The skinny man sat on a worn pillow in the middle of his single bedroom shotgun, smoking a cigarette and eating sunflower seeds. The ashtray before him was filled with spit, seed hulls and butts.

His front door opened, but turn around to see who it was.

“Hello, Lee,” he called out to the older man that stepped into his house.

“Don’t lock your doors?” The other man asked.

The skinny man shrugged. “Haven’t you heard? City’s crime rate is at a historic low.”

The older man laughed, “And we’ve got you to thank for everyone else hearing that.”

“Don’t remind me.” The skinny man groaned.

“Why the griping? You’re the city’s secret weapon! You masterminded the advertising campaign that raised our visibility to unprecedented levels.”

The older man looked over at the boxes piled in the corner.

“And to think you were leaving when I offered you the job.”

Most were still folded shut, gathering dust, but a few had been opened and pilfered through.

“If I ever find a way to break this spell this city’s cast over me, I will be again!”

“Well, I hope that never happens. You’d just miss us terribly.”

“I hate you, Lee.”

Memphis Note
One of Crump’s greatest successes was the relative prosperity and peace the city entered into because of his efforts. Seeing itself in the middle of a Renaissance, the city commissioned a nation wide advertising campaign to extoll our virtues – one that actually succeeded in drawing people to the city.

The two women stood on the sidewalk, swapping a cigarette back and forth in the cold. They’d both told their husbands that they had quit, and always blamed the other one for why they still smelled like that.

“New folks movin’ in down the block.” Said one of them, pointing at a moving van a few houses down, before handing the cigarette over.

“Umhmmm.” The other was too busy inhaling to give a better response.

“Plates on the car says Vermont. You know what that means, right?” She paused for effect, then hissed out the accursed word: “Yankees.”

“What in the hell is that?” Coughed the other, giving the cigarette back. A man was pushing something that looked like across between a wood chipper and a lawn mower up the driveway.

“I…I think its a snow blower.” She said between drags. “Who the hell keeps a snow blower in the South?”

“A yankee serial killer, that’s who. Probably uses it to chop up his victims. Whilst naked and all painted up with clown make-up. Why else would you need that in down here?”

“Mmhmm. Ain’t that the truth.”

“Damn yankees,” she spit as she stomped out the cigarette.

Memphis Note
The Civil War’s been done for years, a hundred and fifty of them, to be exact. But, that doesn’t do anything to lessen the inherent, irrational distrust people in the Deep South have for Northerners. In the South, “Yankee” will forever be a derogatory term.

Carlson hooked the corner, turning into the alley off the street. James Pealson, Jimmy the One-Eye, was there waiting for him.

“You got it?” Jimmy asked, his voice low.

Carlson pulled out two hand-rolled cigarettes from the breast pocket of his uniform and handed one to Jimmy.

“Got the light?” Responded Carlson.

Jimmy struck a match off the brick of the building beside them and lit their cigarettes with it. The fire from the match twinkled in his one good eye.

The other boys had give him his titular epithet on account of Jimmy One-Eye only having one eye.

No one ever said the boys were very smart.

But for the most part, you didn’t need to be smart to do the job. You just had to keep the rich folks safe, the Irish and Italians from killing each other, and hope to God you never pissed off anyone bad enough to be assigned a night patrol on the docks.

“Still can’t believe those sons of a –,” Jimmy started up.

“Hey, hey, hey! Watch your mouth, you know the rules.”

In unison, they erupted into laughter.

Swearing, as well as smoking, was forbidden while in uniform.

Memphis Note
In 1861, the state of the Memphis police was so shameful that the chief of police was forced to give an address to his men, which was reprinted in the local newspaper, instructing them of the proper way to behave as uniformed police. Among his list of things were clean dress, a civil attitude, refraining from speaking to anyone not directly involved with police matters, an abstention from smoking and a prohibition on any and all profanity. Also, keeping an eye one troublemakers and in general doing their jobs. Apparently, these were all things that the Memphis police were having trouble accomplishing at the time.

She was having a very hard time understanding her internship.

The reporter she was paired with chewed raw aspirin – constantly – and appeared to live in a dumpster full of half-drunk whiskey bottles and cheap suits.

He ceaselessly referred to her with demeaning pet names like sweetheart, toots and, on more than one occasion, “sugar tits”. And If she didn’t have his exact right mix of coffee and bourbon waiting for him every morning, along with a fresh pack of Pall Malls, he’d start into a tirade about how women never should’ve been allowed out of the kitchen, let alone into a newsroom.

To say she hated this man would have been a rather obscene understatement.

But when they started working, when she saw how he would let a story completely engulf him, and not stop until he’d gotten what he was after; she had to admit she respected the man, but just enough to make her hate him even more.

On the last day of her internship, she confronted him, demanding to know why he’d been so horrible to her.

He regarded her for a moment and sipped his bourbon coffee.

“Because now nothing will shock you. Sugar tits.”

Memphis Note
I know a lot of people who work for local newspapers and TV stations. Nearly all of them have a story about some one like this in their newsroom. This one is for all of them.