Short Stories and Essays
MISTAKEN FOR ESCAPED CONVICTS
[Informal talk by John E. Enslen amongst friends in Wetumpka, AL on February 23, 2012.]
At the National Wildlife Turkey Federation event tonight at the Wetumpka Civic Center, I found myself standing in a group of men consisting of veterinarian Nealy Barrett, Jr., his son Justin Barrett (an engineer with Goodwin, Mills, and Cawood), bankers Bobby Barrett and Tray Cosby, Dr. Spencer Coleman, and others whom I cannot presently recall. The subject changed from the exploits of this past year’s hunting season and poachers when Bobby Barrett began to tell an old high school story that involved himself and me, as well as others not in attendance this evening. Here is how the story goes, and according to the best of my memory, it is a true one.
Some of us students wanted to have a tennis team at Wetumpka High School back in the mid-1960’s. To our knowledge there had never been a previous official WHS tennis team, just some individuals who played, like Edgar Welden and Willie Watson.
Tommy McDow, Ray Barrett, and I had grown up playing tennis next to the Fain Community Center near where the city pool was located. We would get very hot and sweaty playing tennis on the black asphalt court and then jump in the pool to cool off—especially our feet. Gene Sides also played a little tennis, although he was much better at football. But Gene was willing to do anything to get out of class, and being a part of a tennis team might afford him some special opportunities.
There were others to join the team, but we still needed one more player to create a reasonably proficient six-man team so that we could compete with other high school teams. We invited a Holtville High School student and friend who formerly lived in Wetumpka, Bobby Barrett, to join the team. Holtville High School had no tennis team, and Bobby loved tennis and was extremely good at it. We were pleased that he readily accepted the invitation. He and Ray Barrett are first cousins.
Of course, recruiting a player from another high school clearly violated the high school association rules and would have disqualified our team from competing, but it never became a problem for two reasons. First, no official ever checked on the high school affiliation credentials of tennis players, and second, we never advanced far enough in the competition for anyone to care.
Coach Billy Carr agreed to be our coach, at least in name. That spring, I believe it was 1965, we somehow arranged a match with the high school team in Sylacauga—B.B. Comer High School. The tennis match was to be played there in Sylacauga. On the day of the match, we could not find an available supervising coach or faculty member to accompany us on our trip to Sylacauga, and normally that fact would have prevented us from participating in an “away” match. However, as unlikely as it now seems, an otherwise very strict Mr. O. M. Bratton, our high school principal, gave in to our pleas to allow us to travel unescorted to Sylacauga for the match. We assured him that we could be totally trusted and he would never regret it.
Ray Barrett had an old Pontiac, like maybe a ‘53 model, and agreed to allow Gene Sides to do the driving. On the appointed day of the match, we were excused to leave school in the early afternoon. That fact alone made it a good day whether we won or not. You know the old saying about the worse day fishing verses the best day in the office. Plus, we always had the normal boyhood fun associated with a jammed-in-the-car travel adventure. Frankly, we did not get out of the county very often. I guess athletic competition got us out of the county more often than any other reason.
To fully understand this story, the reader will need to know about our tennis team uniforms. That is using the word “uniform” very loosely. We all wore plain white short-sleeve t-shirts and white pants of varying descriptions. It was in a day when the professional tennis player wore all white, and it was natural for us to emulate to the extent feasible. So after throwing our used, warped wooden rackets into the trunk of the car, the six of us piled into Ray’s car and headed up Highway 231 toward Sylacauga.
Gene has always been known for his big foot. Well, he actually has two of them. He was the punter and kicker on our high school football team and later played college football for the University of Tennessee Martin, set a punting record in the Citrus Bowl, and had a short stint with the Oakland Raiders. But back to the main story as it relates to Gene’s big foot—his right big foot. I don’t know whether his right foot is the bigger one or not, but it was definitely heavy on that day, and our speed was incrementally increasing proportionally to the growing distance between us and Principal Bratton. (For many reasons that time and space do not permit, Gene highly favored keeping a distance between himself and Principal Bratton.)
We speedily progressed on our journey as far as southern Coosa County when we rounded a curve, mostly on two wheels, and unexpectedly encountered an approaching highway patrolman. By the time our vehicles met, his bubble-gum-machine-like lights were already flashing, a sight which brought some measure of panic to our youthful minds. The level of panic took on a new dimension when Gene blurted out a fact which had not been previously disclosed to us, much less to Principal Bratton: “My license is revoked!” That was when our collective criminal minds kicked into high gear.
There was a split-second decision to pull into a driveway to the right. The driveway led up a hill to a residence where we parked long enough to watch a speeding highway patrolman pass by in the direction we had previously been traveling. That brought a sense of relief, at least temporarily. Feeling that a change of drivers was in order, somehow I ended up behind the wheel. I don’t recall the exact selection process we used for choosing a new driver, but I think it had something to do with my clean driving record and still having the most points to sacrifice without losing my license.
After the passage of what we believed was a safe amount of time, we recommenced our sojourn to the tennis match with a sense of relief, traveling at a very reasonable speed. I had traveled only a few miles at the most when in my ears I heard the sound of a siren and in my rearview mirror I noticed that same flashing light on top. I pulled over, wondering why I was being punished for having the best driving record in the group. Of course, I did not place the blame for my predicament on my own stupidity.
The reader needs to be introduced to another fact that until this point in time was also unknown to us. There had been a prison break at Draper Prison by some young white guys wearing their normal prison garb, white t-shirts and white pants. We had perfectly positioned ourselves for becoming the prime suspects.
I think we started providing information to the officer at my window before we were even asked any questions. We were still in the pre-Miranda rights era anyway. Our story was for the most part was consistent, but not entirely truthful.
“We are the Wetumpka tennis team on our way to play a match in Sylacauga.” The patrolman responded, “Then why did you turn off the road after passing me?” I don’t recall which of us answered, but the answer was: “We were lost and stopped at a house to try and get some directions.” Unanimously, almost as if on cue, everybody joined in the conversation in support of that lie. We could tell that the patrolman was less than convinced. “There’s been a prison break and we are looking for some escapees.”
At that time I realized, in my pre-law thinking, that we had the evidence to prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. “Let us open the trunk and we will show you our tennis rackets.” It was my impression, at least, that prison escapees would not choose to steal tennis rackets so that they could impersonate a high school tennis team as part of a get-away scheme. So we piled out of the car, opened the trunk, and proudly displayed our tennis rackets, the kind that you had to put in a wooden press after each use to correct the natural warping of the wood. The patrolman was sufficiently convinced.
We were let off Scott free (whatever that means), although none of us were Scottish.
I can’t even remember who drove us back home after the match. But I do distinctly remember one unforgettable aspect of the tennis match. I was selected to play their guy who had only one arm. He would tuck his racket under his left stub, throw up the ball a little higher than usual with his good right arm, grab the racket from under his stub, reset his legs and feet, and mightily hit the serve wherever he wanted to hit it in the box before me. He had something to prove, and he proved it convincingly. He destroyed me unmercifully. My teammates now had the goods on me. I was the brunt of some rather cruel jokes for a time thereafter.
At that point in time, standing in the civic center, Nealy Barrett began telling a story about how he painfully lost a high school wrestling match to a totally blind kid. Those are the kinds of stories that start surfacing when a bunch of turkey hunters get together for a social event, especially where free beer is on tap.