Half of Paradise

“Yes,” he said. “It was snowing.”

The Live-Again show began its three-week tour the next day. People from all over the parish came to hear J.P. and Big Jim Lathrop. Big Jim was the common man’s friend. He promised to fight federal intervention and the integrationists. The other outfit would have the niggers with the white children. Jim was going to fight it. He didn’t know much about politics, but he knew when he was right about something. He was a country boy himself, and a man should be from the country if he was going to represent country people. City people didn’t have any business in the state government. The common man should vote for his own kind. J.P. was from the country. He sang country music. He knew that Lathrop was the only man for the job. It was time that the people of Louisiana stood up for their way of life and not let any city politician destroy it. Everybody knew that J.P. was a good man and they agreed with what he had to say. They had heard him on the radio. He used to chop cotton and tenant farm like everybody else. He was supporting Jim Lathrop, and so would every man who didn’t want to see the government in the hands of people not his own. J.P. and the common man were behind Lathrop. They were not going to be run over by city politicians and Northern integrationists. The common man had been kept down, and now his time had come as surely as there was a day of reckoning for all created things.

TOUSSAINT BOUDREAUX

The Barracks in the work camp were oblong wooden buildings set in a clearing among the pines. The buildings were originally constructed by the W.P.A. for the army, but had later been sold to the state for use as a penal camp. There were seven barracks, each painted white, with barred windows and barred doors. A tall wire fence enclosed the clearing. At the top were three additional strands of barbed wire. No grass grew within the boundary of the fence. The clearing was dirt smooth from the ceaseless tread of feet. Pine needles often blew across the fence from the trees, but they too were soon pressed down and covered in the dust. The sweet smell of the pines came through the fence on the wind, and the cones dropped on the bare earth, but the pine seeds, like the grass, would not grow inside the clearing.

It was early morning. The night guards walked out in the sun to warm themselves while they waited for their relief. A whistle blew and there was the sound of keys twisting in iron locks and of men stirring from sleep. The sun rose above the dark green of the trees and burned down into the clearing. The moon was a thin pale shape in the western sky. The men filed out of six of the barracks and formed a line before the dining hall. The day guards came on duty and stood by the line while it moved slowly inside. All the men were dressed in the same blue denim uniforms with LA. PENAL SYSTEM stenciled across the backs of their shirts. Some were bareheaded, others wore straw hats. The inmates were deeply tanned, and their hands were callused and roughened. They shuffled through the dust, some talking, some half asleep, into the dining hall to file past the serving counter and sit at the board tables and eat breakfast before the whistle blew again for roll call.

Outside they broke up into squads of seven and waited for the work captain to come by and call their names from his list. There were seven men to a gang, and one guard to every seven men. No one had ever escaped from the work camp because it was too well organized and the guards could account for each inmate every minute of the day. The gangs formed and waited. The work captain came down the line with his clipboard in his hand. He wore the same brown khaki as the other guards, except he had on a campaign hat like that of the state police instead of the conventional cork sun helmet, and his trousers were tucked inside his high leather boots.

“Adams!”

“Yo!”

“Ardoin!”

“Yo!”

“Benoit!”

“Yo!”

“Boudreaux!”

“Yo!”

The captain looked up from his board. He had been prepared to put a mark by Toussaint’s name.

“I thought you were supposed to go back into detention today,” he said.

“Nobody come for me this morning.”

“Evans might put you in there for the rest of your stretch if you start more trouble.”

A guard standing by the fence in the shade turned around when he heard his name mentioned. He was John Wesley Evans, the guard for gang five. His face was burned pink by the sun. He was never able to get a tan. His face would burn and peel white and then burn again. He wore a cork sun helmet that was stained brown by sweat, and there was a pair of green sunglasses in his shirt pocket. He was fat about the waist and he wore a holster and sidearm to take notice away from his stomach. He put on his sunglasses and walked out into the sunlight and stood beside the work captain.

“You want me, sir?” he said.

“I thought Boudreaux was supposed to go back in detention for another day.”

“A guy in gang three started a fight. We had to turn Boudreaux out to make room.”

“Then you’re one day to the good,” the captain said to Toussaint.

“He can go back and finish it later,” Evans said, looking at the Negro.

“Broussard!” the captain continued from his roll.

No reply.

“Broussard! Answer when your name is called.”

“Here.”

“Louder.”

“Right here!”