Little Lessons, From Big Men

He is arguably, one of the 10 most powerful men on the planet, and at 9 PM, in the days before Christmas, I am standing awkwardly in the living room of Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi.

I don't call his press secretary, send a written inquiry or make an appointment, I simply stroll up to his door and rap on it.

Senator Trent Lott

In December of 1994 President Bill Clinton has announced possible military action in the war-torn nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and my boss at WLOX, demands that I get an interview with Senator Lott, who is back in his hometown of Pascagoula for the winter recess.  "Um, OK, so you want me to just go his house?"  I question with awe.  I've only been a reporter for a couple of years, and filling this request seems unlikely to say the least. "Yeah," Doug Walker bellows into the phone, "see if he'll talk to ya.  It's a long shot, but what the hell."

Lott is on a fast track in the senate, and will soon be elected senate majority leader.  As I knock on his door, I expect to be confronted on his front stoop by men in drab suits, and dark sunglasses speaking in whispered tones into their sleeves.  Instead  my partner and I Amy are greeted at the door by the senator's pleasant wife, in a bright, festive sweater.

"Can I help you? Patricia Lott answers casually and Invites us into the couple's spacious mansion on Beach Blvd.  The stately  home looks out across a two lane street and into the Mississippi Gulf.  

Lott's house is just a few doors down from his brother-in-law Dickie Scruggs, at the time the richest man in Mississippi.  Scruggs made gobs of money suing asbestos companies and later represented the state of Mississippi in a lawsuit against the tobacco companies.   The state received a jaw-dropping settlement of $250 billion.  Dickie, was featured in the film, The Insider staring Russell Crowe.   A film about tobacco company whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand.

Russell Crowe:  The Insider

Scruggs, despite his enormous wealth, would often allow me to pop, uninvited, into his nondescript offices on Delmas Avenue to interview him about the progress of the mammoth lawsuit, the upcoming movie, or the revitalization of Pascagoula's desolate and abandoned main street.  Scruggs would kindly help me by giving his opinion about the need for new restaurants,  or store fronts, which is remarkable given the fact that he was in the process of hammering out one of the most significant legal settlements in the history of jurisprudence.

Scruggs is later convicted of attempted bribery in 2007 and 2009.  Just in the last two days, he has been released from jail on 2 million dollars bond while he appeals the conviction.  I know many of his family and friends and each believes he is innocent.

Dickie Scruggs

As I stand quietly in Lott's front parlor in my worn Sears slacks and a hand-me-down tie given to me by my brother, I'm pondering the senator's lineage and powerful friends, and wondering how in the world, Mrs. Lott would allow this rag-tag team of fresh-faced journalists into her house to interrupt the few moments she has with her busy husband, just days before Christmas.

I had interviewed the senator many times in the past, but always at pre-arranged events, with red, white, and blue bunting in the background as the senator christens a ship, or announces the addition of new jobs at Ingalls Shipyard, but never had I been in his home, under the intimate glow of a majestic spruce, regaled in pleasant Christmas lights, and ornaments that  have dangled from their trees for decades.  

I imagined him sitting casually in his terry cloth rob, scratching awkwardly as he sips coffee out of a familiar mug and scans the daily papers.  Surreal.

I hear the door jingle open and the senator with his coat over his arm, walks pleasantly into the house.  He kisses his wife on the cheek and quickly and eagerly greets his two uninvited guest.  "I saw the car in the driveway," he chimes happily, "How are you?" Not at all concerned that two doe-eyed kids with a camera and a microphone are stationed in his home.

"Sorry to bother you Senator," I announce reluctantly, "Could we get a comment from you regarding the president's announcement an hour ago.

The Senator furrows his brow, "Guys, all the other networks are not gonna be happy with me,"  Lott is aware, once our station shoots the interview it will appear on Good Morning America the next day, and the other networks will also be clamoring for a response.

Amy and I stand silently, and the senator relents.  As we frame up for the shot, he notices the family Christmas tree directly over his shoulder, "guys," he says pleasantly, "given the nature of these comments maybe we shouldn't put that tree in the shot.  "Of course," I slap my palm against my forehead.  As we re-angle the most powerful man in the senate, the leg of the camera tri-pod snaps, rendering it unusable, and we are forced to shoot his comments "off the shoulder," "Hm, gonna be a bit shaky, don't you think?" Lott, has likely done thousands of television interviews, and knows when a shot is going to look bad, and he can see it in this one.  

 I feel the a damp layer of perspiration glazing my forehead, "I'm sorry senator, It's the best we can do,"  As I begin my naive questions, the small light that is stationed on top of the camera slowly dims away, "Uh-oh," the senator jumps in, "your light.  This shot's not going to be very good." My partner Amy, ring in confidently  "It'll be fine, we've done this plenty of times," to which the senator responds, "so have I," with slight exasperation.  

As Patricia gently shows us to the door, I shake my head at our sad performance, and I vow, internally, to never be embarrased like that again, and always pay attention to the little details.

The next morning as I watch Good Morning America, I see the senators interview.  It is shaky, and dark, and poorly framed, as it is shot by, well, by two beginning journalists, in one of the smallest television markets in America. The senator, who had better things to do than entertain a couple of amateurs, managed, without his knowledge, to teach us a lesson a lesson or two about journalism.

A Single Question

Lynn Presley is the kind of man who seems destined to be a governor, congressman, or senator.  He is handsome, whip-smart, and charming.  As Chancery Clerk of Jackson County Mississippi (basically the Chief Financial Officer) Presley, knows every crack and crevice of the county's massive budget.  It turns out, when you know all the cracks and crevices, you know where to hid the money so you can steal it later.  In Presley's case, he did just that, and spent years in federal prison, after making a mind boggling confession to me, just months before he is charged with embezzlement.

Jackson County Courthouse

In 1997, as a young, overworked, understaffed bureau cheif at WLOX-TV in Pascagoula, I spend much of my day just trying to keep up with car crashes, stabbings and convenience store robberies.  Understanding the dark recesses of the painfully boring county budget is far off my radar.

"I'm tellin' ya boy," pontificates County Supervisor Burt Patterson, from his large desk in the back off of his Ocean Springs, Mississippi pharmacy, "Just ask some questions about the Chancery Clerk's office son, now that's your job right?"  Patterson, has always been ominously vague with me, often trying to guide me towards corruption with nudges that include few clues, but with the ominous admonishment of "ain't that your job, go on down to the sheriff's office and ask some questions!"  Without telling me who or what to ask about.

Today, Patterson is a bit more candid.  The County's port authority is in need of money from a fund managed by Presley, but for some reason he just won't give it up,  Patterson, has called for an audit but the results are not yet in.  Finally, stabbing the air with his stubby finger, he shouts, "go on down to Presley's office an' ask him, 'where's that port money at?!"

"Hello son," Presley greets me at his office, with a firm handshake, grabbing my elbow and pulling me in closely, "How are you young man?"  Presley, as always, is gracious, even during the late night budget hearings during the year, he is always kind, and welcoming.

"I'm good sir," I dribble nervously.  Presley cuts an impressive figure, and I often find myself tongue tied and intimidated by his sheer presence.  I often stumble into his office, dragging unwieldy camera gear, with cables dragging behind me like tin cans trailing from a married couples 1978 Ford Fairmont, and sweating, from long hours baking in the oppressive Mississippi sun.  I am often foraging around in a pair of rumpled Docker slacks, and Polo shirt that is often creased and always darkened by my own sweat.

Presley is dapper, and perfectly quaffed, not draped in an over sized seersucker suit or suspenders, like you might expect from deep in the deepest parts of the south, but rather, he cuts an impressive figure, in a tailored black suit, with expensive hand woven ties.

"What can I do you for you young man?"  He settles into his large leather chair, and bows the seat back, slapping his fine leather shoes onto his desk, and interlacing his fingers behind  his head.

"Um," I sputter, "it's the Port money," I slowly suggest, "uh-huh, uh-huh," he blurts with confidence, "well, I guess the question is: Why won't you just give it to them?"
He quickly jerks his feet off the desk, and unlaces his fingers from behind his distinguished brown and grey hair, and is sitting with his hands locked in front of him, "well son," he looks me in the eyes, "It's not there."  He says casually.

"Oh," I squint in confusion, "well.  Where is it?"  "Well, it's all over the place, I often use that money for loans." he suggests plainly."
"Um, to who?"
"Well, I loaned some to my cattle ranch, I loaned some to the mayor of Moss Point, I loaned some money to the guy who owns that fast food place in town."  He shuffles inside his desk and produces a copy of a check, but see, they always pay them back."
"Are these county loans?"
"no sir, no sir, I'd say they are personal loans,"
"Wait, you are making personal loans, to your cattle ranch and other people, out of county funds?"
"Yes sir, but as I mentioned young man, they always pay them back."
"But," dumbfounded, "I don't think you can do that."
"well the rules are foggy son, again, the money always gets put right back in."

As I wander to my car after the astonishing confession, Burt Patterson pulls up in his dark colored Crown Victoria, "Did you talk to Presley?" Dazed I drag my eyes to the portly pharmacist, "I did,"
"And?" He demands.
"He says he doesn't have the money, he says he loaned it out." I blurt.
Patterson's mouth slowly gapes open, he twists his head forward violently then screeches off.

As I tap away  at my computer in my worn Market Street office, the phone rings, it's Presley, "Hello young man," he says meekly, "that conversation we had today, my belief is:  That was off the record."
"Uh, well, no, not really sir."  After a significant pause he continues, "Do you intend of reporting on our conversation?"
"I do."
Another long pause, "Young man, let me warn you," his voice trails to a threatening whisper, and continues, "I took you into my confidence, in an effort to help you in the right direction, I had no intention for this story to be about me."  I gulp deeply, and spill a shaky response, "well sir, this story is about you now," and I gently click the phone down.

In 1997 Presley is charged with 8 counts of embezzlement and admitted to stealing $320,000 dollars from the county coffers.  He spent 84 months in federal prison.

I don't know why he admitted his shell game to me.  Perhaps he thought his kindness in the past would insulate him from a scurrilous report.  Perhaps he believed I wasn't smart enough to connect the dots, or, as some have suggested, maybe he felt guilty and simply wanted to be caught.  No matter the reason, I learned, sometimes, a simple question is enough to unravel the complicated truth.

Hurricane Georges

The soft tap of the rain against the hood of my poncho reminds me of a child casually popping bubble wrap retrieved from a box filled with mailed Christmas gifts.

I desperately brush the rain drops off my camera lens, and point it as hundreds of people falling in line outside one of the only grocery stores still open in Pascagoula, Mississippi.  Hurricane Georges is churning in the Gulf of Mexico, and these last minute shoppers make the nervous, yet familiar pilgrimage to the water, battery and canned foods isle.

For long time residents on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, hurricanes, and warnings of hurricanes are as much a way of life, as the changing of the leaves in Maine, or the first winter snowfall in Utah.

As they casually board up windows on their beach front homes, old-timers will often spin you a yarn, about Hurricane Camille in 1969.  The storm flattened the Gulf Coast and eventually killed 259 people as it swept inland. "I been through Camille," they'll extol as they hammer rusty nails into warped, plywood, "If I can survive that, I can survive anything."

In 1998, I am, as I've mentioned before, still living in Pascagoula and working for television station WLOX.  By now I am somewhat of a fixture, in the  practical, blue collar, shipbuilding town.  I am in the "bureau," which means I work with one other person outside of the main station located in Biloxi an hour away and, for the most part, am what they call in the business, "a one-man band," that means I run the camera, write the stories and deliver them on air all by myself.

After 2 years I've settled into the Southern way of living, where you accept the sweat soaked work shirt, moistened by the blazing Mississippi sun and accentuated by the humid air that sweeps off the gulf.  You understand that parades in Moss Point start 30 minutes late, and your appointment with a city councilman or the sheriff might be delayed, if he finds himself, "visitin'," with an old neighbor after lunch.

As Georges climbs on shore, I am hunkered down in the Jackson County Civil Defense building.  The solid, stubby, granite edifice is an immovable rock of a structure, and likely the safest place to be in town.  As I gather my gear around me late the first night and lay down on the cold tile, under a banquet table inside the marble facade, I am ever aware of the torrent of rain, powered by 80 mile an hour winds, pummelling the building outside.

Early in the morning, we discover our tiny office, used to transmit stories back to the main station, has been destroyed.  "you're gonna have to drive it here," says assignment manager Doug Walker, "we gotta get it on the air."

I am forced to make the hour long trip in a tiny Murcury Topaz, along an expansive extension bridge that towers several hundred feet over miles of Mississippi marshes.  The eye of the storm has moved on to terrorize another community  but the wind on I-10 is still wild, and the rain still torrential   As my partner Amy and I reluctantly load into the news car, we brace for the long terrifying trip ahead.  We dodge debris littering the soggy pavement, and pock marked by potholes burrowed into the highway by the passing storm.

Although I am behind the wheel, it is the 60 mile an hour winds that are doing the driving, pushing us frighteningly close to the Jersey barriers of this swaying bridge high above the water below.  As we splash over mini-lakes that have formed on the road, I feel the car hydroplane as the tires detach from the pavement, thanks to 7 inches of water and begin to gracefully drift our little car out of control.  Fortunately before the vehicle goes into a complete spin the rubber grabs black pavement again and jerk us back onto our path.

there is no talking in the cabin of our car, we only hear the whip of the wind and smashing of the rain.  My hands grasp the steering wheel so tightly I fear I won't be able to remove them if we make it safely to Biloxi.  As we pull off the towering bridge onto safer ground, Amy and I sigh together  and spill out a frantic, jubilant laugh as we hug each other, and Amy drags her index finger under her left eye wiping the tears of fear from her face.

The next day is remarkably clear and cool, as I tour the town.  Two-hundred year old oak trees are easily plucked from the soil and mindlessly laid hard on homes.  The roof of the elementary school, a place once designated as a shelter for people without homes, has been plucked off.  Small boats usually moored in the nearby harbor, are now casually tossed and planted on front lawns and in the middle of Denny Avenue.   Homes, entire homes,  are gone, swept away by an indifferent storm.  All that remains of a dozen houses in the concrete slab on which they once sat.

In Pecan (pronounced Pea can) east of Pascagoula, long time residents paddle in boats down rivers that were once paved streets.  I recall interviewing a rough hued southern boy, as he shovels mud out of his kitchen.

We chat about the sand, water levels, and "getting back to normal," when, like a SWAT team storming a drunks motel room after a long stand off, something burst out of the man's kitchen cabinet and onto my host's head.  The wet, wild raccoon hugs his matted hair, the ratty mongrel eyes me intently and rabidly as it squawks and squeaks and hisses, I stumble backwards, fumbling my camera, and trying to steady myself against the kitchen counter only to send pots, and plates careening to the ground.  "holy hell," I holler, as the man gives me a curious look, then pulls out a dog biscuit from his pocket and feeds it to the beast, "why you all bothered," he giggles, "this here's Charlie, he ain't gonna hurt ya." His laugh starts slow then quickens, becoming contagious as the giggles of 6 other dirty men in the room gather, much like that now passed hurricane, in hysterical laughter at me.  "I'm sorry guys," I blurt sarcastically as I pick up my camera and dust it off, "it isn't everyday a 20 pound rodent springs out of the soup cabinet." I say embarrassed , "It is around here!" the man proclaims, as he laughs even louder, his buddies struggling to match his level of hilarity.

For the next week, I will toil daily telling stories about things like the 6 large alligators that escape from a nearby animal refuge and are tormenting power company employees attempting to spark the cities power grid back to life.

Every night I will drag myself home, to a house with no power.   Thankfully for me and my roommate, our neighbors have stocked their refrigerators with ground beef, steaks, and sausage   Each evening we will gather in the middle of the street for an unplanned party, easing down in weathered lawn chairs, eating and laughing into the darkened night, only to return, flashlights in hand, to dark house and get up the next morning, pull on my slickers, and splash into the salt water for another long, lonely day.

"I'm a Hooker."

Seeing her rush into my small office was perplexing, like glancing out a car window only to see an SUV resting on the roof of a house after a hurricane.   I'd seen her before, walking sadly and suggestively down Jackson Avenue in Pascagoula, Ms. late at night.  She was among a small cadre of prostitutes who prowl the 2 lane road,  book ended on either side, by a long-closed auto parts store to the north, and a questionable massage parlor to the south.

"I'm a hooker," she announces without fear of judgement as tears flow from her eyes, her thick, wet steams marbled with black mascara.  Inside the small office, she glances frantically, at the door she had just entered.  "I Just got out a jail," she roots nervously through her fatigued, faux-leather bag, I assume for a tissue, or a cigarette.   

Her dress is pretty, and modest.  It is blue with splashes of red and white flowers.  I can envision her sitting comfortably in a church pew in that ensemble,  but this is her work uniform, and she likely wears it most every day.  The blue and red, less brilliant than the day she received it, worn by the hot, Mississippi sun and faded by rainstorms that pepper the summer afternoons.  The shoes are even more telling.  The Dr. Scholl's are streaked with deep black scuff marks, and the flat wooden sole are rounded at the toe in heel, overworked grooves pressed away by hours and miles of endless walking. 

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my time in Pascagoula is my first job in television news, and everyday, it seems is a new, mind blowing experience.  Like a man, blind at birth, given his vision well into old age, and this day in 1995, is no exception.

"The police just let me go," she cries dragging the back of her hand across her wet, runny nose, "but they spent all night raping me."  She quickly grabs at her bra strap placing it firmly on her shoulder, as if the memory alone had forced it to leap back to her bicep.  "What?  What happened?"  I'm  trying to comprehend what I'm hearing, "I gotta go," she digs both thumbs into each of her eyes, then pirouettes and bolt out the glass office door, "hold on!" I follow her a few feet, as she darts down an alley, jogs around a corner, and is gone. 

"I honestly don't even know if we arrested anyone for prostitution last night Chris," the shift captain will announce to me in his friendly, easy southern drawl, "and if we did Chris, man, I don't know how much stock you can put in them claims," he says as he tries to dismantle her charge, "ya say she said she was a prostitute huh?" he chimes trying to reinforce her credibility issues, as he tugs at his jowly chin,  "It seemed like she wasn't lying," I insist, "I wonder why she would make a charge like that and just run off?" he lifts his beefy paw from his chin and stroking the back of his head.  "I'll look into it for ya, OK?"  But I can't promise anything."  I will never hear another word from the captain on the allegation.  

On my way home from work, I will take the long way past Jackson Avenue, trying to locate her again.  I never do.

Several months later, my beeper buzzes alive, as I am summoned to a broken part of Pascagoula, populated by listing wooden fences, packs of meandering feral dogs, and houses topped with corrugated steel instead of shingles.  

Police have found the murdered remains of a prostitute inside one of the exhausted shacks.  I don't know if it is the woman who pleads with me for help that blazing August afternoon, but the description is similar. Either way, I think often about that day she charged into my office, how broken and helpless she seemed, and how futile my efforts were to do anything about it.

It's a Dirty Job

"Well, ya best tuck them jeans into ya socks if ya don't want vermin to get up them pants," the Moss Point Police detective rolls out in his long southern drawl,  as he adjusted his breathing apparatus over his mouth.  For me, a cub reporter, with maybe six months worth of experience, it is the most daunting piece of instruction I have ever received, and I quickly and nervously do the same as my teacher.

It is my first job in television, at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1995.  I am technically the bureau chief, of the station's Jackson County office.  I am in charge (by default) of the two-man operation, that includes myself and another, just as green, photographer/reporter.  Together we are eager, but not very experienced.  The two of us are stationed in a tiny little office in Pascagoula, the space is about the size of the guest room in your home.

Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.

Pascagoula/Moss Point/Gautier.  Those are the primary towns we cover.  It is a tough little community, weathered and shaped by the muggy summers, and perched on the rock of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  At one point the stubborn, blue collar towns prospered, because of a strong shipbuilding culture, that helped families build homes, buy modest boats, and make weekend trips to Bozo's Fish Market for a bag of Crawfish, seasoned in a secret Cajun concoction, but those boom days are over, and Jackson County is forced to limp along.

Pascagoula is built for functionality, not beauty.  The city has weathered too many hurricanes in the past to waste time building expensive, ornate structures.  The tallest building in town in a bank, it is five stories tall, of which the top two floors are utilized for storage. The Gulf Coast economy, is usually at the mercy of government spending of warships and aircraft carriers, making this a boom or bust environment.

The place is run, literally, by tough, good ol' boys.  The Sheriff, DB, "Pete," Pope, was a portly power broker, and he was more politician than lawman.

Former Jackson County Sheriff Pete Pope

 His piercing, blue reptilian eyes framed by his stark mop of white hair, and his checkered sports coat accented with a pair of hand-made cowboy boots was terrifying for me, as he would summon me into his office-lair, either schmooze me or more likely, excoriate me for a story I wrote that angered, a man whose soul was born mad.  He was one part southern gent, 2 parts Boss Hogg.

He once warned me that he had a machine in his office, that alerted him whenever a recording device was operating in his presence, his ominous pronouncement told the kid reporter, that I better never think of trying to tape any of his rangy rants.  It wasn't until later that I learned that, "machine," never existed.

He was sheriff  but his political power was immense because, to borrow a cliche, he knew where all the bodies were buried and so did the body buriers, and that made him more like the king of his own tiny sovereign, southern nation, than the bureaucrat in a county department.

County Commissioner Tommy Brodnax, wasn't a power broker,  he was more like the people he represented, a former shipyard worker and a stout fireplug of a man, with stubby limbs punctuated by thick, brawny forearms, and round, beefy fingers, weather worn and streaked with scratches, scars, and finernails caked with soil from his garden, and grease from his tractor.  He was quick to pick a verbal fight with fellow commissioners, and physical ones with just about anyone else.  He was once arrested for punching a man in the face during a dispute over fallen tree branches.

Jackson County Commissioner, Tommy Brodnax

He relished in harassing me about my green reporting skills and unseasoned on-air presence, that included a terrified face accented by no expression, what-so-ever.   Whenever I'd fumble into a county meeting, awkwardly juggling a camera and tri-pod, he'd interrupt the proceedings, no matter how important, to announce, in his high pitched southern accent, reminiscent of billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot, "hey everyone, here comes stone face!"

As a young reporter you do as you're told, and that means you are on call, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.   On this muggy August night, my station issued beeper buzzes abruptly alive at 1 am, waking me starkly with a gasp back to consciousness.

I am ordered to the end of a desolate  dead end street, in Moss Point, a small town just north of Pascagoula.

Moss Point isn't exactly the best run town in Mississippi, in fact it's the opposite. At one point the Moss Point Chief of Police, out of sheer incompetence, had his permit to carry a gun revoked by the state's top police agency.

One cost saving measure enacted by the city council, led to a state of utter calamity.   In an effort to save money on the restoration of weathered, dulling street signs, the city concocted a scheme that may have literally lead to houses burning to the ground, and residents dying while waiting for an ambulance.

The town leaders decided NOT to buy new street signs, but rather to pull all the old signs down, then repaint them. Unfortunately , instead of repainting, for example the "Oak Street" sign with the words "Oak street," the parks and rec. department  stenciled, without much thought, over that sign, with the words , "Main Street." instead of Oak.   They did this all over town, all the signs. That was fine for a while, but  after a few months battered by the blazing Southern Mississippi sun, the cheap store bought paint faded, and the signs began to read a mish-mashed combination of the two, think "OaMakin Street."

The fire department, and ambulance service found themselves racing around the city searching in vain for a burning house or man in cardiac arrest, only to get garbled, maddening guidance from the disastrous Scrabble-like street grid.

Somehow, no thanks to Moss Points, illegible signs, I fumbled my way to a modest home surrounded by Moss Point officers, blazing flood lights, and a cacophony of critter wranglers.

After a welfare call from a resident of a house nearby, concerned for the safety of an ailing, immobile woman inside, police force open the door, only to find it barricaded by rotting garbage, cat feces, and carelessly discarded soda bottles.  It was a clean freaks nightmare, and a hoarders dream.

after rescuing the sick woman, and arresting her daughter for neglect, police had the unenviable task of removing dozens of feral cats from the home, collected over years by the two women.  The pair only took in a third of that, but the wild animals spent the next few years breeding with each other, creating a inbred cat version of "Lord of The Flies."

The cops, totally unaware, or unconcerned with protocol or the law, invite me to come in , "Hey there Jonesy, ya wanna check this out, brother, git yur camera and follow us in!"  The boys outfit me with a breathing apparatus and duck tape to strap my loose clothing to my body.  "Why am I doing this?" I ask as I peel long strips of tape off the giant, metal roll, "Roaches, boy!" one officer belts out with a laugh as he blows a wet, brown mouthful of spitting tobacco onto the city sidewalk, "roaches!"

As he scoot the rotting door open, I recall the sucking in and out of air through our masks belting out a Darth Vader-like pant.  The house doesn't have electricity, hasn't for months I'm told, and is lighted by flashlights and a flood light only.

The putrid stench of ammonia is overpowering, and I take it all in despite the protective gear over my face.  disintegrating garbage is 2 feet high and blankets the entire ground below me, I crunch and crack over the foul flooring, shuffling through waste, as tin cans crush, and tumble away as I push, like a canal boat icebreaker through the ocean of cardboard, food, and animal waste.

The garbage is everywhere, the floor, the shelves, inexplicable even the ceilings.  It is stacked in structurally defying mountains that line the halls.

The black insides of the house are revealed only in pieces when the darkness is broken by the faint flashlights, fumbled by disgusted police officers.

The flood lights reveal a tired, pea-green sofa, that appears to be made of wax, as the left side breaks down into what looks  like a melted mess of mushy fabric.  The sight defies my eyes, "what the hell?" I say with mouth agape.  "The cats have been peeing there for years," chirps the lead investigator  "Looks like they just went and melted the thing."

A dirty farm hand, in overalls, and a dingy CAT Diesel hat, called by police to help with the wild felines, stops the army of police officers and reporters, and warns, "Ok, this is where it gets bad," "Oh," I belt, "now it gets bad."

He wrestles the bedroom door open, and 4 or 5 of us shoe-horn ourselves into the back living space, someone closes the door behind us, and I find myself, squeezed on all sides, mountains of muck to my back, sweaty cops to my left, and the low guttural hum, of hidden cats echoing throughout pitch black room.

"Yall, ready?" he screams as he slaps his gloved hand to the left side of a stained mattress laying on the floor, "NO!" I yelp in pleading tones.  I remember the word just jump out of me, unprovoked, like a frog off a lily-pad, startled by a rock tumbling into his pond.

"Too late!" he hollers, as he overturns the bed, jerking it up on its side, revealing the wooden underbelly of the box springs. In the chaos, I see something, but the darkness makes it hard to make out.  It appears to be a sea of life is pulsating inside the box springs, and as the lights are directed to the bed, I see a wall of undulating cock-roaches, thousands of them, crawling and racing for safety as they are shocked into movement by the first light they have experienced in months, maybe years.

I have little time to catch my breath, because a dozen wild cats, who also inhabited the darkness under that bed are springing from their black, musty home.  They hiss and shriek as they bound up the walls, their claws scraping and propelling them higher up the grimy surfaces towards the ceiling of the room.  As they hit the acoustical tile, they rebound, like mangy, infected, overfilled basketballs towards our heads.

I feel like I am storming Utah Beach, as German soldiers try to repel me with gunfire and cannon fodder.

The farm boy, and police trip and stumble over one another, half of them desperately dodging the airborne cats, the other half trying in vane to catch them, clawing at the frightened, feral animals.  The chaos is more than my mind can handle, I jab at the door knob, my hands slipping and fumbling with it as I try to escape.  I finally jerk the door open, and fall out the portal, I'm darting my way out of the surreal disaster, when I notice the flood lights cast a sickly light on the homes living room, and catches a roach perched proudly on that melted couch, he appears to have his head lifted high, and smugly watches me as I scamper, terrified out of his home, the light casts his shadow against the dirty wall, and his dark outline makes him appear 3 feet tall, and for a young reporter struggling to learn the ropes, that roach and that job seems to be just a little to big for me.