“The world is indeed comic,
but the joke is on mankind.”
– H.P. Lovecraft
My town has gained some notoriety in recent weeks. Maybe you’ve heard about the strange electrical storm that showed up in Charlottesville, N.C. overnight and then disappeared just as quick, or maybe you’ve read in the paper about the sudden outbreak of mental illness and cerebral aneurysms. Don’t worry though if you haven’t been keeping up with the crackpot news outlets, I’ll fill you in. How do I know so much about this? Well, let’s just say I was there.
For starters, the only reason I moved to this God awful backwater hell in the first place was because my career choice made employment somewhat difficult to find. You see, most funeral homes are family owned, so naturally the laws of nepotism apply. It didn’t matter that I had a degree in mortuary science, or that I had already completed my apprenticeship and directors certification by age 24, the fact that my daddy didn’t own a crematorium meant I would be facing an endless hallway of closed doors until who knows when.
That was of course, until a visit to Bailey Meadows (my birth town.) prompted enough boredom to look up an old friend, Terry Liddell.
I met Terry around the summer of ’05, at this cruddy little bar called “The Broken Window,” where bands would sometimes play shows if they couldn’t find anywhere decent. He and I hit it off in a totally-not-homosexual way and we spent a huge chunk of time around each other because Bailey Meadows was the most boring fucking place in all of North Carolina. That, and the Window was the only place within a twenty miles drive of my house that would serve minors.
So, after wrapping up my apprenticeship in Raleigh, I moved back in with my parents due to the unemployment thing (Apprenticeships do pay, but the position was considered temporary at best.), e-mailed my résumé along the entire East Coast, started going stir crazy, and finally worked up enough motivation to drive my Charger west along Highway 42.
Having spent the last 4 years in Raleigh made me forget what a shit hole Charlottesville truly was. It’s the kind of place where people don’t mow their lawns because of all the scrap metal hiding under the weeds. The folks here were a strange breed of redneck, a cross between the Appalachian variety and the lower dwellers of the marshland. The town itself is just as terrible. There’s the strip mall where all the stoners hang out, a library that smells like piss, a trailer park, the Trinity Baptist church, a hospital, and the downtown area.(includes the Broken Window, a couple of family-run business, the post office, and the courthouse.) The rest of Charlottesville is nothing but a series of abandoned farm houses for about a five mile radius and the ruins of an old paper mill that blew up in ’88.
I found Terry at the Window, behind the counter wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt and wiping off the mugs. Turns out he and some dude named Franklin bought the place three years back and had pretty much kept things the same since. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.” Terry said.
After catching up on recent news and laughing about the time we spray painted Mrs. Patterson’s dog over a few shots of Wild Turkey, finally Terry mentioned that the Burnswick funeral parlor needed a new embalmer because the old one went crazy and hung himself or something. Just like Terry to get me good and drunk before telling me something of actual importance. I called him an asshole and we both laughed so hard that I fell of the barstool. That was when Terry made me hand over my car keys.
I woke up the next morning feeling the way I imagined a corpse would feel if it were to be dug up and smacked across the face with a shovel. Numb, but somehow still in pain. The next thing I noticed was that I was not in my parent’s house. I was on Terry’s sofa, or at least I hoped Terry’s. Dragging myself to the kitchen, I drank at least a gallon of water straight from the tap before puking it all back up. The sound of me retching out my innards must have been loud, because the next thing I knew there was an unfamiliar voice coming from behind, a girls voice.
“You must be Stephan. Terry said you were a lightweight.” I turned around to match the voice to a face. She was about a head shorter than me, pale skinned, skinny as a twig and with one of those asymmetrical haircuts that have grown quite popular.
Also she was wearing a black t-shirt two sizes too small and no pants. Just a pair of pink panties with a zipper down the front.
“Call me Harris, and Terry’s a dick. He should know to keep me off the firewater, ever since I hurled all over his drum kit.” I said, wiping barf off my lips while trying not to stare at her crotch. Naturally I assumed that this chick was either Terry’s girl, or at the very least someone not to be caught with while pitching a tent.
“Well Harris, I’m glad you made room for breakfast, ‘cause I’m making waffles.”
Fuck yeah, waffles. During breakfast I found out that her name was Billie-Joe Kimble, and yes, she was Terry’s girl. Fiancé in fact. They met each other at The Broken Window three years ago. Billie was the bassist for a band called “Chop the Willow”, which she joined after moving here from Jacksonville. Why she would willingly relocate to this cesspool was beyond me, but she seemed to like it here.
“It’s got something you can’t find in the city,” She said. “This place has mystery.” Looking back on things, Billie was probably right.
