Fifteen years old, parents freshly divorced & living w/ my mother, brother & sister in the sticks of Toney, AL. I grew up in a small town called Athens w/ its own praised history & even university. Not far from Huntsville & Madison, where my current hollow rests. Compared to Detroit, Nashville & Atlanta___ we were loose change on the map. Toney wasn’t on the map, exactly, because it was a couple gas stations & a post office, w/ similarly termed areas surrounding that you would only know if you lived in that particular patch of sticks. Each place I’d been by that point in my life had its version of crime. The day we finished moving our belongings, I remember rolling down the truck’s ramp on my skateboard & looking around at a series of empty lots, we were one of the first houses on that side of the block. As a year or so passed a few more houses had sprung up around us, ___ w/ neighbors. What surrounded the neighborhood was a series of woods, fields & creeks. Half hours drive in every direction to any actual town or city. The county jail was closer & a sign stating to not pick up any hitchhikers. Staring into the woods at night made my guts turn, because the only way to know what I was in for___ was to experience it first-hand.
By the time I’d turned fifteen we had lived in the house for about a year & a half. I had developed a system of rides to get into Huntsville at night. Talking on the phone one evening while waiting on my ride. A knock came at the door, so I hung up the phone thinking it was my friend arriving. Instead, I opened the door to see a stranger grinning awkwardly at me. He played the nice guy in the neighborhood card, but at the same time was shoving money in my hand to clean his girlfriend’s house on a weekly basis. I told him I would come over & check it out, but that was as far as I could promise. Still at an age where, whether or not I liked it, I needed permission to do just about anything. However, my mother approved since the couple lived across the street from us & I would be working while she was home. Thinking everything was in the clear, I walked across the street on the day I was supposed to begin cleaning, but nobody answered the door. I walked home & called the guy. He said they didn’t need me that day, so I went about my usual business for a few hours, until he called me. The claim he made was his girlfriend called to say she had friends coming to stay & they needed me to clean the guest room. I wasn’t sure what to do since his behavior was increasingly strange, but I went over to see what the call was really about. Reaching mid-way across the street, looking at the house, I felt the need to turn around as I remembered his awkward grin. Next I knew I was standing at the door weighing if I should ring the doorbell, or just run. ___I rang the bell. He popped open the door leaving it at just a crack & spouted some nonsense he tried to play off as a joke once the door was fully open. My skin crawled as I walked in & he told me to sit down. Naturally, my first question was, “Shouldn’t I be cleaning?” Right about that time he offered me a beer & I began eying the door. He rambled & flipped channels as each moment felt like a rigid eternity. Eventually he pulled out a crack pipe, first asking if I’d ever seen one before, then insisting I avert my eyes. So I looked at the television, which had been on the porn channel for a longer span of time than I could tolerate. Him pulling out the crack was where I drew the line. I got up & left w/out much explanation. The first thing I did was tell my mother. Needless to say I wasn’t going back over to their house___ for any reason. When he called I told him it was a no go, & after persisting a bit eventually he relented. I didn’t see or hear from him for about a month, until he called to try & convince me to sell pills to my friends. Another one I said no to after listening to his drug addled persuasion. A few more months went by & I had nearly forgotten about him, until another call came. He said he was doing work on his girlfriend’s mother’s home, one of the most well known mansions in the area, & said he needed help cleaning up her kitchen. I can remember him telling me how rich & particular she was about her valuables, so he wanted the kitchen spotless for her. Yeah, I went to my mother, because even though the guy was weird___ he called at a time when I was desperate to make money. Between the two of us, we laid out the pros & cons, until she left the final decision up to me. I now assume she did that w/ the mother’s instinct knowing I wouldn’t go anywhere w/ the guy. No was my final answer.
Afterward things went silent until one morning my mother burst into my room. She physically shook me awake & shoved the paper in my face. As I came to she was pointing & insisting I read a certain section. The article revealed that the man had bludgeoned his girlfriend’s mother to death in the kitchen of her mansion, & the dates confirmed that his last call was meant to involve me in the murder.
Age sixteen, a friend from my hometown & I were bored, so we went walking through the woods. I knew the area quite well & explained what was in each direction. We chose a path that stuck to a rough trail, because we sought adventure. Somewhere between our starting point & intended destination, we stumbled across two holes. It was apparent they were dug w/ unfulfilled intention, no longer fresh, & obviously graves. As the two of us looked up at each other, the understanding seemed to click that the holes were related to the crime, & that one was meant for me. That day we took a shortcut home.
What triggered me to write this occurred day before yesterday, when I was hanging out w/ two friends that are landscapers. It turns out they were hired to refurbish the area w/ gazebos etc. to make it more family friendly, but were oddly left flapping in the breeze as if the job no longer existed. One of them at least has seen the empty graves. He brought them up before I told the story. After admitting I know the location & the story behind them, he asked if I want to go out there. I said I never want to return to that place again, but now I’m changing my mind. For some reason___ I want to look into the face of an empty grave that was meant for my body. If I do___ I’ll take my camera.
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(photo taken by me, models: Josh & Claire Abernathy)
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