Evangeline (Part Eight)

Tucker Shaw weighed the facts. His girlfriend was pregnant, he didn’t have a job, and there was nothing at all worth watching on daytime television. So, he did what any man of his character would do, he left town.

Tucker never finished high school, but while he was incarcerated at the Federal Prison in Pekin, Illinois, he managed to earn his G.E.D. He also decided to try to establish contact with his only living relative, his Grandma Shaw who lived way down in Sommerville, Virginia.

The first few letters Tucker sent went unanswered. Then one day, he received a pink envelope that smelled like roses and he knew before he looked at the postmark, that it was his Grandma.

And so, Tucker and Grandma Shaw became pen pals. Once a week he would get a letter from her and once a week he would write her a letter in return.

He didn’t get much interesting information out of Grandma Shaw. She seemed to ramble a lot. But there were two things she mentioned frequently – spending money and a girl who sang like a angel. It was the “spending money” part of the letters that got Tucker’s attention.

A month before he was released, Tucker asked his Grandma for a loan so that he could get back on his feet. She was generous enough to send him $2,000 which he hid in an old mint tin under his mattress. He had big plans for that money.