Del, that’s perfect.

The man invited him to join the group at the bar. Latham himself soon felt awash in beer, but there was nothing else to drink unless he wanted to drive thirty miles to a “wet” county. Wet? He was already beer-logged enough to sink the Titanic simply by stepping on board; what could be wetter? But no, his companions said, this was a “dry” county. It all had to do with something called “local option,” which meant, they explained, that anybody can do as he damn well pleases as long as an election is held first.

…

Before long, they were waxing nostalgic about the good old days, when there had been no hard liquor at all and their beloved state had been empowered to collect a Black Market Tax from the bootleggers.

“A what?” Latham asked.

“Why, shore. Used to be, there weren’t no legal hooch a-tall, so the bootleggers was makin’ all this money, see? Waal, you got to have tax money to run a state, so the legislature passed the Black Market Tax on hooch so the state could git tax money from the bootleggers.”

“You mean it was actually on the statute books?”

“‘Course it was,” said Latham’s informant. “You got to make it legal.”

“But the legislature had also passed a law saying liquor was illegal!”

“Thass right. They had to please the Baptists,” said the man, with a shrug that seemed to say he had now made everything clear.

Latham persisted.

“Didn’t the Baptists object to the passage of the Black Market Tax?”

The men seemed too surprised to speak for a second, but then one of them explained.

“Waal, don’tcha see? The Baptists and the bootleggers have always been hand in glove ’round here. Neither of ‘em wanted anybody to drink legal hooch. It was bad for both their businesses, you might say. They was both afraid this state would go legally wet, so they got together and pushed this bill through the legislature.”

Latham shook his head in disbelief.

“Didn’t anybody feel a sense of…of conflict?” he finally asked.

“Waal, I reckon the legislator who was both a bootlegger and a Baptist deacon had a right good laugh when he collected bribes from both sides.”

Until this moment, I thought Ms. King was exercising hyperbole.

Sweet Jesus, please transport me from this alternate universe in which I dwell.