You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you crazy™
The place where 4G becomes ZERO G.
I look down at my phone and it simply reads: no service.
“Can you hear me now?”
Where on planet Earth, outside of the Congo and maybe parts of East L.A. can you travel and simply disappear off the face of the 4 G network?
I’m driving into Giles County. It’s the county right above Alabama if that answers your question.
This is the navigational equivalent of sling shotting Apollo 13 around the dark side of the moon.
Giles County is a county 90 minutes south of Nashville, but in actuality, it’s a county 50 years behind the times.
In Giles County it’s still 1965. Race relations are racier. Law Enforcement matters are still handled by good ole boys who know suspects and perps by their first names.
The times are simpler, and yet more complicated.
This is a chicken fried county where women dip tobacco and men wear suspenders with no shirts.
Today is grey and cold. There is a discernible drizzle in the air. The grass is turning winter yellow and the tree branches are now barren, the leaves having fallen days ago.
We are still on black top but the atmosphere has changed. At some point on life’s compass, signal strength is waning.
A mile ago four bars was the norm. Now i’m lucky that my battery still works.
I click through a few apps. Everything runs slowly.
I try to check email. It has vanished, stolen by the cold wind blowing through the narrow valley we are navigating.
I have entered a twilight zone of sophistication, a mine field of communication, a death null of technological immediacy.
I look up from my phone, a device now as useless as sunscreen in a submarine.
I see a farm with a dozen tiny chicken coops.
“Super Roosters,” My photographer says.
“They still fight roosters out here?”
“Giles County, man.”
I let the road wind before me, every hundred yards revealing a new image in the windshield.
I see a hay stack, and a yard dog wandering the street, daring anyone and anything to run him down.
“I still got no service,” I say to my cameraman.
“Giles County Baby,” he responds with a chuckle. “Gotta pay extra for that.”
GILES COUNTY.
What more needs to be said.
In these parts it conjures an image.
It’s trailer homes and friendly people not locking their doors. It’s cattle grazing in irrigation ponds and old barns that have been struck by lightning and blown apart by straight line wind.
We are driving on a peregrine road that seems to be below sea level, below normal intelligence, below the national standard of living.
We are heading to a story about thieves using a stolen pickup truck and a logging chain to tear a door off a country store.
It’s caught on tape, the detective tells me.
Hmmmm?
Tape?
Nobody uses tape anymore. I’m sure he meant a digital computer hard drive of some sort.
“You hope so,” my photographer smirks.
We get to the store. It is little more than brico block with a roof and a door.
I look for signs of damage. I find nothing beside a missing handle on the front door.
I walk in. The building is sparse, decorated with neon and a home made sign that says “Catfish Fry Saturday 12 noon”
I breathe in the aroma of fried chicken and green beans warming in the front counter.
I introduce myself.
The smiles are as a big as the sentence structure is flawed.
I guess it’s hard to pronounce some words with only 3 teeth.
I am lead to the surveillance. I look at the video, and I’m impressed.
It shows a pick up truck stopping at the front door. 2 masked figures get out and wrap a logging chain around the handle and then the door is ripped off its frame ever so slightly.
A woman races inside, hops over the counter and begins stealing cigarettes.
Her male accomplice is not far behind. He pulls down a single pack of Marlboro Blacks.
“A clue,” the sagacious country detective will tell me.
In 2 minutes, the crime is over.
The couple will go to a neighboring county and torch the pick up truck.
The man who owns the truck is angry.
“I hope the cops find him before I do,” he says with a grit and determination that Southerners are known for.
I look at the detective standing beside me.
“I hope so to, for his sake.”
We all laugh.
“When will this air?” someone asks me.
“When I return to civilization, to the land of 4G and working internet, I’ll text you all.”
Everyone looks at their cell phones and laughs.
“yeah, you can’t get no signal down here.”
Giles County?
Nope. Not down here.
Life’s Crazy™