In Palo Verde, Calif., an honest man is a good man, even if he's a murderer.
"I’ll give it to you straight," began the advice of a whitebeard outside of one of the 236-person town’s two bars. "You’d be better off heading next door for lunch. A burger you’d get here for $7 is only $5 over there." He tipped his hat before he retreated inside. I went next door.
After a decidedly cheap meal, I returned to the shaded picnic table. The liveliest folks in Palo Verde spend their days chattering over beers, cigarettes and the steady din of Nascar engines, emerging from the bars' musty interiors on occasion to absorb some sunlight. It was the emergence of Coon Ass A’Dago (his nickname-sake comes from his Louisianan origin and his Italian heritage) and my subsequent usual trip description that prompted the most startling honesty.
"One piece of advice," he said, gazing fixedly through shaded glasses. "You can’t trust anyone these days. Not more than a few years ago, I would’ve come up behind you and slit your throat without thinking twice."
In my mind, I mounted my bike and fled. In fact, I stayed to listen more.
"When I was your age, I was behind bars," he said. "I done a lotta things I regret. I hurt a lotta people. I seen and done about anything you can think of.
"I’ve taken a life."
He had spent half of his 65 years incarcerated, he said, and he’d shackled up in some of the worst reputed prisons in the country.
When he got out for good, he went to Palo Verde, where for a while he resided in conflict with a man who was warden at a prison where he had been an inmate. They were neighbors, as every resident of Palo Verde is to every other resident.
"About a year after I moved here, I invited the warden to step outside at a Christmas party we were having," Coon Ass said. "When he followed me out, I said, 'I'm an ex-con. I ain't no inmate. We can either be friends or we can kill each other.' Then I extended my hand. He shook it.
"Last year, he come up to me in this bar, and he says, 'Coon Ass, you've been a good friend.'"
So goes his story of redemption after a life poorly spent in crime. His parents were dead by the time he was 13. He wasn't old enough to make good decisions, he said, so he made bad ones, and he thinks about them every day.
"I got out of the penitentiary," he said, "but I'll never be free."
Even so, Coon Ass said he knows he's been forgiven, and he figures if he prays every night and accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he'll make it to heaven.
It's the only way he can sleep at all.
"I’ll give it to you straight," began the advice of a whitebeard outside of one of the 236-person town’s two bars. "You’d be better off heading next door for lunch. A burger you’d get here for $7 is only $5 over there." He tipped his hat before he retreated inside. I went next door.
After a decidedly cheap meal, I returned to the shaded picnic table. The liveliest folks in Palo Verde spend their days chattering over beers, cigarettes and the steady din of Nascar engines, emerging from the bars' musty interiors on occasion to absorb some sunlight. It was the emergence of Coon Ass A’Dago (his nickname-sake comes from his Louisianan origin and his Italian heritage) and my subsequent usual trip description that prompted the most startling honesty.
"One piece of advice," he said, gazing fixedly through shaded glasses. "You can’t trust anyone these days. Not more than a few years ago, I would’ve come up behind you and slit your throat without thinking twice."
In my mind, I mounted my bike and fled. In fact, I stayed to listen more.
"When I was your age, I was behind bars," he said. "I done a lotta things I regret. I hurt a lotta people. I seen and done about anything you can think of.
"I’ve taken a life."
He had spent half of his 65 years incarcerated, he said, and he’d shackled up in some of the worst reputed prisons in the country.
When he got out for good, he went to Palo Verde, where for a while he resided in conflict with a man who was warden at a prison where he had been an inmate. They were neighbors, as every resident of Palo Verde is to every other resident.
"About a year after I moved here, I invited the warden to step outside at a Christmas party we were having," Coon Ass said. "When he followed me out, I said, 'I'm an ex-con. I ain't no inmate. We can either be friends or we can kill each other.' Then I extended my hand. He shook it.
"Last year, he come up to me in this bar, and he says, 'Coon Ass, you've been a good friend.'"
So goes his story of redemption after a life poorly spent in crime. His parents were dead by the time he was 13. He wasn't old enough to make good decisions, he said, so he made bad ones, and he thinks about them every day.
"I got out of the penitentiary," he said, "but I'll never be free."
Even so, Coon Ass said he knows he's been forgiven, and he figures if he prays every night and accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he'll make it to heaven.
It's the only way he can sleep at all.
posted by Patrick Bourland at 11:05 PM
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