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Behind the faux
finish, an imperfect place
By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com
It is 12:15 a.m.
on Saturday night, or Sunday morning if you prefer, and I’m at the
newspaper office, where I stopped off for five minutes an hour ago to
check the e-mail, download something, drop off notes, maybe write this
column.
For the past 30 minutes, I’ve been listening to an hysterical wife
and mother in Peachtree City scream unintelligble obscenities at anyone
within range. She sounds possessed, I think. Is she being beaten? Has
someone been hurt? Killed? Is that grief, anger or maybe laughter?
No, not laughter. I’m being made privy, live and uncensored, to one
family’s private pain, broadcast by Fayette County 911 Dispatch across
the police scanner. The officer responding to this scene of yet another
domestic dispute aired the woman’s outbursts, background noise, while
calling for backup.
It was unimportant, I think, my interest distracted by a call for animal
control to go to Ardenlee to finish off a pet dog hit by a car, and to
calm a Golfview Drive homeowner irate that his brick mailbox has been
smashed by a young driver.
“Diners just ran out of a sports bar without paying,” Peachtree
City’s finest are advised. “Be on the lookout.”
Then a crackle, and again echos of a Peachtree City wife and mother, screaming.
Debating whether to turn it off, I filter past the static and piece together
some details. One of the family cars is missing, the responding officer
thinks, or at least somebody said so, but nobody is sure, and what color
was it? Where’s the neighbor?
Somebody is crying in the background. Is that a child? I have a time translating
past the police jargon, the cop beat not being my regular assignment.
Who has left the scene? The victim? The suspect?
Unsure of the make, model or color of the vehicle believed missing, the
officer radios to ask if there are any other calls on file for this address
that might have included the car.
Yes, there have been other calls to this address, dispatch reports, but
not one makes mention of a vehicle. The calls were not for traffic violations,
you see.
How many calls to this address? Seventeen, dispatch advises.
Seventeen.
It’s been at least 30 minutes since I heard the last commotion from
that Peachtree City domestic call, but I’ve heard enough. Out of
respect to the unnamed family, I will spare the details. But I know what
you are thinking, and you are wrong.
You assume the Peachtree City wife and mother lives over there, across
the tracks, beyond the traffic quagmire you curse on your way to play
tennis or pick up milk at the Wal-Mart you vowed you’d never support.
Or you assume she lives down there, off the Parkway, in an apartment community
built to provide a place for people who make an honest living doing laundry,
or emptying garbage cans, or trimming lawns.
You know those people, the ones you stood next to last summer, cheering
the governor in the city’s Fourth of July parade?
She does not live in either of those places.
This sad but very real drama was played out in another part of the city,
a neighborhood with a silly name where pricey European-style homes of
faux stucco and stone are stacked up steep, winding streets and where
nearly everybody gets a pristine, peaceful lake view, at least in winter.
There was nothing peaceful about the goings-on inside this particular
house, nor had their been for some time. That’s why the husband finally
sought to send the wife on her way, got a judge to grant him custody of
the children, and then obtained a court order to protect them from her
violence.
That’s right, the husband.
Seventeen calls? In the years I lived in Peachtree City, the police came
to my house one time to fill out a report, on an errant BB that somehow
managed to take aim at my living room window.
I wondered if the neighbors knew of the trouble beneath that roof. Did
they hear the screams? Surely they saw the flashing lights of the police
cars piercing the night, exposing what’s supposed to be so neat and
orderly for what is, in fact, imperfect and, well, human.
How human? Consider: While Peachtree City represents about 33 percent
of the county’s total population, the Fayette County Council on Domestic
Violence will tell you that more than 60 percent of their cases come from
the 30269 zip code.
That’s ugly. But “ugly” is not part of Peachtree City’s
master plan, and so things as uncomfortable as wife-on-husband domestic
violence, or teen drug abuse, or possible unethical practices by a public
authority are dismissed.
“For the reputation of the town,” letter writers have implored
in recent weeks, we should all be doing our all to prop up the goodness
of the place.
That’s certainly been the way for years. Nobody worries about who
cuts the grass, but if it doesn’t get cut, phones ring. Taxes? Raise
my taxes. But pitch a fight with my Tennis Center management, and the
gloves come off.
Arrogant? You bet. Snobs? Of course. Ashamed? Not on your life, if we
intend to protect this one.
At the Oct. 2 City Council meeting, Councilman Murray Weed attempted to
explain why maintaining a healthy police presence will be necessary well
into the future, long after the city stops growing, in theory.
“We’re wealthier, we’re better educated,” he explained
to the citizenry about the “riff-raff” in surrounding Coweta
and South Fulton who bring so much strife upon Fayette County.
After an initial “gasp” and then nervous laughter all around,
the room fell back into the rhythm of the business meeting at hand, which
by then had mostly degenerated into an uncontrolled free-for-all bashing
of the mayor.
Just another night in Peachtree City.
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