A Piedmont Lantern Story

By the seventh day of April, Jimmy Matthew had already exhausted the town’s patience twice over and was workin’ diligently on the third time.

Spring had settled into Piedmont like it owned the place. The azaleas were showing off. Windows were raised whether they needed to be or not. Dogs lay stretched flat on porches like they were meltin’ into the boards. Most folks were returnin’ to life.

Jimmy Matthew, however, had decided it was the perfect season to experiment with borrowed authority.

It started innocent enough, as most of his disasters do.

Old Mr. Harrelson, who lived two doors down and owned a voice louder than the noon whistle at the mill, had been deputized by the town once upon a time for reasons nobody could remember anymore. He kept the badge. Wore it on a hat that had seen way better days. Mostly, he used it to break up teenage nonsense and lecture stray dogs.

Jimmy Matthew noticed.

Jimmy Matthew always noticed.

One afternoon, while Mr. Harrelson napped in his porch chair with his mouth open and judgment paused for the day, Jimmy Matthew performed what he would later describe as a “temporary badge reassignment.”

That badge fit Jimmy Matthew like destiny.

Within an hour, he was makin’ his rounds.

He first stopped Jim Leroy and informed him, with great seriousness, that all bicycles must henceforth be walked uphill and ridden only downhill, as per a brand-new ordinance aimed at preventin’ reckless optimism.

Jim Leroy squinted at him.

“Says who?”

“Says the badge,” Jimmy Matthew replied, tappin’ it once for emphasis.

Jim Leroy accepted this.

Next, Jimmy Matthew informed Mrs. Beasley that cookies left to cool unattended were now subject to quality inspection. He conducted these inspections thoroughly and generously.

At the Co-op store, he advised two farmers that tobacco-spit aim must improve immediately, or fines would be assessed in the form of push-ups or public apology, offender’s choice.

Word traveled fast.

Word always travels fast when it’s wrong.

Soon, folks began to realize they were bein’ policed by a boy whose greatest qualification was confidence and a shiny object.

Matters might’ve continued indefinitely had Jimmy Matthew not encountered Miss Lurlene Wallace, schoolteacher, widow, and undefeated champion of nonsense management.

She leaned down, peered at the badge, then at Jimmy Matthew.

“You mind tellin’ me how exactly you came by that?”

Jimmy Matthew stood tall.

“I was selected.”

“By whom?”

“A process,” he said, which is never the correct answer.

Miss Lurlene took the badge, pinned it to her blouse, and marched Jimmy Matthew directly to Mr. Harrelson’s porch, where the old man had awakened to discover his authority missing and his nap ruined.

The explanation was brief. The lecture was long. The consequences included a sincere apology tour and one full week of supervised yard work, which Jimmy Matthew claimed later amounted to cruel and unusual punishment given the pollen count.

Still, that evening, when Jimmy Matthew sat on the curb beside Jim Leroy, lookin’ pleased despite himself, Jim Leroy asked the obvious.

“Was it worth it?”

Jimmy Matthew nodded.

“Turns out people listen real close when you sound like you know what you’re doin’.”

Jim Leroy considered that.

“Yeah,” he said. “But it don’t last.”

Jimmy Matthew smiled, lookin’ down the street where lights were comin’ on one by one.

“It don’t have to,” he said. “April’s short.”

And just like that, the seventh day of April ended in Piedmont, with order restored, cookie supplies diminished, and one boy already considerin’ what else might be borrowed briefly in the name of education.