Clearly, it pissed him off that old Willie wouldn’t hand him over the keys to the plant. Whether he is acting or not, Paul cannot hide his arrogance.

For a certain breed of Southerner the feeling that the world is his oyster only increases with age; for the rest of us, the certainty that it is not accelerates at a greater pace.

“Since Clinton’s been in the White House,” Paul continues, “some Arkansans have had an inflated notion of the state’s importance. We’re talking Third World prices in the Delta. Southern Pride Meats doesn’t quite abut 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I was probably being generous to offer a hundred thousand for it.”

“You still want it, don’t you?” I ask as Dick begins to jingle the change in his pocket. He doesn’t trust me, I don’t think.

“Not if I have to look like a murderer to do it,” he says angrily.

“You can’t imagine how much this has hurt Jill and Sean and really the whole town. Things were bad enough between blacks and whites before.

Now, it’ll really be terrible.”

I walk toward the door. As long as blacks stayed in their place, race relations were “good.”

Now that they are in control, I won’t hear that cant again. How can Dick not gag when he hears Paul open his mouth? Surely he knows better.

That old saying, I guess from the sixties, comes to mind: “If you want peace, work for justice.” If I get my way, there’ll be some justice, but Paul will get no peace-my clients tell me it is hard to sleep in prison. Dick tells me that he will walk over for the arraignment Monday afternoon, and we can get a trial date afterward. Our conversation is over, and moments later, I am let out the front door, knowing I have given away more than I have gotten.

I drive back to the Bear Creek Inn and sit on the bed while I work my way through the thick file Butterfield has had copied for me. I’m probably not fooling Paul and Dick at all. Yet who knows? To live over here, you have to wear blinders.