And, I suppose, Trump would tell his followers he loves Ralph Reed, as well (if he thought there was a dollar in doing so).
The Fulton County Jail had only been open a few months when we moved into the house on Warfield Street at the corner of Tilden in what was then called (pre-gentrification) Knight Park. There were a lot fewer houses and hardly any trees blocking the line of sight to the Jail. There was a homeless encampment in shacks put up by the Mad Housers down in the meadow between Us and The Man.
The parking lot of the jail was empty except for some Sheriff’s cruisers and a shitload of abortion protesters stinking up the neighbourhood because Ralph Reed, suburban infection and founder of the Christian Coalition, was being held there for a few hours.
“Where you going with that?” Jackie asked as I headed out to the lawn with my golf bag. “Target practice,” I said.
The first ball was a high 5 iron swat that landed in roughly the centre of the mob. I saw three cruisers immediately leave and some other deputies running out to the car lot so I just sat down figuring I could spit on that protesting trash as I got hauled in past them.
“What do you call this?” yelled the guy in the middle car as they came to a stop in front of me. “Just trying to help out, sir.” He got out and chuckled in the sort of terrifying way Fulton County coppers do.
Then instead of kicking the shit out of me, he squatted next to me and, pointing at the structure said, “there’s ballistic glass in the windows over there so you can’t really do any damage to the building. Can you give us a minute to move the cars?” Turned out, they recognised me from taxi work (cops and cabbies deal with a lot of the same people) and the Checker sitting in our driveway had probably bought me a bit of good will.
I looked back at the house and waved Jackie off from where she was fretting behind the screen door, then gave her the universal, “bring me a bottle of beer when you get a sec,” hand sign. The other two cars left and the guy with me asked about the carbon fibre shafts on my driver and 3-wood, and if I used the Bobby Jones course a couple miles away. Another cruiser pulled up and tossed my first golf ball discretely on the bank of the culvert in front of us. “Titlest #4?” he asked then drove away before I could say, “thanks”.
A few minutes later, the Sheriff’s vehicles were gone except for the one I could see blocking the way into the neighbourhood down at Marietta Blvd (there are a lot of Marietta named roads in the area). Then, the guy I had spoken to came out to the parking lot near the protestors and, looking not-quite-in-my-direction, stretched his left hand up in the air above his head and blew three long, loud whistle blasts through the fingers of his right hand. I tee’d up as he walked back inside.
Atlantans don’t like it when outsiders fuck with them, Jackie reminded me a couple days ago when Trump’s fourth indictment came down. She also reminded me of this story and said that at the time she was only disappointed I wasn’t a better golfer.
Of course, Ralph Reed and his minions didn’t have Secret Service protection. And, I’m too old and too far away. Were but there only existed a scratch player/patriot.
Endless British Pub Crawl (Part 3) 