Byrd Man

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

"Personally, I think it's the world's fault."

Scott Andrews watched through a two-way glass as Sergeants Mark Echols and Danny Johnson interrogated a skinny white boy with cuts and sores on his face. The boy sat at a bolted down table, smoking cigarettes, while Echols sat across from him. Danny stood by the door, his arms crossed and scowling. When it was a white suspect Mark played the nice guy, Danny the angry black man. When they had a black man Danny was their brotha and Mark played up his accent, the racist redneck peckerwood sheriff stereotype.

Echols shuffled paper and scanned over the boy's file before looking up. "Says here you never knew your daddy. Alcoholic mamma, it was your grandmamma that raised you. You didn't ask to be brought into this world, Pat. You inherited this shitty place and time from your shitty parents. You were given a raw deal the second you started breathing, son. How else were you supposed to respond but with anger?"

Scott smiled. Fucking Echols. He was an asshole for sure, but goddamn could he work a suspect over. Within a few minutes of talking to a man he could take their measure and figure out exactly what motivated them. He could employ just the right amount of hate and affection to get someone to tell their deepest, darkest secrets. The only other person even close to being like that was Billy. They both had a way of cutting through all the bullshit and presumptions and false fronts a person showed the world and get down to that bedrock underneath. There was only one man Scott could ever remember not being broken by Echols and that was Chew Lewis. The unstoppable force could beaten to shit by that immovable object.

Echols said, "We're all trapped by forces that we don't understand, son. You think I want to be in this room, talking to you about beating up an old lady for her welfare money? No. Fuck no. But here we are. You know DJ, right? Big DJ, runs around town getting into all kinds of shady shit? That's Sergeant Johnson's son."

Scott saw Danny bristle slightly. DJ went to work for Billy right after he dropped out of high school six years ago. Six years on and it still drove Danny crazy that his own son listened to Billy Brown more than he listened to him.

"You're not the only one trapped by circumstance, Vincent. But you have a chance to break the cycle you are trapped in. Tell me about what you did. Confess and we can get you off drugs and get your life back on a right path, a path that will be of your choosing."

Scott shook his head and left just as the boy started to talk to Echols all about the shit he'd done. He walked through the halls of the sheriff's department. It's concrete walls painted pink and hard linoleum floor looked like a school because it was. Old Pickett County High closed ten years ago and the PCSD took over the building. It was cheaper than having to renovate the old building or build a brand new one. Scott's office was the classroom where he took Mrs. Chase's English in the 11th grade. He remember Scooter Redman broke into the school one night and took a shit on Mrs. Chase's desk. Thankfully it was a different desk now.

He plopped behind it and logged into his computer. He found Howard Beggs' file. His stats, his listed address as being somewhere across the state in Florence County. Said Carol Johnson picked up his bail. He knew Carol, she was one of Jed's women. There was a start there. Scott expanded the search to the state, see what kind of shit Beggs got up to outside of Pickett. He got nothing. He went wider. He got nothing in Georgia and North Carolina. Howard Beggs' arrest last week was his first stop. That bothered Scott a whole hell of a lot. The way he remembered Beggs, there was no way in hell that was his first pop.

Scott drummed on his desk for a few minutes before he stood up and headed towards the parking lot. He passed by the interrogation room on his way out. The boy was crying as he wrote a confession, Echols with a hand on his shoulder and saying comforting words as the boy condemned himself to at least five years of prison.

*****

John Norman turned his pick-up truck down the dirt road that ran off Anderson Street near the outskirts of town. The truck bounced down the bumpy road road towards an empty, weed-filled lot that sat by train tracks. He knew there were eyes on me, watching his approach the tracks from more than one hidden vantage point. He pulled to a stop just twenty feet from the tracks and parked the truck.

A bird whistle sounded somewhere off in the distance as he got out and walked over the train tracks and towards the clump of woods on the other side. They'd know he was coming. Good, thought John, that'd make it easier. After a short walk through the woods, he came out to a large, open field. A ratty old camper sat parked in the field without a truck hitched to it. The original white paint on the side of the trailer had faded so much it was now a bright gray, dents and dings ran up the side of the camper. The entire field had the faint smell of cat piss that often accompanies methamphetamine. The door to the camper opened with a rusty squeak and a fat man wearing faded blue jeans and a stained red t-shirt came out. He had the same dark brown almost black hair as John's, just a whole hell of a lot thinner on top. It was so thin you could see his scalp underneath the wisps of hair. John hid a smile. He'd been going bald since he was twenty. In another five years, he'd completely hairless up top. He scowled as John approached. His scowl faded some as soon as he recognized him.

"John," George Silvers said with a suspicious look. "The hell you doing here?"

"Guy can't drop in and see his kin without having a motive?"

"Not when he's working," he said with a thumb pointed back at the trailer. "C'mon, John, I got shit to do, man."

"Just want you to help me find someone."

"C'mon, John." George held his hands up. "I know you ain't law, but if it gets around that I'm helping snitch on my customers, it ain't gonna look good on me."

"George," John said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the photo of Beggs. "All you gotta do is tell me if this guy comes around to buy from you. If he does, that means he'll be back. All you gotta do is call me when he shows up. I'll stay back on Anderson and wait until he's far away from here before I make my move, okay? You do this and I'll owe you one. Here, look at the photo. Fella named Howard Beggs. Looks like he may be one of your patrons."

George scrutinized John for a few long seconds, looking at his face to try and see what he was thinking, or if he was bullshitting him. Finally, he gave up and started studying the photo. George hadn't asked why John wanted to find Beggs, and John didn't plan on tell him. George probably assumed it was a debt and left it at that. John figured that while Parker was an asshole and a dumb shit, he may be right about most people being open to talking to him over any of his deputies.

"Looks familiar," said George. He scratched the patchy stubble under his chin. "Can't place him right off, but I have seen him around. What'd he do?"

"He bout a quarter pound of weed from me" John lied. "Fucker said he'd pay half now and half later and that was a week ago."

"Fuck, John," George cackled. "You the dumbass then. Thinking this tweaker motherfucker is gonna pay anybody back."

John popped his knuckles and scowled. That shut George right the hell up. He clammed up and went back to the photo. George nodded and kept rubbing his chin. John let him stand there in silence, thinking of what to say next. He figured George was either coming up with a lie, which John would be able to call bullshit on right away, or actually trying to remember something.

"When he did come up to the camper," George finally said. "He had someone with him. Shit, what was her name? Uhh, damn. I used to know it... Carol something..."

"Johnson?"

"Fuck yeah," George said, snapping his fingers. "Yep, he was with Carol Johnson! She paid for it. See, unlike you Johnny I get the full amount up front. It's just good business."

John scowled. "Know whereabouts Carol is staying?"

"Can't say that I do," he said with a shrug. "I just make and sell the shit to 'em, I don't socialize with 'em."

John lit a cigarette. George asked for one and he told him to go fuck himself.

"If him or Carol come back here, you call me. You got my phone, right?"

"Sure do."

John nodded and waved to George.

"Later, cousin."

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

John Norman smoked a cigarette and sat on his couch. His stomach still ached from Parker's suckerpunch. Just like the goddamn police to throw a cheapshot. He blew smoke and flipped through the PCSD's file on Howard Beggs. His one listed known associate was Jeff Silvers. Of course, if this guy was a tweaker he'd know Jeff pretty well. Jeff ran a cookhouse near the McCormick County line. He and John were cousins in some farback way, one of John's great-uncles fucked one of Jeff's grandmas or something. He couldn't remember, bloodlines in this county ran deep and ran confusing.

Bloodlines...

The Norman Family was once royal blood in this town. His great-grandaddy and his four brothers were hellacious hellraisers. They were a bunch of bad apples sired by an apple ten times as rotten as they could ever be. His name was Elijah or something. John didn't know for sure, he'd never asked and never really cared. He came to Pickett County around the turn of the twentieth century. Nobody knows where he came from. Talk over the years had him as everything from just a half-wit day laborer to a serial killer who roamed from town to town killing women. Whatever he was, he decided to put roots down in this tiny county just on the South Carolina/Georgia line. He was supposed to have been a real asshole, a drunk who beat on his wife and would start fights any chance he got. As bad as he was, though, it was the five kids he and his wife had that would put the stamp on the Norman name.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter Norman. Apostles who worshiped at the altar of violence and crime. In the twenties they ran all the liquor and 'shine through this part of the state. They partied, they fucked, they drank, and anybody who got in their way got killed. They married local women, bloodlines diffused. Subsequent generations were tough, but never as tough as the old breed. He shared his name with one of the old men. The first John Norman was a cop. He was a mean sumbitch that ran the Pickett town police with an iron fist. He killed three black men in the line of duty. He died of a massive coronary in the early seventies. It soon came out he'd sent six innocent black men to death row, those three other men he killed in the line of duty weren't so much of a threat as he made out like. Pickett town PD got shut down soon after.

Norman Family lore held that Billy Brown was the cost for their sinful ways. Divine retribution in the form of a sociopathic former millworker. In truth, it was the same story that had been told over and over since time immemorial. The Normans got sloppy and they got complacent. By the 80's, they'd been running things in Pickett County for three generations and close to sixty years. A hungry new rival challenged them and they lost, inch by inch and bit by bit. The Pickett County War, they called it. Daniel Norman was one of the casualties. John was just a baby when he died in 1987. Officially, the case remains unsolved but everybody sure as shit knows who did him.

And he was working for the son of a bitch that killed his daddy.

John sighed, stubbed his cigarette out. Those thoughts always brought him back to a bad place, a place where he just wanted to kill Billy and burn all that he had and all that he stood for. Instead of focusing on them, he went back to the file. It said Beggs had been bailed out by Carol Johnson. Of fucking course Carol would be involved in this shit. It was just too perfect.

Thoughts of Carol only made John angrier. He sighed and looked out his window. Light was beginning to peak through the trees. Overcast skies meant for a gray and rainy day. It was just after six on a Sunday. Way too damn early to start, especially on a Sunday here in Pickett. John left the file on his coffee table and padded back to his bedroom to get some sleep.

*****

DJ popped a Jolly Rancher. The clock on his dash said just after nine. Jim Brown dozed in the passenger seat. Or at least he seemed to be dozing. DJ knew that at a moment's notice he'd spring awake as if he'd never been sleeping at all. That little ability was just one of the many reasons DJ thought of Jim Brown as one of the scariest white men he knew. Yeah Billy could be mean, but he at least had human emotions. He could get mad or get happy. Jim Brown was always the same, like he was bored and detached and it didn't matter if he was asking about the weather or shoving a gun in a man's face, he always acted like he'd rather be somewhere else.

A slow drizzle came down through the clouds and scattered drops of rain on the windshield of DJ's car. They were parked down a narrow street in the Norman part of Pickett. The house they were watching sat in the middle of the block. Like the rest of the homes here, it was small and block concrete on the outside. A black escalade sat parked in the driveway. DJ stifled a yawn and shook his head. He'd been up late last night. There was the basketball game in the afternoon then a few late night parties. For once everyone was talking up the basketball team instead of football and only football. That little Antwan could ball. He might have a shot. But then again, they said the exact same shit about him and here he was, doing strongarm work on a Sunday morning.

Shitwork for Roland Spencer. Billy told both of them last night they'd be doing some collections for Spencer all day Sunday and into Monday. Fucking Roland, always talking that bullshit like he was doing the two of them a favor by letting them work collections. Like he had a choice in the matter, like he wouldn't have to start barking if Billy said speak. His business with Billy was loaning out money at insanely high interest rates, just one of the many community services they provided to the good black people of Pickett.

"There he is," Jim Brown said very suddenly.

Like DJ had figured, he was awake and sitting upright and watching Rayray Tatum waddle out of his house in his finest Sunday suit. DJ started up the car and sped down the block, skidding to a stop in front of his driveway and blocking his car. He and Jim Brown jumped out as Rayray came off the steps.

"Shit."

"Morning," Jim Brown said. "See you headed for church."

Rayray started to back up towards his porch. Before he could get too far, DJ was on him and had his hands on the lapel of his suit. Rayray was big, but it was all mushy and soft. DJ got in close, playing the bad cop.

"I always like the story of Saul and Paul," DJ said with a smirk. "Saul, that motherfucker was greedy. Like how you is greedy, taking and taking and taking from Mr. Spencer without paying him back."

"I can get the money," Rayray stammered. "It's just my momma's sick, and Wendell's Friday night game at the club I--"

DJ slapped him in the face with an open hand. Hard, but not hard enough to draw blood. It was just hard enough to shut him up and make him worry.

"You know what happened to Saul?"

DJ shoved hard. Rayray tottered backwards and slipped on the soggy grass, falling down flat on the ground with a loud umph.

"Motherfucker fell off his ass and saw the light. You hear me, Rayray? Do you see the light?"

"I'll get him his money."

"See that you do," said Jim Brown. "If you ain't paid back what you owe plus interest, some two thousand dollars, we'll be back and we'll make sure the last fucking light you see is the flash of our guns."

DJ winked at Rayray and smiled. "God bless you, Brother Tatum. Enjoy the preaching."

They walked back to DJ's car, leaving a dirty and stammering Rayray in the dirt that was quickly becoming mud. in the steadily increasing rain.

I, Arabicus: An alternate history RP set in Late Antiquity

So I'm wondering with the Empire still the biggest swinging dick on the block, what's up with the Catholic Church? I'm assuming they wouldn't have the same truck with the rest of the world with Rome as top dog. Also, what about the schism is that yet to happen?

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Shirtless Donald Trump: NO MAN CAN BEAT ME!

Armored Carly Fiorina: I am no man.

*Stabs*

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I think the only the thing I'm looking forward to in this coming election cycle is the massive culling of the twenty-something odd Republican field. Hopefully we'll get to see some kind of knife fight in the snow banks of New Hampshire.

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

Here's another video for inspiration. Walking Tall, the original one.

I, Arabicus: An alternate history RP set in Late Antiquity

I am interested. I have no fucking idea of what I could possibly do, but I am interested.

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

Pickett County, South Carolina

Scott Andrews rolled through Pickett in his unmarked car. Just after three in the morning and his twelve-hour day shift behind him. The small southern town was deserted this late at night. Even the Grab N' Go, open twenty-four hours a day, only had just the cashier's lone car in its parking lot. He followed the highway through the heart of town, pulling off and cruising through Norman.

He saw cars rolling through the narrow streets, people standing on porches and in yards still partying and unwinding on a Saturday night. Of course they were still up in the Jungle. Their kind seemed to be nocturnal. There was a bit of a stiffening among the black citizens of Pickett when they made Scott's car as a cop. He smiled in the dark. Goddamn right. You may not respect much, but you will fucking respect that badge.

Scott pulled into the gravel parking lot of Club 65 at fifteen minutes after three. He saw Wendell and Lisa's cars in the parking lot, along with that familiar old red pick-up truck. Club 65 closed at midnight on Saturdays because of the sabbath. That day still had power over the people here even if they were a lawless and godless. Pickett may be Pickett, but the South was still the South, and in the South, Sunday was sacred.

He spat tobacco juice on the ground as he got out and sauntered towards the club. It wasn't much to look at. A concrete building with a plain roof and a cheap sign that announced what it was. He walked through the door into the bar. Wendell stood behind the bar, cleaning glasses while Lisa wiped down tables and put overturned chairs on them. The one table she did not touch was the one Billy sat at.

The sight of Billy made Scott smile. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and reading glasses. In his lap was a biography on Napoleon. He was on the heavy side and had snowy white hair. To anyone not in the know, Billy Brown looked like just another Southern cracker. With the reading glasses he looked like an old Southern cracker. Not in one hundred years would you figure out this old man with his glasses was the crime lord of this county.

"Take a seat," Billy said with a broad smile.

Scott gave Wendell and Lisa polite nods before he sat across the table from Billy. He closed his book and placed it on the table, placing his glasses on top of the book.

"Just getting to the good part. Peace between Napoleon and Alexander I has broken down and Napoleon is marching into Russia." A soft chuckle from Billy.

"Oh, yeah?" John asked to be polite.

"Yep."

The soft smile from Billy started to fade away. He leaned back in his chair and considered Scott for a moment. His small, brown eyes had a way to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of a man's soul. He had an eye for human weakness that Scott had only seen matched by Mark Echols in the interrogation room.

"That guy I told you to pop last week. That traffic stop bullshit."

Scott raised an eyebrow at that. While on the outside he looked curious, inside he was a bundle of nerves. He'd botched the thing up to hell and back. It was supposed to be simple. He'd been following the guy all day and he was moving in and... fucking Sherry had come up on him as backup before he had a chance to--

"Yeah," Scott said softly. "I remember."

"I know you did," Billy said with his face of stone. "You are goddamn right you remember fucking up. This guy, this Howard Beggs guy is in the fucking wind and I can't find no hide nor hair of 'em. So, Major, I want you to use all the power of your sheriff's department to find him. Find him and take care of him."

Billy didn't say what he meant. He did not have to. He also didn't mention pay. Scott also knew why. He still owed Billy for the last job. The old man laughed again, his harsh mood seemingly gone as quickly as it had arrived.

"I been reading history for nearly fifty years, Scott. You know what I find the most interesting? Kings, emperors, monarchs. What is it that makes an entire country of people fear one man, believe that that one man has been declared by God to be the ruler of these people? What keeps them in line?"

Billy's hard little eyes cut through Scott again. Unblinking and unyielding.

"Fear. One man can make an entire population fear him just by reputation alone. It's a hell of a thing. And when someone does step out of line?"

Billy ran a finger under his throat. He flashed a grin at Scott and winked.

"Now get out of here, and get to work."

******

At five in the morning they came for John.

A loud pounding woke John up from his slumber. He looked around his small bedroom for its source. Another round of pounding. John grabbed the gun he kept under his pillow and got out of bed, clad in only his boxers.

“Open up,” a voice said from outside. “Pickett County Sheriff’s!”

John grunted. Fucking cops. They always pulled chicken shit like this, thinking they were clever to after you this late at night. He padded through the small trailer, tucking the gun into one of the cabinets in the kitchen, and opened the door.

Clint Land stood on the porch, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. Behind him was sheriff Gene Parker in a suit and tie and chewing a toothpick and looking as smug as hell. His fat, ruddy face was coronary red even in the dim porch lighting. Somewhere nearby a dog barked in the night.

Land said, “Against the wall, shirtbird. Spread ‘em.”

John quietly complied. He leaned against the sheet metal of the trailer’s exterior and let Land pat him down. Fucking fool, trying to pat down a naked man. But that was Land in a nutshell. He used to be a big deal back when he was in school and thought that meant he could do anything. He left home for a few years and saw the world for what it was and came running back home with his tail between his legs. His pride wounded, he took the authority that came with a badge and gun and tried to overcompensate for the fact that he would never be anything but a has been.

“He’s clean.”

“Goddamn right,” said John. "Frisking a man in his boxers, the fuck is wrong with you?"

Parker spat. “Clint, go sit in the car while John and I talk.”

Land slowly acknowledge and went towards the sheriff's car that had boxed in John's beat up pickup truck. Parker wiped sweat from his head. Even though it was still the middle of the night, it was still plenty humid enough to make a man work up a sweat simply by just beating outside.

"For the past month, I've had Danny and Mark looking into you. They've tailed you to that property out on Trask Road where you're growing that pot. They took photos of you coming and going, taken photos of what's on the land, and got you meeting with Jeff Silvers and at least two more known drug dealers here in the county."

"So why ain't I already in county lock-up," John spat. "If you're gonna arrest me, arrest me you cocksucker."

Parker laughed. He grinned. He moved quickly, sucker-punching John in the chest. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath. Parker patiently waited for him to recover. A few minutes later, John was back on his feet and rubbing his sore chest. If not for the fact a man with a shotgun was nearby, the sheriff would be struggling to breath his ownself as John throttled the life from him.

The sheriff reached into his suit coat and brought something out. Inside was a mugshot of a man with long, stringy blond hair that was either dirty blond hair, or he actually had dirt in it. John couldn't tell. The man also had a blond goatee. His face, which was bony and looked emaciated, was marked by sores on the cheeks and around the mouth. His eyes were set back in the sockets, his blue eyes looking out at the camera with a wide stare that bordered on insane. Accompanying the photo was a three-page arrest record with Pickett County Sheriff's Department letterhead on it.

"Tweaker," John said with a rasp. "Don't fucking know who he is."

"Howard Beggs," Parker grunted. "He got run in last week for possession of meth. Made bail and then disappeared off the face of the earth. Find him and call me, I'll get some of my deputies to pick him up."

"I ain't a fucking bounty hunter."

"I know, Johnny," Parker said with a wide smile. "But you can find him or you can go to jail."

"Why me? You got deputies, you got detectives who can knock on doors and beat bushes."

"He's important," Parker said petulantly. "Because I fucking say so. And you need to stop asking questions before I change my mind and decide to have you locked up. Is that reason enough?"

John shrugged. He was getting annoyed and tired of Parker's schitck, but what the hell could he do?

"I had Mark and Danny going through his usual haunts and friends. Nothing. Plus, where Beggs is concerned, I can't use my men." Parker lowered his voice and leaned forward. "People tend to clam up when a man with a badge starts asking questions. But you're a Norman..."

"Well well well. The plot thins."

Parker furrowed his brow before shaking his head. "Call it whatever you want, son. I just need a man with a certain reputation. All I am offering is a simple choice: Do this, or you can go to jail for growing and dealing pot. Choice is yours."

John looked at the file Parker had given him and sighed. The fat man grinned wide. John tucked the folder under his arm and shook his head.

"Fuck it. I'll see what I can do."

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

A Morden Man/Byrd Man 1x1

Welcome to Pickett County, South Carolina. Situated in Upstate of South Carolina, Pickett is without a doubt the worst county in the state. Nearly all of its people are well below the poverty line, and all local industry left the county a decade earlier thanks to cheap overseas labor. With no jobs, the unemployment rate continuously hovers around 20%. Crime and vice have become Pickett's chief export. People from the state and nearby Georgia flock to the county to have a good time. The county seat, Pickett, is better known by its moniker of Saloon City. Drugs, gambling, violence, and prostitution all have become rampant in a county of only 25,000 people.

This backwoods cesspool is filled with crooked politicians, bent sheriff's deputies, meth tweakers, and peckerwood redneck drug dealers. On one side of the line is Billy Brown, the undisputed kingpin of Pickett. Anything that goes on in Pickett County does so with Billy's consent. On the other side is Sheriff Eugene Parker, a five-term sheriff who is a county institution. The only thing Gene Parker cares about more than getting reelected is destroying Billy and his fiefdom. For nearly twenty years a simmering hatred between the two men has been bubbling just beneath the surface. Now, a dead meth head threatens to tear the fragile peace asunder and plunge all of Pickett County into open warfare.

While those wallow in the mire, plenty seek to make their escape. Antwan Dixon, the biggest athletic prospect to come out of Pickett County in years, faces temptation from all quarters. As family and friends size him up as their lifelong meal ticket, Antwan comes to grips on what he is, his place in world, and what it takes to truly break free from the quicksand-like hold Pickett County as on all of its residents.

Welcome to Pickett County, son. Make sure you got your weapon and hold on tight.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I'm planning on going America all over everybody's ass fairly soon.