Thirty-six years old and more handsome than beautiful, Mary Margaret Jasper desperately wanted to get married and she thought she had found the perfect guy. Hank Sisco was thirty-five and managed the Texaco station off I-40. Cokes, candy bars, gasoline, and handing out the bathroom key which was attached to a two foot piece of metal that used to be part of the owners 1963 Buick’s steering column and would guarantee maximum inconvenience and embarrassment to those who dared to enter the seldom cleaned washroom filled his days. Although never married, Hank was known to have many liaisons with women as far asunder as Fort Smith to the West and Stuttgart to the East. Working at the only gas station at an isolated exit on a popular interstate, Hank met a lot of folks at their best and worst and sometimes at their most in need.
He loved Mary Margaret or at least he believed it was love. He had not cheated on her in the nine months they had been dating and felt that was a mature accomplishment. Of course the direct opportunity had not arisen either. He supposed they would get married and it was probably time to settle down. Lord knows his long suffering mother, alone and childless herself until her early forties had harped on him to “find a woman, get hitched, and make some grand babies before his seed was completely wasted on every piece of trash that winked at him from behind the pork rinds display”.
Mary Margaret was uninterested when folks pointed out Hank’s many intimate conquests. She felt that everything in the past was only that, and Hank was merely slow to accept adult responsibility and besides most of the stories were most likely exaggerated as tends to happen in small towns. Hank was a good man with a good job and he paid more attention to her than any ten men who came before including her father Clay Jasper who had returned from Vietnam in 1974 to his five year old daughter and two year old son and quickly transformed from the former high school football hero to war hero to crazy guy in fatigues screaming at the Chinese migrants who picked peaches out in the orchards each season. Because of his former hero status (more football than war), the sheriff went easy on him but eventually had to personally put a bullet between his eyes after Clay held hostage a truck full of migrants threatening to shoot one per hour until they revealed the location of every POW in Vietnam. No one was going to convince him that the people he held were Chinese not Vietnamese and he was in a peach orchard in Central Arkansas not a rice patty south of Saigon. So after five hours of talk in the hot July sun Sheriff Ralph Emerson had to put a small hole in the middle of Sergeant Clay Jasper’s forehead which resulted in a gaping cavity in the back of his head as he was about to execute his first victim.
Practically the entire town had caught wind of the developing incident and had turned out to see the outcome. What they got was a far cry from what was expected but accustomed as they were to the violence that built and defines the American South not a one cried out or even turned away in shock. They merely got back in their pickups and late model sedans and quietly and somewhat sadly went home leaving the sheriff, the deputies, the Chinese migrants, and the Jasper clan who came to help convince the paterfamilias of his error behind. Mary Margaret, her younger brother Adam, and her mother all witnessed what became known as the Huckabee Peach Farm Gook Incident. Even local history refusing to believe the peach pickers at the center of the tragedy were Chinese not Vietnamese. And Clay Jasper was forever thought of as a fallen hero (once again more football than war) not as a disturbed young man.
Mary Margaret’s brother, Adam, had grown to follow in his father’s footsteps to a degree. He was handsome and athletic from an early age and drew favorable comparisons to his father from all over town and hushed whispers from the same folks behind his back speculating how far the similarity would run. But at the current age of 35, he had so far avoided any controversy. Like his father he was a football star in high school, but unlike his father he was able to escape the pull of a foreign conflict and attend the state university on an athletic scholarship. His star status did not continue at the collegiate level, but he spent 5 quiet years playing some what regularly and maintaining a decent grade point average. He met his future wife who grew up a few towns east, and after he graduated he was welcomed home to a sales job at the local Chevrolet dealership which established him enough to get married and settle down destined to be a pillar of the community.
f Adam had any weakness it was his fierce loyalty and protection of his mother and sister whom he regarded as his wards in many ways. From an early age he took the responsibility as the man of the house seriously helping his ever more dependent mother maintain the house and protect his sister from the parade of “uncles” that came into and out of their lives. By the time he reached the tender age of 10 it was well known to take a wide berth of Adam when it came to matters concerning his mother and sister. Even while he was away at college people respected his presence like one would the threat a “beware of dog” sign even though the dog may have never been see or heard.
Mary Margaret’s and Adam’s mother had been slowly unraveling in the 30 plus years since her husband’s untimely demise. Helen Jasper was once the prettiest girl in town. Her early years were charmed with pageant and home coming crowns. To look at her and Clay in early photos it was as if they fell from the pages of Life Magazine as representations of what young Americans were supposed to look like. They were the couple most likely to succeed and live happily ever after. And all appeared to be on track. After graduation Clay got a job as a supervisor at the Huckabee Peach Farm after eschewing a college football career because he could not stand to be away from his sweetheart. They got married and Helen was quickly pregnant with their first child. As a local celebrity, Clay did not worry about his draft status. The town fathers had secured him a high draft number and it looked like he may avoid serving in Vietnam. But as the war dragged on into the 1970’s and after a somewhat turbulent series of county and state elections, Clay was drafted in the United States Army. By this time their second child was born and Clay and Helen had become an important part of local society. He stayed optimistic though and assured his young wife that by the time he got through basic training the war would likely be over and he would serve out his time in places like South Carolina or Texas and return home safe and sound. This of course did not happen and within 2 years destiny shifted.
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