Part 1 - suspect behavior, dirty undies and slime.

Someone painted red stains on the eight-foot white cross where the nails would have been.  Men sometimes sit behind the small store on a dirty picnic table. They are open when they feel like it so go away and come back later. Dogs roam feral through tall trees over the bitumen and aggregate and through the trampled field where soiled undergarments are discarded. The cows don't seem to mind.

Two men in an early 70's off-white Ford F100 bounce and rattle down the dirt path that bisects the field. They are up to something at the far end, their heads dip and bob as they slowly move across the ground, occasionally disappearing altogether behind the taller shrubs and grass as they walk back and forth from the bed of the truck.

Clouds loom ominous and move quickly over rusty playground equipment. A faded carousel slowly choked by weeds longs for small hands as a school bus rumbles out of a dirt drive across the street.

The road from here to there curves through the middle of this place and I have driven it often over the last fifteen years and never stopped. The pond is on the edge of a hill and reaches out just far enough to caress the highway and make fishy passersby wonder at sixty miles per hour if there might be something swimming around in that shallow weed-choked water.

Why did the fat guys cross the road? Because they heard there was pike on the other side.

Up Next: Bartenders with boyfriends, a new nacho recipe, and we play another exciting round of "What Important Thing Did Aaron Leave at Home This Time?"

-Alex who brings the bacon.