Scouts' Honor
An audience-participation episode of The Habit Weekly.
One of the main reasons I moved The Habit Weekly to Substack was to allow for back-and-forth between readers in the comments section. This week’s episode includes a writing prompt. Should you choose to participate, I’d love to see your story in the comments below.
A friend of mine spent a little time in jail in Carrollton, Georgia. By “a little time” I mean however long it took for his momma to come pick him up. (He had been driving on an expired license, in case you were wondering.) It was a short stint, but he was in jail long enough to witness a remarkable scene. He was in a holding cell with a young man named Russell,* who was sobering up after his night of roistering had been interrupted by the police.
It was just the two of them until a third criminal was brought to the cell shouting and scuffling. “I aint going back to New Mexico!” he was saying. “Don’t make me go back to New Mexico!”
They had picked him up on a parole violation. He wasn’t supposed to leave the state of New Mexico, but there he was, in Carrollton, Georgia. The officer slammed the iron door behind him, and the cell seemed very crowded all of a sudden. My friend and Russell stared at the wild-eyed parole violator. He stared back, eyeing first one, then the other of his cellmates. Then the he got a peculiar look as he focused on Russell. He lifted a finger and pointed at him. “Say, you’re from Whitesburg, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Russell said warily. “I’m from Whitesburg.”
“I know you,” the parolee said. “You was in my boy scout troop! I’m Billy Womack.”
Recognition dawned on Russell’s face. “Your dad was the scoutmaster, wasn’t he?”
It was a happy reunion those two had in the Carroll County jail. When my friend’s mother arrived, the two former boy scouts were still reminiscing on better times.
* The names “Russell” and “Billy Womack” are fictional. The rest of the story, however, was told to me for the truth.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
This week’s Audience Participation activity is a fiction assignment: Write a scene in which you envision a boy scout troop meeting attended by young Russell and Billy Womack. Click the ‘Leave a Comment’ button below to post your scene for public consumption and comment. (For some of you, this will be as much an exercise in courage as in fiction-writing. Be of good courage! Be of good cheer!) This should be good.
Amy Baik Lee has a homeward ache.
Amy Baik Lee has written that in every place her life has taken her, "there have been hints of beauty and great knocks of mercy that have called to me from beyond my surroundings, always speaking of a King and Friend and Father whose presence is truly Home.” That sense of longing, those clues that maybe we were made for a different world, make their way out in every thing Amy writes, and especially in her new book, This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today. In this episode, Amy and I talk about homeward longing, the idea of Sehnsucht, and the importance of writing in community.
"Billy's brother knows karate."
Russell had leaned in close to whisper this in my ear so the den mother, Ms. Womack, who also happened to be Billy's mother, wouldn't hear him.
"So what?" I replied.
"He said he would teach us some if we want," Russell explained. "Finish your craft so we can go outside."
We were working on Mother's Day soup can pen holders for our mom's, which involved removing the soup can label and replacing it with a new, hand drawn label. It was a confusing task in relation to the adventures I expected to be having in the Cub Scouts, and the dining room in the tiny apartment was cramped and hot, so the invitation outside to learn karate was motivational. I hastily signed my label in crayon, wrapped my can, and got the checkmark from Ms. Womack.
We slipped out the kitchen door into the small grassy area behind the apartment building. Billy's brother was a 5th grader, and he seemed to be at least a foot taller than the rest of us. He was standing underneath a streetlight, and a small circle of 3rd graders had already formed around him. Billy was walking around the inside of the circle asking for a volunteer to step up for a lesson from his big brother. A kid named Ronnie, who I thought seemed pretty tough, stepped into the ring. Billy's brother immediately snapped a front kick into his mid-section, and Ronnie doubled over and fell down.
We scattered. I ran toward the parking lot where I saw my mom in her Volvo station wagon waiting to pick me up. I saw Russell's mom in her Toyota Tercel, but no sign of Russell. I looked back to see Russell still standing under the streetlight in a karate stance facing Billy's brother, with Billy in the middle acting as the referee.
I don't know how that match ended because that was the last time I saw Russell, Billy, or Billy's brother. When I got into the car I explained to my mom that I didn't think that scouting was for me. She agreed.
That’s funny. My parents live in Carroll County Virginia and I feel like this event could have just as easily happened in that jailhouse.