I entered a small restaurant on Andy Devine Avenue in Kingman, Arizona at 6:00 a.m. on a clear July morning. My shift patrolling U.S. Highway 66 east of town began in an hour.
On my way to a table I met them walking toward me. I couldn't have described the woman a minute earlier, but I recognized her instantly. The guy with her looked tough--very tough. I had never seen him before but he fit the stereotype--about six-two,two hundred pounds, swarthy and with eyes so dark the irises and pupils blended into black orbs. He exuded danger--someone you'd hate to wrestle alongside a deserted highway in the middle of the night. His blue-denim vest hung open showing a bare chest, and his well-muscled arms bore crude tattoos--prison tattoos. He looked past me as though I didn't exist. She ignored me, too. I don't know if she recognized me, but I was glad she didn't say anything.
Nine months earlier I had been posted to the Pinal County seat in Florence, Arizona, my first duty station as an Arizona highway patrolman. I soon found unanticipated dangers in this rural community best known as home of the Arizona State Prison.
In those days we worked six days a week, which often meant catching up on paper work and taking care of vehicle maintenance on our day off. For $403 a month, there wasn't any other job like it.
Early on a fall morning I started at the local laundromat--whites in one tub, dark clothes in another. After loading both machines, I rushed home, jumped in my patrol car and drove to the county jail. Trustees were always eager to wash our vehicles for a couple of cigarette packs.
As soon as the prisoner finished with my cruiser I headed home, swapped cars and hurried back to the laundry.
When I came in the door the old guy who ran the place looked at me with a silly grin. I went straight to the machines where I'd left my clothes. There they were, dried and neatly folded on top of a washer.
"Hey, boy," the man said, wagging his head. "You better watch out. That prison widder's got her eyes on you."
I remembered a young woman at another tub when I started that morning. In spite of looking a little edge worn she was still attractive and had probably been quite pretty a few years earlier. She'd looked me over when I came in, but didn't say anything.
The man's comments upset me. All through our academy training the instructors had hounded us about how a dalliance with the wrong woman could wreck our career.
After the laundry incident I began noticing quite a few seemingly unattached women around the small town.
Prison guards and sheriff's deputies told me wives or lovers often moved to Florence while their man served time there. The lawmen indicated that some of the women were accomodating, too. That is what I was afraid of--accomodating women, married women--prisoners' wives.
After that experience I began doing my laundry out of town.