The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.
Over the next several weeks, as often as I could, I continued to sit in that grove of Hickory trees and watch our new home rise from the dirt.
Just as I expected, nothing became of the Murray’s deaths. What I mean is neither the Flaming Five, their fathers, or anyone connected to these five prominent families, were ever tied to Bill and Nellie’s deaths. In fact, these cases remained unsolved for almost twenty years. Other than learning that cyanide poisoning had killed them, no other evidence was ever discovered that indicated they were murdered. Of course, I knew in my gut they were.
In looking back, that gut feeling was a major transitional point in my life. That, and a conversation between two block layers that I had overheard where the two had argued over the existence of God with the older man chiding the younger saying, ‘faith is just belief in the absence of evidence.’ These two events or occurrences in my life caused me to start thinking about truth and how to determine what was true.
I understood court cases were not determined simply by gut feelings. Especially criminal cases where the level of proof was much higher than in a civil case. The legal standard was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This level of proof is not proof beyond all doubt. I guess one could say that would be unreasonable to expect that.
Up until Bill and Nellie’s deaths, I had put aside my growing doubts about God. Nellie had been an inspiration to me. She almost convinced me that there was really something to prayer. That changed with her and Bill’s deaths.
I was raised to doubt my doubts and to anchor my life to Christ by faith. But, wasn’t that like having a gut feeling about something? Most of my life I had had a gut feeling that Christ and Christianity were true. Then, a time where I had a gut feeling Christ and Christianity was the single biggest myth ever. But now I realized that my early life commitment to Christ and God was rooted in beliefs implanted in me by nearly everyone around me, certainly the preachers and Sunday School teachers I had sat before and soaked up their every word. I felt like a child to admit that I hadn’t been a critical thinker when it came to my religious life. Oh yes, I was extremely critical in my professional life. I had received an excellent legal education at Emory’s law school. I also realized I had been educated, trained so to speak, by the church. That training was an equipping in compartmentalization. The Bible teachers had taught me to keep my thoughts and live my life in a spiritual bubble, and not to allow my secular world to infiltrate my Christianity.
Gut feelings and faith were simply not enough. There had to be more. I started reading outside the faith. I disobeyed. I rejected compartmentalization. I broke down the walls between my spiritual life and my secular life. I used my critical thinking skills to probe into my Christian beliefs and the overwhelming question that I faced was why does God allow so much suffering in the world?
My mind raced back to May 25, 1972. Why did God allow Wendi and Cindi to be repeatedly raped by the Flaming Five? Why did God allow them to beat them with a shovel, killing Cindi? Why did God allow David to smother Wendi to death? Why did God allow His children to suffer untold pain? Why did I have to suffer through six months of incarceration and the humiliation of a criminal trial? Why did the Flaming Five escape punishment, with their reputations and dignity intact, even though they were rapists and murderers? Why did Bill and Nellie have to die? Why were the true perpetrators not held financially responsible for Wendi and Cindi’s deaths? Why was there no justice for Bill and Nellie? And on and on.
I couldn’t answer any of these questions, but I now believed that either God didn’t care about any of these things, or He was powerless to prevent them from happening. And, it wasn’t because God hadn’t been called upon. I particularly remembered the scripture verse on the index card Nellie gave me the Friday her and Bill came to the office before the trial was to begin on the following Monday: “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22). I had heard Nellie’s prayer and how humbly and specifically she had asked God for His intervention: “Sweet and Holy Jesus we ask you for complete victory in this legal battle against those who murdered our daughters. …. We simply ask you for justice for Wendi and Cindi.”
Why did God not do what He promised He would do? This Bible verse is a prayer promise. It could not be clearer: ask, believe, and receive. Nellie asked, there could be no doubt she believed, but she certainly didn’t receive. But, I can hear Christian apologists. I grew up hearing all their arguments. The very existence of millions of Christian apologists proves the Bible often says one thing, but God does something quite the contrary. Why did the Word not mean what the Word clearly said? No, it couldn’t be honest. It had to be magic. ‘God is mysterious. We do not know the mind of God. God has a plan that is far more loving than we can know.’ I felt beads of sweat popping out across my forehead. I was angry. I was angry that I had been so damn stupid. The Bible was a lie, at least this verse was. I had seen and experienced it firsthand. I knew that a lying Bible didn’t necessarily mean that there was no God, that God didn’t intervene in human affairs, but it sure as hell meant I had been wrong to believe it was the infallible Word of God.
Those damn Christian apologists kept saddling up beside my mind. ‘Micaden, don’t forget that God gave men freewill. All the evil comes about because men are sinners and they choose to do wrong.’ For some reason, this argument no longer made any sense. Even if freewill is the reason for all evil in the world (what about the pain and suffering that comes about naturally? From floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, famines?) wasn’t I taught that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, and all-beneficent? Now, for the first time in my life I realized that God cannot be all these things. How could God be all-loving and yet allow Wendi and Cindi to suffer as they did? I myself tried to help these two precious girls but was stopped by the Flaming Five. I tried to help and I’m just a weak and lowly sinner. God didn’t step in and help because He is not who the Bible says He is. There, I finally said it.
My stomach started rolling when I thought of the two prayer meetings that had taken place the Friday night before the wrongful death trial was to begin on Monday morning. Nelle had invited me and Matt to her church, Calvary Baptist in Douglas. Matt had attended. Her church had a prayer meeting to implore God to favor justice, to give her and Bill victory over those who had caused the death of their dear daughters. But, while that meeting was taking place, First Baptist Church of Christ in Boaz was holding its own prayer meeting for the Flaming Five and their fathers. These fine folks were imploring God to hold back the hand of greed that was attacking their favored sons. So, I’m to conclude that when God gets in a direct conflict like this, He protects those with the higher social standing, those who have more financial resources, all while ignoring the side that has the facts on its side? This doesn’t square with the Bible, or at least, the version that I had been taught.
There was no turning back. My mind was now on a course of truth-seeking. Playing the mental games, I had been brainwashed into playing all my life; were no longer appealing. No, they were absolutely appalling. If Wendi and Cindi, and Bill and Nellie, were ever to receive any justice it wouldn’t come from a non-existent God. But, it might could come from me. And, yet again, I had had a revolutionary thought, one never snapping out in my mind. Could I step in and mete out some justice? I loved these four-beautiful people and they had been treated as the scum of the earth by five prominent families, by both a criminal and civil justice system, and by the Christian God who didn’t exist. There, that day in late November 1998, standing in the middle of the road leading up to our partially framed but roofless dwelling, I determined I would create some form of justice for the four dead, buried, and seemingly forgotten, Murrays.
But, my determination was slow in evolving. My idea to create justice was like so many ideas. It got caught in a revolving door. I became a hamster on a wheel, working to keep justice far, far away from my clients. For the next seventeen years I traveled all over North Alabama defending those accused of every evil under the sun: murder, arson, theft, burglary, and unimaginable sex crimes.
Nevertheless, I never forgot the Murrays and the horrible series of events that began on graduation night 1972. Even though I didn’t pursue actual justice, I did continue to keep score, recording every game played by the Flaming Five, whether private or public, whether coaching and teaching at the Family Life Center, or selling God, money, cars, nails and lumber, and land and houses. One thing never happened. Not one of the Flaming Five ever fouled out of the game. They were masters at running, passing, shooting. I had long concluded they were actors with far better skills than the very best of Hollywood. To every eye but mine, they were in all ways happy and successful. They were bulletproofed, or so it seemed. Justice had never been interested in playing against the Flaming Five. They were simply too quick, too fast, too smart, for justice to survive on the same court.
However, as often happens in life, things changed once again. In 2015, I almost forgot about my loss and my determination to seek justice for the Murrays. It was Monday, February 9th. Lewis lost the love of his life. Susan died in an innocuous car accident, not much more than a fender-bender, at the intersection of Bethsaida Road and Highway 431. Lewis and Susan had married in 2012. Kaden Lewis Tanner, mine and Karla’s only grandchild, was born July 18, 2013. Now, Susan’s near-perfect life had been taken away. By God or fate. An autopsy revealed that she was dying from an inoperable brain tumor. It was in the early stages, revealing itself so far with only an occasional headache. Susan’s death rocked our family and our life. If there was remotely anything positive from the timing of Susan’s death, it was Kaden was less than two years old. Lewis surprised us all. He became the rock we all needed. I still feel ashamed that I almost fell apart while he steeled himself for Kaden. Within two years of Susan’s death, both Lewis and Kaden were living forward. Michael Lewis Tanner was and is a better man than I am.
As bad as these past two years were, they were not bad enough to prevent my mind from returning to the events of May 25, 1972. By early 2017, I once again started having nightmares. When conscious, all I could think about was various levels of injustice in the world. How could a loving God take sweet Susan from Kaden and Lewis? What had she done to deserve that? What had they done to deserve losing their wonderful and kind, wife and mother? And, on a wholly different level, the same questions returned to my mind that I had asked nearly nineteen years earlier. I had to do something.
No doubt it was long past time for new rules. It was time the game changed. It was time justice had a chance. But, I needed a nudge to push me off the hamster wheel.
The Pencil Driven Life 