Turnkey

The old laws are still in use:



Susan Crawford has taken her daughter Emilie on a trip down to the old South, so
she can see, where her father had been raised, before he had moved to New York and became a musician.
Nineteen years ago Susan had a short affair with him, which had resultet in Emilie, now a bright
young student, who should begine at the university next sommer.
 



"Look Emilie - The small village your Dad grew up is now a modern town.
Isnīt it a nice warm climat?  I bet we will enjoy our stay here."

"Yes, thanks Mom!  It was such a good idea you got, taking os here!"
 



"But - Look Mom - See that poor girl.
What has she done?  We must help her!"
  



"Please - Can you spare me something to eat? - I am hungry!"

"Stop Emilie, she is filled with lice.  We must ask at the hotel, if they know, who she is."
 


"Sorry Maīam, but you and your maid should not talk to the convict."

"Maid? - What are you talking about, Emilie is my daughter!"

"How can she be your daughter? - You better come with me at once!"
  


Without any explanation, mother and daughter are taken to the jail house and separeted.

Susan is immediately stripped, given a prison dress and cuffed to the wall in the local jail, to await
being put before the judge, when the weekend is over.
 


Emilie has to stand on tip toe outside in the yard, cuffed to a hook all night, together
with the other mulatto girl, Katie, who is punished for talking to strangers. 
The sheriff do not want to have such filth inside his proper jail house.
 


Susan and Emilie are presented for the towns people, as the new convict labors.

**********

The judge only need ten minutes to make his decision:

Having intercourse without being married, is a serous offense if you was a woman,
and Emilie is a  clear evidence of her guilt !
Susan is sentenced to hard labor for life, both as punishment and to protect
society against her immoral lusts.

For Emilie - Without her mother, she will have to steal to survive.
No need to wait for that to happen.
She is sentenced to hard labor for life, to prevent a future repeat offender.
 


Introduced to their new lives, mother and daughter begin working on the convict farm.
 


"Don`t tuch me! - We donīt like whores here."

Susan sit in despair beside Kaitlyn, Katieīs mother.
Kaitlyn had been married to Katieīs father, but finding it to difficult to have a white wife, he had
arranged a holliday trip for his wife and daughter to this part of the country, knowing very well what would happen.
He is now happely married to a black woman in New York, got a new family and is a successful politician. 

Kaitlyn had been married, so she had been sentenced according to the old law of miscegenation, and
Katie had been taken care of as a labor girl.

But Susan is sentenced for adultary and thus a whore, the lowest existence in town and despised by all, so
she and Emilie are forged permanent in chains and have to work naked.
 


"Get up whores and come here! - The cargo train has just arrived and must be unloaded for itīs
load of new tarred sleepers, and the barrels with toxic waste from the factory must be loaded before evening."  

The rest of their lives, Susan and Emilie Crawford lived (If you can call it so?) as convict laborers, doing the most
hard, unhealthy and debilitating work in town.
As the years passed by, any hope about being rescued vanished.
Apparently nobody at home missed them and reported them missing.

Or maybe Susan knew why? 
Her new boss at the office, had wished to date her.
But after being presented to Emilie, he was so kind to give Susan two weeks of vacation and suggested her, they went down to this town.
He would look after her apartment, and inform her friends - He said...!

  

 

THE END.