The Dark Boy
Eventually, the novel becomes a story of two childhood friends whose trek toward adulthood goes down two divergent paths. Hugh’s mother senses trouble before it really becomes trouble, but is helpless to stop the inevitable. “She found his cigarettes, confronted him, and was told not to worry because all the kids were smoking…She smelled beer on his breath and he laughed it off…He was skipping school and Sunday Mass and running with a rougher crowd. Lance ignored her concerns at home and said the kid was just a teenager. His new direction in life, and his father’s indifference, added another strain to a marriage that was slowly unraveling.” The imagery of a teenager experimenting with those things that become more serious if not addressed paints a portrait of the outward radiation of corruption. Hugh is following his father’s Lance path into darkness and their marriage is poised to become merely an early victim of Hugh’s decision to emulate the wrong parent.
The Good Guys?
A reform-minded politician wants desperately to “clean up the Coast” and the imagery of his campaign is supposed to be one clearly dividing the good guys and the bad guys in this fight. “Through the spring of 1967, Jesse hit the civic club circuit and made dozens of speeches. The Rotarians, Civitans, Lions, Jaycees, Legionnaires, and others always sought lunch speakers and would invite almost anyone in the news…As always, he avoided naming names, but quickly rattled off joints like Red Velvet, Foxy’s, O’Malley’s, Carousel, the Truck Stop, Siesta, Sunset Bar, Blue Ocean Club, and others as examples of `pits of iniquity that had no place in a new Gulf Coast.” The critical point here is the mention that this took place in 1967. That was back when it was automatically assumed that members of civic organizations like those listed above were white knights of the community. That these organizations often proved to have members that were also frequent customers at nightclubs and bars like those listed above would eventually undermine both sides.
B-Drinking
Biloxi itself was a den iniquity back when it was essentially being run by the Dixie Mafia. An economy held together by criminal activity is probably the only example where trickle-down theory actually holds in practice. “The green drinks were nothing but sugar water and each included a colorful plastic swizzle stick with a cherry on top. In due course, the girls would collect the swizzle sticks and hide them in a pocket. When the night was over and they settled up, they would be paid fifty cents per stick, nothing per hour. The more drinks they solicited, the more money they made.” The trickling down of finances churned by illegal activity just about reaches the ground floor in the process known as “B-drinking’ which is described here. The key to making it work, of course, was while all the locals were aware of the rules of the game, tourists—especially those temporarily calling the region’s multiple military bases home—were not.
Biloxi Business
Biloxi is a sleepy little town where hundreds of hotels, restaurants, homes and stores have front doors that are literally less than a five-minute walk from the Gulf of Mexico. It is hardly the place where one would assume business as usual could be described using the following imagery. “The objective was to beat soundly but not to kill. The Boss wanted Cleveland alive, at least for now. Using nothing but his fists, Noll broke both jawbones, split lips, knocked out teeth, closed eyes, lacerated cheeks, and forehead, and separated the nasal bone from the cranial cavity. When the thick boy made more sounds, Noll took a heavy ashtray and drove it into the back of his skull.” The casually professional violence enacted here seems far more suited to Vegas or Atlantic City than Biloxi. During the heyday of the criminal control of the city, however, that is precisely the sort of place Biloxi was behind the picture-postcard scenes of Gulf Coast beach vacations.
