Excerpt from Chapter 6 

She opened her arms to moonshiners and murderers and

burglars and us, the new sheriff and his family. Her graytiled

walls echoed the clanging of cell doors and the jingling

of big bronze jail keys, but also Cora’s laughter and Sill’s

humming her favorite Lefty Frizzel song. She embraced the

exuberant little Screwdriver and his ever-present smile and

the hugs of the prettiest little redheaded, freckle-faced girl

who ever graced the inside of a jail. Her name was Joyce.

The old girl once welcomed Jackleg, a moonshiner; and

Big Richard, a killer; and Junior when he got drunk. And

she’d tease you with the heavenly aroma of Luvenia’s yeast

rolls baking in the oven.

 

She was hopping in her prime. Traffic, in and out, was

seemingly nonstop. Her one phone rang constantly. Pots and

pans clattered in the kitchen as cooks prepared the best jail

food in Alabama for the prisoners upstairs. Her guests

numbered from six on a quiet Monday to two dozen or more

on those weekends when it seemed that half the county was

drinking and fighting and shooting and cutting one another.

She took it all in stride. Oh, she was something alright,

that old girl of the 1950s whose real name was the Lawrence

County Jail.

 

 

 

Below is a picture of the author (center) with his sister Patsy and the famous "Screwdriver" from Chapter 11.