Is there a real world around here anymore?
Mick’s dead, we don’t know the answers to the body-part questions, Sheriff Paul has become a little too comfy on my bar stool, and John is fraying at the seams.
Not what I signed up for, friends.
Though I must confess, I’m not surprised. A rattled version of John shared what he experienced with Paul last week.
Knowing what I know about being here, though, no one will believe John. I mean, what he experienced amounted to harassment. It’s just like no one believed Madam McMurtry’s daughter when she said the superintendent of schools had hit on her during a holiday party with all the snooty-snoots (including her mother). His sudden retirement six months later notwithstanding, that sort of thing is not remarkable.
Word is it’s why she left town, but how reliable is “word” around here anymore anyway? I hear she’s back post-fire at the estate. Haven’t seen the Madam in for the two-a-days in a bit. That “book club” business is rather key, I’m now realizing.
No, Paul is having some kind of moment. Something has him tweaked and it is not Beautiful Daughter Stacey.
For once.
If what John said is true, if he confessed to killing Mick, it’s beyond an interesting diversion. Why? What do I have to feed him to get him to explain?
I don’t believe it. He doesn’t have the guts. All of this blood and murder is seeping into his soul and he’s trying to be a hero, or, at worst, trying to fit in with it. THAT I could see.
The fact is he’s a terrible shot, and an even worse neighbor by all accounts (including Bernie’s). Loud with the trash cans, loud with the clutch every night parking the car.
Everyone remembers Sheriff Paul and Mrs. McMurtry, being the fossil that she is, and their shootout at OhKay Farm out highway 45 (owned by the Oh’s, Vietnamese immigrants, and the Kay’s, their son’s Irish in-laws … they thought that’d be catchy).
The fossil had gunpowder in her blood – left him in the middle of the corn, out of ammo and out of his mind.
This has to be weighing on him.
Question is do I need him weighing on my stool, telling the world his troubles. That nice couple from Boston didn’t think so. One drink and they moved on.
It started out well enough, small talk about living here in Middle Valley. New York to River Road dictionary, you know.
They just moved in on the north side of River Road last week here:
Might be time to move him along.
I fear for John’s safety. So green, so ambitious, more than a little naive.
There’s a lot more going on around here than he knows.