Jailbird

Nonfiction. Names changed, voices distorted, but true story.

Big Pat was a skeleton.

 

One of my unlucky uncles. He'd been officially unemployed for two years, essentially homeless, but found shelter in an abandoned log cabin, built and previously owned by a man named Nick. One of my less lucky uncles, a man who had been brutally murdered years before.

 

There's no electricity in the cabin. No phone.

 

My brother and I were working with him in the woods, making firewood for him, but we decided it was best to ditch him when we heard Binks was being released from jail.

 

Binks. Big Pat's oldest son. He had been in and out of jails and correctional facilities since he hit puberty. He was trouble.

 

He was always a nice guy to me and Mack, but his record followed him around. We didn't want to be associated with him when he moved in with Big Pat.

 

So we ditched Pat.

 

A few months passed. Binks paid visits to the farm. Saw that the clothes me and Mack wore were all ragged, and he gave us shirts. Even tried to find me and Mack a deal on a new truck after the inferno that consumed our old one. We always thanked him, but kept our distance.

 

And then he messed up. Like everyone knew he would.

 

Stole his mother's car. Smashed it up pretty bad. Sent back to jail. They're thinking of sending him to a prison, this time.

 

Everyone's been murmuring that it's where he belongs.

 

It's a funny thing.

 

He was visiting his mother, Terry, before he stole the car.

 

They were in a bar. Getting drunk. The official passtime of the northwoods.

Then Terry, the crazy woman, pulls out some photographs.

 

Photographs she secretly took of uncle Nick's dead corpse, years ago. Brain leaking out through the bullethole and indentations from the hammer. Stab wounds covering his chest.

 

Starts showing them off to other drunken patrons. I don't know why. Maybe she thought they were a nice conversation starter. She's a sick woman.

 

Binky sees the photos and reacts with anger. Takes them away. Destroys them. Makes his way back to her house and tears the place apart, looking for more photos. He finds a stash in a shoebox in her closet and sets them on fire.

 

He's going to prison now.

 

She still has the negatives.

Reviews

[Hedra Helix]

i like the stacattonessyness of this.

I like the form and colors used in writing this story. I can see the setting and the crowd in the area.

The story flowed well, and was an enjoyable read.

This is a very good piece

[justjenn_2u]

Wow! She sure put him over the edge. Like pouring salt into a wound. It's funny, the circle of events in life, where they lead, what happens.