All's Fair PT 1 - Introduction to Vic

The year was 1920, and New Orleans was getting a new Captain. His name was Sinclair James, and he was from Illinois.

He was a controversy in the city - many people didn’t like that the new Captain was an outsider. They thought that since he was from Illinois, a place widely known to support Prohibition, he would actually enforce it, and thus take away their precious alcohol.

Vic, after she had finally seen him, disagreed with that assessment. He didn’t really look like a particularly puritanical person. Especially with the sunglasses he was wearing indoors, which rather hinted at a fondness for alcohol, as did the glass of scotch he was holding.

For obvious reasons, this all made the crowd talk. Talk about how and why the Chief would hire a drunk as Captain. Talk about why he would hire an outsider. Talk about what if he isn’t hungover, he’s just hiding something? ? If that was true, then what was he hiding?

The crowd quieted only when James stepped up to the podium. Even then, he had to wait for all of the murmurs to die down and a hush to fall.

When it finally did, he spent several minutes just surveying the crowd, raking his eyes over everyone, lingering on people that wore particularly flamboyant outfits, or officers that weren’t sitting properly, or anyone who stood out for any reason. Even through the sunglasses, his gaze felt intense, searching through people for any hint of . . . something.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am your new Captain, Sinclair James, as I hope all of you already know.” His voice was strong, cutting through the silence. He spoke clearly as well, not hesitating at all. “The esteemed Chief of Police has volunteered me to speak to you about our department’s handling of Prohibition. I have a feeling that he’s already rather disappointed in me.” He waved around his scotch glass at that, inciting several laughs.

“Some of you might be surprised to hear this, since I’m from one of the country’s Mormon hotspots, but I do not support Prohibition. I believe that banning alcohol just made the problem worse. Now they can’t regulate it, and all the common people that just want a drink will have to pay thousands of dollars in legal fines and jail time. If we prosecute every single person that buys a single bootlegged beer, our judges and lawyers won’t have time to deal with the real, important cases of murder, theft, and other actual crimes. The feds don’t have enough people to enforce it, and Hoover won’t get any allies by trying to hire more people, since we all know that he won’t pay them enough. All this means that enforcing Prohibition would be a burden on the city, one that I am not going to make the people deal with.”

He scanned the crowd over once more, studying the reactions from his speech. Many people seemed rather shocked - not expecting a man from the Mormon part of Illinois to support the sale of alcohol, or to back up his opinions so well.

“That being said, if anyone in the city thinks that following the growing trends in other cities, of creating large army-esque gangs to dole out violence over alcohol, that I will crack down on. I do not think that making, selling, or buying a drink is a crime. Murder, assault, theft, and arson are, and will be treated as such. I would like to remind anyone who thinks that this sounds like a good idea that capital punishment is still legal in Louisiana.” This was met with complete silence. No one seemed to know what to say to that. It was a shock, the threat of summary execution stated so plainly.

“Well, I think that we now all know about Captain James’ stance on Prohibition. Since he is new, and no one here knows him well, I thought that it would be fun for all of you to ask him questions,” the Chief seemed anxious to move on from the startling topic, as usual. It made him ineffectual; his tendency to steer away from deep and sensitive topics kept him from properly doing his job, which let many criminals get away with things, especially ones that made him have to deal with issues like racism or women’s rights. Vic had a feeling that Captain James wouldn’t have that issue.

“Do you think that your upbringing in the religious and rural parts of Illinois affected your views on Prohibition and other controversies such as racism and women’s rights?” Armel Lamarsche, from the NOLA Bulletin, asked, sharp and blunt as ever. The Captain took a few minutes to think about his answer, which was a stark difference from the last Captain, who had always rushed into things without thinking about them. It was what had gotten him killed.

“I think yes, but perhaps not in the way that you’re thinking. I was expected to become a certain person there. The same person that my father and his father and his father had all been. A farmer with a nice wife that gives him lots of children for him to be stern to. My sister was expected to become everything that our mother and our grandmothers are - quiet and firm and obedient. All the things that neither of us wanted to become, because we saw how awful our father was, and how much pain our mother hid beneath her mask. I saw how we were expected to hate people based just on what books they believe give the answers or what color their skin was, things that I believe that are minor differences that pale in the face of our common humanity. I saw how children were denied the right to learn based just on those things. I decided, from that, that wherever I landed, that I would never let that happen.” Yes, much different from the previous Captain. Vic approved both of his words, which seemed to echo the things that every activist had been saying for centuries, and for the way that they made the Chief look incredibly constipated.

“Where do you live?” asked one of the uniformed officers - Vic didn’t know his name - Jones, maybe?

“Do you mean now, or where I grew up?” Thorough, this Captain. He might actually end up being good at his job.

“Why not both?” suggested the Chief, once again happy at the change of topic.

“Well, I grew up in Carthage, Illinois. It’s a small town, with only about 2,000 people. There is a good amount of Mormons there, but it’s also the place where their founder was killed. I didn’t like it there very much; nothing ever happened. Now, I live in New Orleans. I’m not telling you anything else, because that would be weird.” He ended with a smile - not a particularly nice one, but it seemed like he thought what he had said was funny.

“Why do you wear those glasses?” asked one of the detectives. He sounded rather suspicious, like he thought that wearing sunglasses indoors was the sign of a great crime committed.

“Well, I’ve found that most people tend to be freaked out about it, and I thought that it might make a bad first impression.” He took off his glasses then, and revealed three things: the first, that he wasn’t hungover; the second, that he had scars twisting across his left cheekbone; the third, that his eyes were two different colors. “Both me and my sister have complete heterochromia, meaning that each eye is a different color. Hers is opposite mine; her right eye is blue. I got these scars from a German bayonet during the war.”

His idea that people were freaked out by his scars and eyes was proven to be true with the audience’s reactions, especially those of the gathered civilians. Many were doing everything to avoid looking at him, while others seemed glued to his face. They weren’t even really horrifying scars, either - there were veterans with amputated limbs and completely destroyed faces in hospitals across the country, but these people would rather pay thousands of dollars to make it seem like they were doing something than actually step into one.

“Alright, I think that’s enough. Round of applause for Captain James, everyone?” Once again, the Chief stepped in to restore the light atmosphere. The Captain seemed rather amused by this, like he thought that the Chief’s incompetence was funny.

Yes, this Captain would definitely be something different.