Time's Witness by Michael Malone

Utopias share? No lawyers.”
    “That and failure.” I asked him again, “You come alone?”
    “Yeah.” He pointed at a midsized motorcycle leaning under the shadow of the gate; it surprised me—he didn’t seem the type; plus he was wearing chinos and loafers.
    “Whooee, Professor, your balls must be charged with anti-freeze.” I meant it friendly, but he took offense and walked away, stiff-backed, without a kiss-my for a tired police chief on his night off, driving twenty miles through sleet to stop some rednecks from maybe chucking a brick at his head. I bet back in the sixties Hillston cops must have just loved Jack Molina.
    Before I rolled my window up, I heard a strange sudden howl, so sharp in the dark quiet that Molina jumped back a step, his heel striking the drum can like a gunshot. It was a sound like a mountain lion might make that had somehow managed to walk out of the Smokies down to the Piedmont, and was claiming the territory. I called to Molina, “Keep in touch if you see any more of those trucks.” He turned around, nodded, and raised his hand in good-bye.
    It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I wondered if the yell had been George Hall, finding out they weren’t going to kill him in nine more hours. When they told him, twenty-eight days probably sounded like a long time.

chapter 3
    Clouds had quit and hurled themselves out of the way of the moon and a few stars; the slush had washed off, so the drive back to Hillston was fast. On both sides of the highway, winter trees twisted up like coral reefs, and the road was so lonesome I might just as well have been under the sea. Patsy Cline sang “Crazy” and Loretta Lynn sang “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man.” Some folks fight, some folks cry.
    Airport Road comes into town from the north, so I figured I’d go back by the Hillston Club to tell Justin and Alice what I’d heard at Dollard Prison. It was 1:00 A.M. when I drove down the poplar-lined entrance. The Mercedeses and Cadillacs had thinned out in the parking lot, but there were still plenty of Saabs and BMWs left; Justin's old Austin wasn’t among them, but maybe they’d come with somebody else, or maybe Alice had left early with the car. Out on the pitch-black fairways, I could hear some golf carts tearing around, girls shrieking “Faster!” and guys hollering “Fore!” The whole white-columned wood front was still lit up with twinkling Christmas lights, and the Jimmy Douglas Orchestra appeared to have shucked off the past, at least as far as early Motown, because even outside I could hear them chopping up the Supremes’ “Baby Love” in the worst way.
    It was clear that the older half of “the number” (as well as most of the staff) had abandoned the ball, or been locked in the basementby the younger set. On the couch where I’d seen A.R. Randolph's granddaughter passed out in her red satin gown, I now saw a young disheveled couple kissing like they never expected to get another chance; they’d pull apart, gasp for air, and plunge back in like they were trying to save somebody from drowning. Two young men in their ruffled shirts were fencing with brass pokers beside the giant Christmas tree. Somebody smart had blown out all its little candles just when there’d been nothing left but wax nubs between that tree and a flaming inferno; Hillston's whole high society could’ve burnt up like Confederate Atlanta. On the parquet floor, two young bare-foot women sat, their dresses spread like bright parachutes, each chugging a bottle of champagne while watching the fencers. “Aren’t they silly?” said one. “I think men are the silliest things I ever saw in my whole life, I really do, I mean, you know, don’t you? Don’t you think, Steffie, men are just, well, I don’t know, silly? Or something.”
    Steffie opened her mouth, but then slowly shook her head as if her thoughts on the subject were too complex.
    In the ballroom, the guests still on their feet (there