Day 779: 5 Minute Freewrite: Sunday - Prompt: salt rinse (and, The Posture of Innocence, day 46.33)
A salt rinse is applied to an evil tree, in preparation of barking it...
To get totally caught up on The Posture of Innocence, here are the prologue, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 3.5, day 4, day 4.5, day 5, day 5.5, day 6, day 7, day 7.5, day 8, day 9, day 9.5, day 10, day 10.5, day 11, day 11.5, day 12, day 12.5, day 13, day 13.5, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 16.5, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 19.5, day 20, day 20.5, day 21, day 22, day 22.5, day 23, day 23.5, day 24, day 24.5, day 25, day 25.5, day 26, day 26.5, day 27, day 27.5, day 28, day 28.5, day 29, day 29.5, day 30, day 30.5, day 31, day 31.5, day 32, day 32.5, day 33, day 33.5, day 34, day 34.5, day 35, day 35.5, day 36, day 36.5, day 37, day 37.5, day 38, day 38.5, day 39, day 39.5, day 40, day 40.5, day 41, day 41.5, day 42, day 42.5, day 43, day 44, day 44.5, day 45, and day 46!
Captain Henry Fitzhugh Lee had his rituals, and one of them came from his mountain upbringing. Every evening, his Lee grandfather boiled water and put a generous handful of salt in it, and then took the salt water once it had cooled a little and did a salt rinse of his mouth after brushing his teeth. As soon as Horace Fitzhugh Lee had felt his baby grandson was old enough to do that without swallowing the salt water, he gave him lukewarm salt water to rinse with.
“Here, Henry. Swish this around in your mouth while I count to 10, and then spit it all out.”
“Why, Pappa?”
“Because the leftovers of the food we have eaten – still in our teeth and our mouths – will start to stink and ruin our breath and our teeth. Swish this around, and get it all clean.”
Captain Lee performed the ritual in mind of what was going to happen in the mile radius around his office in downtown Big Loft once he called in all his lieutenants and all his reserve officers and delivered to them all the warrants and instructions they would need for the afternoon. That mile around, so full of people with the bodies and souls of their victims in the teeth of their wicked schemes, was about to get a salt rinse of Lee-level strength.
Everywhere Francis Lofton got money from a money man to pay the hitman he would see later on, money men were arrested, some from the biggest names in local financial institutions in the county and the state. It was all done quietly … the men from the Lofton County Free Voice on the scene had noiseless cameras without flash and had positioned themselves well, so no one knew yet that all the fine White men in their fine suits from the fine White institutions would be a worldwide spectacle by the morning, because the Big Loft Bulletin and local news stations got on to the story so late that they had missed those photos. Everyone thought their posture of innocence was still safe … until it wasn't … .
Francis Lofton went and visited Officer Thomas Laurence that evening, with an up-front payment of $1,000,000 to put a hit on eight men due to come out on bail the next morning. That delivery being done, Lieutenants Anderson and Carter stopped Mr. Lofton on the road and took him into custody. They then went back and grabbed Officer Laurence. The cold case division thus completed barking the twisted tree that had produced 30 years of misery in order to get and fill Pendleton Prison – the money supply and conduits and enforcement had just been cut off.