Of course , my father ’ s father took him hunting and fishing , taught him to play ball , showed up for birthday parties , all that small stuff that adds up to quite a bit before adulthood . My father , on the other hand , was a stranger , someone I barely knew at all . For the first five years of my life I thought all fathers lived somewhere else . It wasn ’ t until my best friend , Eric Hunter , asked me in kindergarten who that guy was who showed up at my house the night before that I realized something wasn ’ t quite right about the situation .
“ He ’ s my father ,” I said proudly .
“ Oh ,” Eric said as he rifled through my lunchbox , looking for my Milky Way , “ I didn ’ t know you had a father .”
Talk about something whacking you straight in the face .
So , I grew up under the care of my mother . Now she was a nice lady , sweet and gentle , the kind of mother most people dream about . But she wasn ’ t , nor could she ever be , a manly influence in my life , and that fact , coupled with my growing disillusionment with my father , made me become something of a rebel , even at a young age . Not a bad one , mind you . Me and my friends might sneak out late and soap up car windows now and then or eat boiled peanuts in the graveyard behind the church , but in the fifties that was the kind of thing that made other parents shake their heads and whisper to their children , “ You don ’ t want to be like that Carter boy . He ’ s on the fast track to prison .”
Me . A bad boy . For eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard . Go figure .
Anyway , my father and Hegbert didn ’ t get along , but it wasn ’ t only because of politics . No , it seems that my father and Hegbert knew each other from way back when . Hegbert was about twenty years older than my father , and back before he was a minister , he used to work for my father ’ s father . My grandfather — even though he spent lots of time with my father — was a true bastard if there ever was one . He was the one , by the way , who made the family fortune , but I don ’ t want you to imagine him as the sort of man who slaved over his business , working diligently and watching it grow , prospering slowly over time . My grandfather was much shrewder than that . The way he made his money was simple — he started as a bootlegger , accumulating wealth throughout Prohibition by running rum up from Cuba . Then he began buying land and hiring sharecroppers to work it . He took ninety percent of the money the sharecroppers made on their tobacco crop , then loaned them money whenever they needed it at ridiculous interest rates . Of course , he never intended to collect the money — instead he would foreclose on any land or equipment they happened to own . Then , in what he called “ his moment of inspiration ,” he started a bank called Carter Banking and Loan . The only other bank in a two-county radius had mysteriously burned down , and with the onset of the Depression , it never reopened . Though everyone knew what had really happened , not a word was ever spoken for fear of retribution , and their fear was well placed . The bank wasn ’ t the only building that had mysteriously burned down .
His interest rates were outrageous , and little by little he began amassing more land and property as people defaulted on their loans . When the Depression hit hardest , he foreclosed on dozens of businesses throughout the county while retaining the original