I subscribe to your paper and I've read your articles. You're a good writer . . . interesting stories. How can I help you?" He continued to rub his toes.

"Doc, my paper is going to do feature stories on the towns in Estonia county. I've been assigned to do Jimtown. I need to know something about its history and the people who live here. You know . . . try to capture some of the small town color and ambience. I understand you've been here more than forty years. I'll bet you've had some interesting experiences during that time."

Doc leaned back and settled in as he responded, "Actually, I've been here all my life except for the years that I was away in college and medical school. My daddy was the town doctor before me."

Doc dropped his foot to the floor with a heavy thump. "I guess you could say I delivered nearly every baby in this town under forty years of age and my papa delivered most of the others before that." He nodded knowingly.

He seemed to get reflective for a moment before continuing, "About Jimtown, I guess we ain't a lot different from any other town in most ways. We have all of the hopes and dreams by the young people and the sicknesses and diseases by the elderly and all in between, just like most small towns. We're fairly normal, I guess.

"Many of our folks are born, live and die right here. We don’t have any clubs or civic organizations to stir us up, --too small, I guess. Nearly everybody goes to one of the three churches in town, some go only to get married or be buried. Most everybody else goes some in between. Sooner or later, nearly all wind up in the cemetery down there beyond the Baptist Church." He pointed. "Oh, we have our patriarchal family. I guess every town has one. Ours is the Eubanks family."

"We're pretty much all Democrats around here because the Eubankes’ are Democrats. If there's a Republican in town, he's sure keeping it quiet. Most of the political talk centers in that store across the street there." Doc pointed to the Eubanks store.

"We're concerned because lately some of the young folks have been looking at other places to live where they figure they could make a better living. Can’t blame them much. About the only work around here is in the Eubankes sawmill, and Billy Bob Eubanks ain’t goin’ to pay much money. The Eubanks family has always been as tight as the skin on a mule’s butt. But, we do have one thing that may make us a little different."

"What's that?" Lyle Green asked as he wrote furiously on his note pad.

"It’s Billy Bob Eubanks himself. Like I said, this is a one family town. It was started by the Eubanks family four generations ago and they still own most of it. Today Billy Bob Eubanks heads the family. He's the owner-operator, so-to-speak, of just about everything in town, including bein’ mayor. Some say he runs it sort of like a little kingdom because nothing is done without his permission. Personally, I never looked at it that way. But, he is the driving force here. His type is a dying breed. Modern times will soon make people like him an anachronism, gone forever, and I'm afraid the story of that era will go with them unless you young fellows record it for posterity.

Doc continued, "He is a true southern landowner, the last of a class. He is entirely different from his son Jim. Billy Bob is from the old school, satisfied to manage his estates and add to it when possible. Jim is a part of the new generation. Jim is mean spirited. I don’t trust him. I guess he got that from his grandpa Sam who was downright dirty. Billy Bob is mean, but he ain't as bad as his daddy Sam was.

I know Jim didn’t get his meanness it from his mama, Miss Anna, that’s Billy Bob’s wife. She’s a saint if there ever was one."

Again there was a short pause before he continued, apparently as an afterthought, "I brought that boy into the world. He is heir to the throne, so to speak." He laughed at his own joke and Lyle Green smiled indulgently.

Doc continued, "I ain't too sure that I want to see the old generation go, but then again, they had their faults just like the young fellows do today. They were also colorful and unique in many other ways. I'm afraid that will change when Jim inherits the Eubanks fortune. He is tough and could hurt a lot of people before he's through, that is unless somebody kills him first." Doc looked alarmed for a fleeting second. "I shouldn’t have said that, I guess. I may have talked too much already. The Eubankes ain't folks to fool with."

Lyle said, "Don't worry, Doc. Nobody will know where the information came from. That's one thing about a feature article, it can sound like general information available from anywhere."

Doc nodded and said, "I'll tell you a little more about our famous Eubanks family then I think I better shut up and let you talk to some other folks."

Lyle noticed that he seemed to be getting nervous. He continued his story, but was noticeably choosing his words carefully.

"The compassion in the old wealthy families of the south came through their womenfolk. They were always helpful and cared about other people. The men were the warriors. That pretty well explains Jimtown in a nutshell, like I said, it ain't much different from hundreds of other towns."

The younger man nodded his head, "Tell me more about the Eubanks family."

Doc nodded, "I guess my first question is, why don't you ask them direct? They're still right here in town." Doc accompanied the question with a quizzical look out of the corner of his eye.

Lyle Green replied, "I'd prefer to get the perspective of those who know them best. That way I'll get a better portrait of the family and town in my mind. They might put a slant on the story to fit their persona, whereas non family members usually will tell it like it is. I would rather hear your version, if that's okay?"

Doc shrugged and pursed his lips, "There ain't any way to separate them from the town, but I'll be happy to tell you what I know on one condition."

"What's that?"

"You don't tell anybody where you heard it."

Lyle shrugged, "I have no problem with that."

Doc nodded and started slowly, as if he wanted to relish the memory as he went along, "Billy Bob Eubanks has got the steadiest blue eyes you'll ever see. They seem to penetrate you rather than just look you over on the outside. Few people can look him directly in the eye without turning away first. His mannerism makes him stand out as somebody special. He sounds tough, but he ain't nearly as tough as his mouth would lead you to believe.

"Now, young Jim is something else. As I said before, he bears watching. None of the other Eubankes I knew was like that, and I knew all of them except James. He was the first. He passed the family fortune on to Sam who passed it on to Billy Bob. Billy Bob will pass it on to Jim.

"Old man James Eubanks came over here from South Carolina and founded this town with a little ole peckerwood steam sawmill. Of course, old James and Sam are long dead. They’re both down there in the cemetery." He pointed.

"When you meet Billy Bob you'll see that he's not a man who works with his hands. There isn't a lot that he has to do with his mind either, just sort of keep up with everything. He's already rich, mostly in land, if you know what I mean. He inherited it, and he intends to pass it on to Jim the same way, only more. That's a nice way of saying that he's just downright stingy and conniving. He always wants more." He laughed at his own flippancy.

"Most folks are uncomfortable dealing with Billy Bob because they find him hard to talk to. He seems to be all business all of the time, and can't adapt to a casual conversation, even at a social event. He wants you to know that he is a man to be reckoned with as a powerful political force in this county." Doc looked at the reporter out of the corner of his eye again. "All the Eubankes’, except Jim, speak the perfect idiomatic language of the old south. Perhaps the only exception is when they want to sound patrician. Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah," Lyle responded, "certain words that sound like they came from Brooklyn. I was surprised the first time I heard a southerner say foist, or hoid and thoid."

Doc laughed, "You've got them down perfectly. That's the way they talk. Only the upper crust in the south uses patrician words."

Lyle said, "The true southern dialect is beautiful—slow and melodic, like the speaker is not in a hurry and he wants you to relax also. I like that."

Doc nodded agreement, "But to go on, the people of the town have a love/hate relationship with the Eubanks family. The young girls of my day thought Billy Bob was made and handed down from heaven. Even then he was setting himself up as the leader of the pack. I’ll tell you a little story about that. The word was that Billy Bob, when he was about sixteen years old, wanted to show off. He took a carload of his pals from high school to visit a house of ill repute over near the county line. They all went into a room with a girl. Billy Bob was going to put on a show to prove that he was the main stud while the others watched. Later, his pals told the story this way. They said Billy Bob and the girl nuzzled a little bit, then sat down on the side of the bed, I guess for a little foreplay. She put her hand on his leg and he unloaded his manhood in his shorts and the show was over."

They both laughed at the image created in their minds as Doc told the story.

"Most of the women think Billy Bob is a loving, faithful husband." Doc laughed, "Shows you how well the Eubankes men kept their secrets, I guess."

Lyle looked quizzically at Doc, "What do you mean by secrets?"

"The Eubanks men always had secret lovers on the side. I don't know about young Jim, but they're all cut from the same cloth, so I guess if he ain't got one now he'll be gettin' one soon. The story goes that old man James had him one of those mulatto gals left over from the Civil War as his mistress.

"Then, of course, Sam had his bookkeeper, Mattie Rushton, as his, and Billy Bob has got a gal out there on one of his tenant farms. I better not tell you her name.

"Even when Billy Bob was young, the wealth he would inherit made him attractive to the girls. I don't think he was interested in them because I believe he always knew that he would marry Anna Taylor when they got grown. She was the prettiest girl in school, vivacious and energetic with a great personality. She developed into a beautiful woman, weighing about a hundred and five pounds, slightly over five feet tall, with an extremely good figure and black hair that looked like it came right out of one of those magazine ads. It was common knowledge around Jimtown that she was Billy Bob’s girl, therefore untouchable to the rest of the boys. She was the daughter of Dr. Allen Taylor, the only dentist we ever had in Jimtown."

Doc pointed to an old brick building half way down the block. Lyle's eyes followed the point. "That was his office. He practiced there until he died. It was a joke around town that he would never fill a tooth that could be pulled. It was a fact that many of our citizens went to their graves with big gaps in their dental work because of Doc Taylor.

"Anna and Billy Bob got married shortly after they graduated from high school. Billy Bob enjoyed bragging that he not only married the prettiest girl in the state, but exactly nine months and fifteen minutes after the ceremony, his boy Jim was born." Doc snickered, "That was nearly true because I delivered the baby. Actually it was ten months and three weeks later.

"That kind of remark from Billy Bob was always good for a laugh from the faithful, no matter how many times they heard it.

"Young Jim came into the world after twenty-three hours of extremely hard labor for Miss Anna."

Ed Note:   The author was well acquainted with people like Billy Bob and Jim Eubanks.  The two extremes were a part of the South for many years.  Their era has nearly passed and the characters have disappeared into the mass of urban humanity.  With them went a lot of the color of the region.