I’m out here year round waiting for the killer. If you stay too long I’ll think it’s you.

The government comes out twice a year to repave a drive that parts a
cornfield. An unruly ditch shelters its gated-off entrance, making it
impossible to see from the Greensburg Pike. Directly on the other side of this
spot, an elderly couple sits on all the answers. You’re not getting any of them
either. If you step a foot in their driveway, a shotgun’s going off.
Murder happened mid-century out their backdoor facing the high maintenance
drive. A couple was found hanged, burned, their car destroyed. Nobody found
out why. My kids were slaughtered out here, my flesh and blood brutalized by a man
I’ll never know. I’m out here year round waiting for the killer. If you stay
too long I’ll think it’s you. Haints are thick in K-town. Usually they’re spread out, sticking to what they
know. In a ditch beside Goose Road one carved his likeness into a stump
while he lay dying after a bike wreck. Generations of kids round Halloween
pee on him and place cigarettes in his mouth. Others worship Satan at the
burned out house where the only thing left standing is a doorframe. If you
pass through it you’re transported to hell. Manhood is tested at Crybaby
Bridge. Infant babbling intensifies until it’s all you hear. Tadpoles pelt your
car. The Maynards are big boys. They jump off roofs and shave their football
numbers into their heads. They took their monster truck out after school on
Friday loaded down with moonshine, pipes, herbs, and beef jerky. Barreling
down Greensburg Pike grill meets gate allowing instant access to the freshly
paved stretch. Cecil jumps on the brakes right where the asphalt ends.
Poplars fill the windshield. Sun sinks as they yell, “Wampus, Wampus…”
rhythmically ramming their two hundred plus pound bodies into the door then
into each other. Monday morning during Shop Class/Euchre Tournament they didn’t say a
word. It took a while for them to speak again. Their ride appeared to have
gone through a combine. After school dope heads pile in the Hoseymobile. We’re gonna’ do what the
Maynard’s did. First one that can’t hang or goes to sleep gets left.
Not going to break the gate down with my car. Park it off in the weeds. We
walk in a row towards the spot. One by one they disappear out the side of my
sight. An increasing electric hum connects each ear splitting my head. I wake
up serious many years later in Nic’s gravel soup driveway.


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