Part 7 (1/2)

”What the fuck difference do thataffects people They have nightet depressed They live in fear after that sort of experience”

”You think I give a fuck!?” Then Link said, ”Why you alorried 'bout other people?”

I asked Link to iine what it would feel like if soood car”

I obviously wasn't getting through ”Did you ever get caught?” I asked

Link was alht once, but only because he abandoned his well-laid plan He made a spontaneous decision

”There was this Little Debbie truck,” he said, ” stops on St Charles Avenue” Link said the driver left the engine running towas inside the truck ”I jump in, take off That motherfucker was a stick shi+ft!” Link jerked his body back and forth as he described the drive down St Charles Avenue ”Zebra Cakes flying all over the motherfuckin' place! Drove five blocks Then hit a motherfuckin' streetcar pole!”

”Were you hurt?”

”fuck, yeah,” Link said, ”racked eous, but he had a sharp sense of huood person I didn't understand how he could rando down the street in New Orleans, would you point a gun at me and take my money?”

”No,” Link said ”I know you”

”Then how can you just point a gun in a woain?”

”When you on crack,” Link said, ”you don't see no faces”

Link joined me often Most of his youth had been spent in and out of juvenile detention centers And Carville was his sixth go-round in prison as an adult Link told me he was only twenty-seven years old He had been shot four times ”Bullet burns like a motherfucker,” he said ”Howat the absurdity of the thought ”fuck, I forgot, bullets just bounce off Clark Kent!” Link threw his head back, laughed, and walked away

Link and I were different in many ways But I had trouble inin 1987 in Oxford, I received a call fro woman named Wendy, who had just been promoted from teller to loan officer When I entered her office, I saw the look on her face, and I knew My heart pounded fast, but I tried to hideI've ever had to say,” she said in her sweet southern drawl Wendy looked down at her desk and said it had co checks Close to tears, she toldto be forced to callaccount, at least for a while And, as if the words almost wouldn't come out of her mouth, she was required to complete a form that would notify the FBI of my activity

I left her office and went to see my only local investor With nowhere else to turn, I explained what had happened When he asked the amount of the overdraft, I told hi of the other investors They agreed to invest another 30,000 We opened a new account at another bank in town The investor's secretary would serve as bookkeeper The next day, I covered the overdraft, paid off the loan, and went aboutthe Oxford Tiot the sense that, in spite of e with the newspaper I had also convinced myself that my actions were justified because the newspaper was important to the community

I didn't tell Linda about the incident I was rattled, but I had a newspaper to get out No time to waste orry I would tell her when the FBI called But they never did The incident was never investigated I never heard another word about it

In a way, I did feel bulletproof And one thing was clear As long as I raised thetoo seriously

I also figured if the investors had put up another 30,000 after I'd been caught kiting, they would follow n to attract new advertisers I fired our delivery boys and shi+fted to direct mail delivery of the Oxford Times Oxford Times It added 2,000 per week to our expenses, but I was certain it would pay off I also hired e, would help le

But the new advertisers never arrived Seven months later, I stood in a US bankruptcy court in Oxford, Mississippi

My investors lost 90,000; local vendors lost ret trying And I refused to endcareer in failure Even as I stood in bankruptcy-an attorney at ain I would take a lesson frole Its editorial restraint had a financial upside I would move to Gulfport, a market thirty times the size of Oxford I would avoid conflict with those in power I would publish a glossy azine that showcased the Mississippi Coast I would focusthe world I had already talked to Linda about et a job to support our family while I raised money for the new venture All I needed was 50,000

As I turned to face those I owed but could not pay, I noticed a singular absence in the courtroole's indolence extended even to my demise I had launched the Oxford Times Oxford Times precisely because the established daily was unresponsive to situations like this Noas the beneficiary of their lethargy There would be no detailed account offunds, no printed opinions surrounding my failure, and no testimony from local merchants who had lost money No one was there to tell the story precisely because the established daily was unresponsive to situations like this Noas the beneficiary of their lethargy There would be no detailed account offunds, no printed opinions surrounding my failure, and no testimony from local merchants who had lost money No one was there to tell the story

CHAPTER 23

Doc's job as an office clerk afforded him access to inside information As a clerk, he made copies, transported memoranduuards So the inuards did

I asked Doc if he'd heard that the patients would be relocated

Doc had read all about the plans toout an annual stipend so patients could pay for their own housing Another plan required displaced patients to be relocated at a nursing home Another option included construction of a new set of dorms on the other side of the colony so the inle

The Bureau of Prisons planned to turn Carville into a massive prison with more than a thousand inmates And the primary objective of each proposal was simple: remove the leprosy patients

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, when Doc took a break froazine expose about Carville I recounted Ella's journey to Carville I told him about a escapades

Doc raised an eyebrow ”Don't believe everything these people tell you”

”The inmates?” I asked ”Or the leprosy patients?”

”Both,” he said ”Theytone, reminded me that the patients were institutionalized The in better to do with their time than tell lies

I felt like I had disappointed hiullible Doc was annoyed that he had to live with these people They were beneath his intellect He didn't want them as friends But I believed the stories The details were too vivid to be fabricated My instincts, everything I had learned as a reporter, told

”They don't have any reason to lie,” I said

Doc didn't answer He went back to reading his medical journal A moment later, he said, ”Just don't believe everybody”

The photograph that appeared in Entrepreneur Entrepreneur azine, 1991

CHAPTER 24

Carville was full of rand schemes trumped common sense Steve Read and I were two of the best examples Three weeks after I declared bankruptcy in Oxford, my family and I moved to Gulfport, Mississippi We lived rent free in my aunt Viola's empty house Linda took a job as a receptionist at a local advertising agency I stayed at hoht out investors My et a job ”You're obviously not cut out for business,” my father told me But he didn't understand I'd read stories about businessmen who rebounded from bankruptcy ”Success is always built upon failure,” I'd read I believed in second chances, and I was perfectly positioned for a comeback Because my financial troubles in Oxford never hit the press, my reputation in my hometown of Gulfport remained unblemished

I presented investors with lossy lifestyle publication for the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a ion situated between New Orleans and Mobile Within three months, I had convinced a local businessazine