Lawman

Charles Bethea: “What’s happenin’, my friend?”

Vernon Keenan is saying hello to a large, shy-looking man named John Gibson in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s main elevator, as the doors open and Keenan steps in. The top of his balding head reaches just past Gibson’s shoulders.

“I’m fine, sir. How are you?”

“You been behaving yourself?” The doors close.

“Yessir.”

“This man here is in an all-women’s unit,” Keenan says to the rest of the elevator’s occupants. Then, turning back to Gibson, who works in the GBI’s criminal-history record repository: “The only man there, right?”

“Yessir.”

“I’ve got a lot of sympathy for him. I don’t know how he keeps his sanity.”

“He told me if he ever sees me on the roof jumping off,” says Gibson, “he’ll know why.”

“I tell him, ‘Go to the highest part of the building and jump off. Do it right.’”

There’s laughter all around, but Gibson’s sounds nervous.

Ding. Keenan steps out of the elevator and passes the front desk. A few employees in the lobby stare curiously—maybe with a little concern—as the director of the GBI escorts a visitor to the parking lot.