Larry Ploughman
David didn’t say much as we returned to the car and drove down Broad Street. I used the silence to observe the day. The time was just one o’clock. Even though it had warmed up some, the weather was still overcast and cloudy. The business district which centered around Broad Street bustled with people as the lunch hour drew to a close. I was starting to get hungry, and I momentarily forgot about the quiche David had shoveled in not very long ago. I asked if he wanted to eat before we went to the prison.
He responded negatively. “I just want to see my boy.”
I listened closely to what David said and how he said it. In the tone of his voice, I heard deep fatherly concern. The sound of it struck me as both natural and strange. The reunion which David and I had with Scobie reminded me of a time when all three of us had celebrated our queerness in a place designed to cater to it. I wondered how David had managed to overcome his. I wondered how he’d managed to marry a woman and father children.
I wanted to ask David what his life had been like. I wanted to ask him a million questions, but I reminded myself that now was not the time. I stifled my curiosity and focused on the road.
David and I were just beyond of the informal border which separated Center City from South Philly when I made a left from Broad Street to Dickenson. I counted the blocks until I could make another left on Passyunk where the prison stood. David noticed the castellated towers of Moyamensing Prison when we were still more than a block away. He pointed through the windshield to where they loomed, like a four-story haunted castle, over the two-story brick rowhomes which made up the blocks around us. “What is that?” He asked.
“That’s the prison.” I explained with a nod toward the nightmarish black stone walls.
David shook his head like he didn’t want to believe me. “My Larry is there?”
I heard the desperation in my friend’s voice and tried to comfort him. I patted his left shoulder a couple times, which is as close to tenderness as I know how to get. As I did it, I realized that I’d touched David, and I’d done it with no hesitation.
Years before, I’d worshiped David to the point that my hand shook each time it came near him. The only time we ever touched was when he hugged me on the train platform before he left for Montana. The hug we’d shared stayed with me for a long time, decades. Somehow, the pat on the shoulder I’d just given him felt like a commonplace gesture of one friend to another. I thought the change was interesting but didn’t take the time to reason it out.
I remembered David had asked me a question and I needed to answer it. “What you’re looking at is the main building of the prison. It’s for the long-term inmates. We’re going to the annex around the corner.”
I drove us down Passyunk Avenue, passed the main gate of the prison. David stared at the foreboding façade of moldy stone and barred windows behind the spiked iron fence. He even turned his body in the car seat to keep the prison in sight until we rounded the far corner of the block onto Reed Street. “What a terrible place.” He said with a shudder like a little boy who’d just woken up from a bad dream.
I patted David’s shoulder again and tried to dismiss the oppressive nature of the building. “It’s supposed to look like that. The men who built it a hundred years ago thought it would be scary enough to keep people from committing crimes for fear of being locked inside. The fact that the place is always full to capacity tells me it’s not working.”
I pulled up and parked across the street from the prison annex. I’d heard that both buildings were built at the same time, but while the main prison looked like a medieval castle, the annex was a box of stone with carved square columns which reminded me of an Egyptian monument. David seemed relieved by the architecture of the annex. If one could ignore the Egyptian styling, the building looked very much like any large-size institutional building. The façade could have easily been found on a bank or even a hospital. There weren’t even any visible bars.
I got out of the car and lit a cigarette. I leaned on the fender and waited for David. I wanted to prepare him for what he was about to experience. David came to stand with me. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other like he couldn’t stand still. I blew a lungful of smoke into the air and plunged into the difficult topic.
“You need to understand what we’re about to do.” I said to David in a deliberately firm voice while I made direct eye contact with him. “You’re about to see your son who you haven’t seen in a while. He’ll be dressed like a convict, in grey clothes with a number on his chest. He’s scared. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. You can’t make it worse for him.” I stuck my cigarette in my mouth so I could poke David’s shoulder with a hard finger to make my point. “You have to be strong for both of you.”
I stopped poking David and took my cigarette from between my lips. “If you break down and show your son that you’re worried, you’ll make things worse for him. You can be glad to see him. You can hug him and show you care, but you can’t be soft. For him to get through the nightmare he’s stuck in, he’s going to have to be stronger than any young man should ever have to be. You have to show him that you can be strong with him. Do you understand me?”
David didn’t say whether he understood or not. He asked me to explain where my advice had come from. “How do you know this, Law?”
I drew on my cigarette and flicked away what was left of it. I talked the smoke from my lungs. “I was a detective for a long time. I’ve been to places like this with parents and husbands and wives. I’ve seen how strength can help the person inside. I’ve also seen how tears can destroy that person. Whatever you do, don’t make this ordeal any harder for your son to endure. Got me?”
“I understand.” David agreed.
I led the way into the building and to the desk where the lobby guard sat. I presented my identification and the letter from Scofield. David presented his identification. We signed in. Soon, we were escorted to a private visitor’s room.
I sat in a plain metal chair which was bolted to the floor. David sat next to me in another bolted down chair. He tried to scoot the chair forward to get closer to the table which was also bolted down. David was surprised when he realized the chair wouldn’t move. “Why?” He whispered to me like he was embarrassed to ask the question.
“They don’t want anything loose that could be used as a weapon.” I answered.
David stood from the chair and shook it like he wanted to make certain it was secure. He turned to a mirror on the wall next to the table and inspected his suit. He pressed down the corner of his left lapel and straightened his regrettable polka-dot bow tie. When he was satisfied his clothing was in order, he returned to his seat.
I gave David some instructions for when the guard brought Larry in. “Stay in your chair and don’t say anything until the guard leaves.”
David didn’t reply verbally, but he nodded once to let me know he’d heard me.
David and I waited. While we waited, I eyed the mirror which David had used to inspect himself. I assumed it was a two-way mirror. I didn’t expect anyone would bother to observe our meeting. As far as the prosecution was concerned, the case against Larry was open and shut. My recollection of the times I’d stood on the other side of those mirrors told me that meetings like ours were only observed if the case was in doubt. I’d just about decided to ignore the mirror when the room door opened and a guard led Larry into the room.
The boy shuffled like his ankles were shackled, though they weren’t. He sat in the chair opposite of his father. He kept his eyes low and didn’t say a word. The guard checked a pocket-watch he kept on a chain in the front pocket of his uniform. “You’ve got thirty minutes.” He announced, then he left and locked the door behind him.
Larry opened the conversation with a very formal apology. “I’m sorry to drag you all the way here, father. I told the lawyer you had more important things to do than worry about me. It’s nice you came, especially for a disappointment like me.”
David shook his head at his son, even though Larry’s downcast eyes didn’t see the motion. “You’re not a disappointment. I never said you were.”
“I’m a faggot.” Larry muttered as he let his head drop even further so his chin was almost on his chest. “You should hate me. There’s something wrong with me. I tried not to be this way, but I can’t help it.”
David corrected his son. “You shouldn’t use that word. It’s a hateful word. You shouldn’t hate what you are. It’s fine that you’re queer. There’s nothing wrong with being that way.”
Larry spoke up again. He seemed unwilling to allow himself to be comforted. “You’re just saying that because I’m in here. You want to make me feel better.”
David shook his head again, even though his son still hadn’t seen him do it. “I would have told you the same thing if you would have stayed at home long enough to let me. You’re just different. You’re not sick or broken or anything else.”
Larry finally lifted his head to face his father. “You mean it?” He asked in a desperately hopeful way that made him sound exactly like the young man he was.
“I mean it.” David confirmed.
David’s acceptance of his son’s queerness seemed to break through something inside Larry. The stoic dam which had held back the youth’s emotions failed. His fear and sadness poured out in miserable sobs. He apologized through his tears. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.”
David jumped from his chair and went to comfort his son. Larry stood so David could hug him properly. Larry clung to his father as he wept. He sobbed his apologies into the shoulder of his father’s ancient suit. David rubbed Larry’s back and tried to soothe him with gentle words of support. “It’s alright, son. Everything will be alright. I’m here now. I’m here to help.”
I lit a cigarette to pass the time while father and son embraced. I blew smoke at the ceiling and watched it dissipate as it swirled around the caged bulbs which lit the room. I let the cigarette rest in my mouth and crossed my arms over my chest. As I waited, I noticed the similarities and differences between father and son.
David had been right when he’d described Larry. The youth was as tall and broad as David, but he was a larger man. While David had filled-out from the youth I’d known at the end of the 1920s, Larry was bulkier. His build was more straight up and down than his father’s ‘V’ shape.
I had no doubt that a man Larry’s size would be capable of beating another man to death. I could easily imagine a situation where Larry could kill someone without meaning to. He would only realize what he’d done when it was too late, then he would panic and make bad decisions, like abandoning a body in a trash-strewn lot a block from where he lived.
If that had been what happened, I might have thought of Larry as a possible suspect for the crime. Since the crime was far more brutal than a dead man in a trash heap, I dismissed the idea that he had anything to do with it. I couldn’t imagine a situation where the young man who cried on his father’s shoulder could beat a former lover to death, sodomize him with a carpet beater, then smash his body to an unrecognizable bloody pulp with a table leg.
I smoked my cigarette and tried to wait for Larry to get his tears out of his system. I quickly grew impatient. I didn’t want to call an end to the reunion, but we didn’t have the time to indulge it. The guard had given us thirty minutes. Every minute spent crying and comforting was a minute we didn’t have to work on the case.
I cleared my throat with a deliberate ‘A-HEM’ to get David’s attention. He peered at me over his son’s shoulder. I unfolded my arms and raised my left wrist to show David my watch. He nodded and tried to wrap things up.
“Alright, son, it’s alright.” David said and slapped his son’s back. “Settle down. We don’t have much time and there’s things we need to talk about.”
Larry did as he was told. He swallowed his misery and stepped out of his father’s embrace. Larry sniffed and scrubbed his tears away with the coarse grey sleeves of his prison uniform. He sat down. David sat next to him, opposite me.
Larry blinked in my direction like it was the first time he’d realized there was another person present. As we looked at each other, I noticed the youth’s features resembled his father’s, but his coloring belonged to someone else, presumably his mother. Where David had blond hair and hazel eyes, Larry’s hair was black, and his eyes were bright blue, almost cobalt.
Larry addressed me politely like he’d been raised very carefully. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Larry Ploughman.”
I had one last puff on my cigarette and ground the butt to dust under the table. “Law Edwards.” I said with a nod.
David finished the introduction. “He’s a detective. I knew him before. When I was here…after my folks died.”
David hesitated over the lie he told his son. I guessed my presence made him worry that I would question him about the falsehood. As I recalled the story David told of his banishment from his family’s farm back in 1929, I also recalled that David’s folks had been very much alive. I assumed he’d told his wife and children that his parents were dead, and he was alone in the world. A lie of that nature would have made David’s origin story much simpler to explain. Since the lie didn’t have any bearing on Larry’s troubles, I let it go by.
David introduced me some more. I guessed he wanted Larry to trust me, so he tried to demonstrate that Larry and I had something in common. “He’s the same as you, son. He lives with a man. They’ve been together for a long time.”
Larry proved himself to be very observant in spite of his youth. He saw a flaw in his father’s story. “But he’s wearing a wedding ring.” Larry said to David.
I used the tip of my thumb to turn the plain gold band on my finger. “Me and my husband, Walt, were married in a church. The service was conducted by a broadminded priest who my husband knew. Walt and I have no legal standing as a couple, but we’re married all the same. We both wear rings to show our commitment to each other.”
David was touched by my story and said as much. “That’s lovely. I wondered why you called Walt ‘your husband.’ I thought it was just a pet name.”
I appreciated David’s sentiment, but I realized time was still passing, and we hadn’t said a word about the case yet. I slapped the table to end all other discussion. “Larry, I need to ask you some questions and we don’t have time for stories. Answer me quickly and keep the details brief. Why did you come here, to this city?”
Larry leaned toward me. He craned himself over the tabletop like he thought by getting physically closer to me, his answers would take less time to cover the distance between us. “After Dad caught me and Ted together, Ted told me we had to leave. I didn’t want to, but he said we should. He said Dad would throw us both off the farm when he came back from town, and we should get out while we had the chance.”
David started to say something, presumably that he wouldn’t have thrown his son off the farm. I didn’t want to get caught up in another tangent, so I rapped my knuckles on the table to remind David that I was conducting the interview and not him. He remained silent.
Larry told the rest of his story. “I had money from the harvest and so did Ted. We put it together and bought train tickets to Philadelphia. When I was a kid, Dad told me all kinds of stories about Philly. He called it the Kingdom of Keystone. I knew he had good luck here after his parents died in the accident, so I wanted to come here too.”
I almost stopped the conversation to ask David what he told his children about Madam Mitchell’s queer paradise known as the Kingdom of Keystone. I stopped myself and focused on what mattered. “Alright.” I agreed. “You both came here, found a place to live and got jobs. The landlady says you and Ted argued. Tell me about the fighting.”
Larry scowled when I mentioned Ted. The words he used to answer my question were bitter. “Ted was a whore!” He spat. “I’m sorry he’s dead, but a dead whore is still a whore. I thought he loved me. When we were on the farm, Ted always wanted to be with me. I didn’t find out ‘til we came here that the only thing he loved about me was my cock!”
Larry realized what he’d said and that he’d said it in front of his father. He tried to apologize the vulgarity away. “Dad, I’m sorry. I…”
David shook his head and dismissed Larry’s worry. “Nothing to be sorry for. Keep going, son.”
Larry lifted his huge shoulders in a shrug which matched his father’s. He shook his head and blew out a long breath. “He’d lay down for anyone. I didn’t like it. We argued about it all the time. I wanted to get away from him, but I couldn’t afford to live on my own. I was doing my best to get a better position at work. I even talked to my boss about earning more money. My boss, Wiry, said he liked my work, but I needed to be there a few more months before he could recommend me for another position.
“I thought I could stick it out for a while…long enough to get promoted. I hoped by the summer, I could move out on my own. In the meantime, I tried to get along with Ted as best as I could, just so things wouldn’t be lousy all the time. That’s why I went to the drags with him the night he died. I think Ted was trying to make up with me. He came home early that day and asked me to go with him. He said he wanted to do something together like we used to. I agreed to go because it was the first time in a while that Ted offered to do anything nice with me.
“The cops were right about us being there together, but we didn’t stay together for long. Ted saw some guys he knew. One of them called him over. He said something to Ted and the two of them started talking real close like they were planning something. I figured the guy wanted his ashes hauled and was trying to figure out when Ted could haul ‘em. I got mad and yelled for Ted to enjoy himself without me. I left him with the guy and walked around for a while. I checked out some of the iron and watched a few races. When I got cold, I went home. That’s the last time I saw him.”
I finished Larry’s story for him. “And you told the cops your story and they didn’t believe you.”
Larry nodded his agreement. He held up a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt to show it to me. “My knuckles were cut and bruised from work. The door to the tool shed got stuck. I got mad at it and punched it to get it open. They said the marks on my hands were proof I’d killed Ted. I never fought with Ted in my life. Ted didn’t like to fight. He didn’t know how. It would have been like punching a little kid.”
I asked a question I hoped would open a line I could investigate. “Did you know the man who Ted spoke to at the races?”
Larry shook his head. “I didn’t pay any attention to him. He was just one guy out of a bunch. They were all hangin’ around a ’49 Rocket 88. They looked like all the other guys there. Like I said, it was cold. Everyone was dressed warm with wool hats and heavy jackets. President Eisenhauer could’ve been standing there, and I wouldn’t have known him.”
I gave up my hopes of a description of the men. I tried for a description of the thing they were gathered around. “What’s a ‘Rocket 88?” I asked.
Larry explained the slang term. “It’s a car. A 1949 Oldsmobile 88 with the Rocket V8 engine. This one was a black coupe with red steelies and baby moons. I think it had lake pipes.”
I didn’t understand a word Larry said. “I know what an Oldsmobile is, but I didn’t catch the rest of that.”
Larry tried again. “The car was a black two door, like a business coupe. It had red steel wheels with black sidewall tires and those chrome hubcaps that look like soup bowls. ‘Lake pipes’ are when the exhaust follows the rocker panel of the car and turns out in front of the back wheels.”
“Like where the running boards would be?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Larry agreed.
“Why are they called ‘lake pipes?’” I asked.
Larry explained the term. “They use them in the southwest to race on dry lake beds. That’s where they got the name.” I nodded my understanding and Larry went on. “I’ve seen the car before. It’s always at the drags.”
“Drags?” I asked.
“Drag races.” Larry explained. “It’s when two cars race in a straight line next to each other. They race either a quarter or an eighth mile. They call them ‘drag races’ to separate them from circle track races.”
“Got it.” I said as I absorbed the new information.
Larry went back to talking about the Rocket Olds. “I think Ted knew the guy who owns it. Might even be someone he worked with. I don’t know if the guy he talked to was the owner, or just some guy who liked the car.”
Whether the man Larry referred to owned the car or not, the car sounded unique enough that I could follow up on it. “Do you think the car owner would have had a relationship with Ted?”
Larry shook his head helplessly. “Ted didn’t have relationships. He had a thing for teasing straight guys. He loved to see how far he could get them to go with him. He’d get real close and offer to do things for them.”
“Things?” I asked.
Larry cast an embarrassed glance toward his father, then turned to me with eyes which pleaded for something. I guessed he was worried that what he had to say would shock his father. I told him to skip trying to be delicate. “Nothing you could say would shock either one of us. Just talk. We don’t have time for pretty words.”
Larry did as I asked. “Ted would offer to suck them off. He loved doing that. If he could get them to fuck him, he liked that even better. The guys who wouldn’t do anything with him, he’d tease. If they tried to sock him, he’d run away.”
I nodded at Larry over his description of Ted. I’d known guys like that. More than once, I saw them after they approached the wrong person. Both men who I remembered had been beaten black and blue by straight guys who didn’t see the humor in being offered sexual favors or being teased for not accepting. I wondered if Ted had made an offer to the wrong man and the man killed him. I supposed the scenario was possible, but it wouldn’t explain the sadism which Ted suffered.
I tried one more question which I hoped would open up another path for me to investigate. “Larry, I can try to prove you didn’t kill Ted in two ways. One way is to prove who did kill him. Given what you told me, that would be very difficult. It sounds like Ted was the community bicycle, ridden by everyone. I’m also sure that most of the people who went for a ride would rather keep it a secret. Without a good lead, I would struggle to know where to even start an investigation.
“The other way I can prove you didn’t do it, is by proving you couldn’t have done it. To do that, I’d have to prove you were somewhere else at the time. Did anyone see you go home or know you were home that night?”
“No.” Larry said sadly. “The house we lived in is a great, big, old place. The room we rented was where the maid would have slept. It had a door to the outside in the back of the house. I didn’t run into anyone on the way home, and I didn’t go through the house to get to my room. Like I said, it was a cold night, and it was pretty late, after eleven. No one was on the street. I went home and went to bed. I slept late. I was eating breakfast when the cops showed up and arrested me.”
I thought about what Larry said. He hadn’t given me a lot of help, but his story rang true. I wanted more information, much more, but I doubted Larry had any to offer. I was trying to think up something else to ask when the sound of a key working the tumblers in the door lock told me our time was up. The guard swung the door open and stood waiting. I promised Larry to do what I could. “I believe you, Larry. I’ll do my best. Stay strong.”
“Yes sir.” Larry said to me. He stood up and hugged his father. The men embraced and slapped each other’s backs.
David echoed my advice to his son and followed it up with words of affection. “I love you, Larry. I can’t be in here with you, but I’m with you all the same. I won’t go home until you can come with me.”
Larry thanked his father and returned the affection David had offered. “Love you too, Dad. Thanks for coming to help.”
The two men parted, and Larry allowed himself to be led away. He held his head up as he left with the guard. Another guard came and escorted us out of the prison.
