When I'd gotten out of bed before dawn, Mr. Jones' comments about his being my obsession were on my mind. His professed ability to be with me, not only face to face, but also with me in my mind when my thoughts were on him, offered me a certain flexibility. I decided he'd find me when he wished. I need not wait for him at the pool hall, the shelter, or anywhere. He would come to me. Besides, I needed to examine some of the 'bones' of his life. I decided the day would be a day of study. When he appeared, we could visit. Needing to persuade him to offer more than an uncomplicated tour of his life, I felt it would be best to be prepared.
There was a need in me to reckon with what was not noted in the scraps of biographical information I'd accumulated. I was certain I'd mined all the surface ore available from documents: government records, historians' footnotes and indices in many of books on Tennessee history, the Civil War, and American history, and Andrew Johnson's papers, containing thirty years of letters to and from his 'Friend Jones.' I purchased a CD copy of Mr. Jones' papers from the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina. Those papers, modest in number and variety, contained no really significant information.
There was a letter Jones had received from influential Tennessee and national democratic luminary Aaron V. Brown in response to one in strong opposition to a reopening of the African slave trade. There were also touching letters from his big brother Will in Texas when they both were old men.
Mr. Jones' nephew and namesake, Will's son, had been an important politician in the Lone Star state. George Washington Jones (1828-1903) was an officer in the Confederate army, a US Congressman (1879-83), and Lieutenant Governor of Texas (1866-67). He'd gotten Mr. Jones' gold watch and chain according to Mr. Jones' will.
I had reviewed my Mr. Jones' will and estate settlement as well as works of Lincoln County history, The Fayetteville Observer and Lincoln County News issues, census data on him and the Stonebreakers, the 1860 slave schedule (records of ownership), books and articles on the Confederate Congress and the Tennessee State Constitutional Convention of 1870, and other assorted books, articles, and essays. My well-filled folders of notes and copies of documents numbered some three dozen and I pored over them in search of something between the lines. I'd rummaged through the written material and made sojourns to his grave.
I had even meditated, offering a half-serious gothic prayer, a selfish incantation-"George Washington Jones…what's your true story?"-as I had stood before his impressive monument.