Walking blues..



He almost trips over his own two feet trying to catch up to the car when its pulls over to the shoulder of Crow Crossing Road.
He’s been walking for hours it seems and it’s the first and only one that he’s seen, as he approaches it he notices that the car seems a bit dated and out of place but is more than happy to accept the ride as it is getting on towards dawn. When he sees the young man with the slicked back hair and the brilliant smile it puts him at ease as he slides into the passenger seat.
“Where you headed to man?” the young man asks.
“Traverse City.” he tells him.
“Well mister I’m only going as far as Chet Hardaway’s place about ten miles down the road but you’re welcome to ride along.”
He happily agrees and the silver sports car spins a little gravel as it hit’s the blacktop. The two men share casual conversation and the young man introduces himself .
“My name is James, what do they call you Mister?”
“Willie.. Willie Brubaker.”
“Nice to meet you Willie, hey you hungry? We could stop and get a bite at Chet’s if you like.”
Willie confesses that it has been awhile since he has eaten but doesn’t have any money for food.
“Hey are you sure they’re gonna be open? Its gonna be daylight soon.”
The young man he knows only as James smiles.
“No problem Willie, Chet’s always open.”

Always open.



The two men sit in a booth and exchange small talk while they wait for Willies breakfast, who is looking out the window at the little silver sports car.
“So James.. What kind of car is that anyways?”
James Smiles.
“That there is a 1955 Porsche Spyder, everybody says it’s trouble but I love the damned thing, I have been driving it forever it seems like, but hey that’s how it is when you love a car man.”
“You don’t see cars like that around much these days, now everything is plastic, I used to have a 62 Chevy Impala, man what a car.” Willie shakes his head sadly at the memory.
James lights a cigarette slowly inhales the smoke, his young eyes seem a little sadder now, as they search through the stained window pane out at the early morning air.
“They don’t make anything like they used to anymore Willie.” he tells him, “There isn’t any soul in anything any more, not in cars, not in music, not in movies, not in anything, pride, heart and soul has been replaced by quantity and profit, no pride in craftsmanship any more.”
The conversation falls silent as Willie eats his breakfast, and James tells him that he can get him as far as turn thirty five another six miles down the road. They gas up the Porsche and Chet Waves at them as it pulls back out onto the road of Crow’s, and
James slowly pushes down on the throttle, and as the sky slowly begins to turn a lighter shade of blue the silver Porsche Spyder eases over to the shoulder at turn thirty five to let Willie out for the last time.
“This is it Willie, this is as far as I ever go, you be good to yourself brother. And be careful, the world has gotten to be a cold place.”
The two shake hands, and Willie watches as the Porsche slowly turns around and disappears into the early morning sunrise. He shrugs his shoulders as he looks up at a lone crow perched on the road sign.
“Yeah.. I’ll just bet you’ve seen it all haven’t you big guy?’
And as the sun rises at his back Willie turns up his collar at the early morning chill, and Willie Brubaker Knows as the Crow knows.. That anything is possible here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch. A.B.T. © copyright 2007.

There has been so much of my heart that I wanted to give you sweet Rachel, so many words that were left unspoken. Words that have all been swept away by the cold bitter air, until all that remains here is this terrible silence. It locks me away from you, away from the world that I once knew, and to find you again, to see your face I must search through the fragments of my memories, memories of another time, another place when I failed you sweet Rachel. They seems so dark, these images from our past, almost as if I am watching a black and white movie in an old picture show. I remember the party, the revelry, New Years Eve It was, out with the old in with the new, when I close my eyes I can almost smell your Chanel, you were wearing the perfect red dress, you looked stunning as usual. It was all so perfect, until we decided to go home, I had a bit too much to drink, I should never have driven anywhere. These scars that I still carry Rachel, they burn me to my soul, I see the headlights, through the rain, for a moment I think that they are in the wrong lane but no, the fault is mine. I try to swerve, but it is already way past too late, the truck hits us almost head on, I can feel the Chevrolet flying through the air, twisting, turning as if in one flawless motion. I don’t recall where it landed, only that when I opened my eyes they were loading you into the Ambulance, the Crows tell me though that you somehow survived Rachel, and that you have gotten on with your life. But I need you to know that I will love you my wife, forever.. And though I haven’t seen you since that night, you live here in my memory, in my heart, forever.. It is still raining here, it never seems to stop, but through it all I will go on with this struggle, even through the times when I long to hold you once again, I persevere.. Wherever you are my sweet Rachel you must know that you are always here in my heart, I so long for the day when we are together again, until then I will wait for you for all eternity my love.. Here on Crows Crossing Road.





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Passing Light.



He begins to curse to himself just under his breath as he feels the Mercedes begin to involuntarily slow down, and then the steering wheel almost jerks itself from out of his hands as the right front tire blows out sending the vehicle into a slight veer, just as the engine stalls. Jacob Tinsel has never been one to put a lot of stock into coincidence, What are the odds that he would run out of gas and have a blow out at the same exact time here on highway 10 in the land of crows. The Mercedes slowly rolls to a stop as the rain begins to pour down, surely now he wouldn’t make to Uniontown for the business meeting that had brought him this way in the first place. He finds many things have cursed him this night, and when the pair of headlights suddenly appear as if from thin air behind him, he almost jumps out of his skin.

Empty Reflections.



He cautiously eyes the dark figure as it approaches the drivers side of the Mercedes, Illuminated by the headlights behind him, the figure taps lightly on the window, and when Jacob Rolls it down he is almost relieved to see the elderly gentleman standing by the door in the pouring rain.
“Howdy Young feller, got yourself some car trouble do ya?”
He looks the older man up and down carefully.
“Yessir, I had a blowout and I ran out of gas at the same time.”
The old man explains to him that his name is Chet Hardaway and he runs the filling station about four miles up the road, and although his tow truck was broke down he did have his service truck and he could remove the flat tire for Jacob and they could both go to the gas station where his wife also operated a diner. And Jacob could get himself something to eat while Chet fixed the tire and filled up a five gallon gas can to take back to the car. Jacob reluctantly agrees, and soon they are riding in Chet’s 54 Studebaker truck to the gas station diner, the whole place seems out of sorts to him but cozy, and he enters the diner where Chet instructs the pretty young waitress to get the young man some dinner, the older woman behind the counter he figures to be Chet’s wife. He watches the old man disappear into the rain as the sexy young waitress brings him his dinner, He takes it all in as she flirts with him almost openly until what seems like mere seconds later, Chet Hardaway reappears in the doorway. He tells Jacob that the tire is fixed and he has filled up a five gallon can of gas for the Mercedes. He finishes his dinner and smiles at the waitress as he leaves the diner to return to the Mercedes, where Chet fixes the tire and fills the gas tank.
“Start er up and your all ready to go son.”
He watches as Chet returns to the Studebaker and pulls back out onto Crows Crossing Road. It is then that Jacob Realizes that he hadn’t paid for any of it, so he follows behind Chet to the gas station/ diner until the tail lights of the truck disappear into the dark rainy night.. Jacob is certain that he remembers where the Gas station is so he presses on until he see the lights and pulls in.. the Studebaker sits by the open garage door and when Jacob enters, he makes a chilling discovery, as Chet Hardaway’s body lay dead on the floor with two gunshot wounds, one to the head and one to the chest. He returns to the diner to the same scene, the wife and the young waitress both gunned down the phone ripped off of the wall. Now panic stricken, Jacob returns to the Mercedes and drives off into the rainy night to find help.

Revelation for one.



He finds a highway Patrolman at Junction 22 at a all night Truckstop, and now on the verge of an all out panic attack he blurts out what happened to the stunned highway patrolman. He tells him about the flat tire, he tells him about the gas station, he tells them about Chet Hardaway.
The officer tries to calm the obviously shaken Jacob Tinsel..
“Son, you need to calm down.. Every cop, every Highway patrolman on Crows Crossing knows what happened to Chet Hardaway and them two gals.. But son I think that you’re a little confused.. You couldn’t have possibly just met Chet and his wife let alone that sweet little waitress.”
“But I did! And They’ve all been-”
“Son.” the officer interrupts. “Chet and those two gals were murdered over forty years ago.”
Unable to accept the officers explanation he drives back to the Hardaway Station. Only this time he finds a decaying old and abandoned building. With no lights, no truck and no nothing. He stands alone in the rain, confused unable to understand what has just happened to him. Unable to grasp that such is life… and death… here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch. © 2007.

Even the spirit world likes to throw back a cold one once in awhile.

It is 10:30 am on the road of Crows, it is a gloomy cloudy morning with a slight drizzling rain that softly beats down on the pavement in front of her car, as she makes her way east towards Brighton, near Junction 26. Her name is Sandra Kinnard, and she has heard some wonderful stories about the amazing wildlife that lives here on Crows Crossing Road, she is especially curious about the birds in particular, and even a dreary morning such as this cannot curb that curiosity. She has driven all of the way from the big city of Covington, a distance of two hundred miles, three hours behind the wheel, for one opportunity to photograph just one perfect Crow. Ahead she spots a likely candidate, perched on a wooden post amongst the remnants of a barbed wire fence that once descended down into the empty field that lye green and still beside the woodlands. She takes her eyes off of the road for a mere second, and a large man running in the rain enters into her peripheral vision. She slams on the brakes to avoid hitting him, she looks up and the man has disappeared. But the Crow has landed on the front fender of her vehicle.

Past Imperfect.



January 25th 1972.
No one ever really knew what had brought former heavyweight boxer Joey “Poppy” Pappas to the small town of Brighton in the fall of nineteen seventy two. He kept to himself mostly, and could often be found jogging outside the city limits along Crows Crossing Road, Though most of the adults that understood who Poppy was, they knew why he talked with a slow seemingly deliberate slur, and why he stammered a bit from time to time. Most of the high school kids just thought he was mentally retarded and often found ways to amuse themselves by harassing the simple giant, with their childish name calling and taunts, mostly Poppy was just trying to get in a little jogging and would just smile at them and continue on his way giving little thought or attention to the tantrums of youthful hooligans.
It was true that fighting in the heavyweight division for thirteen years had made him a bit slow in the thinking department, but Poppy still knew the difference between right and wrong, and if you were a man and a young lady needed help you gave it to her. Period. It is on a cold drizzling late afternoon when Poppy finds himself jogging once again along Crows Crossing Road, in the distance he sees a single car pulled off of the road near the trees, as he draws near he can tell that there are two occupants in it, one of them lets out a scream that immediately draws his attention, he approaches the vehicle to see a young man holding down a girl in the back seat trying to force himself on her. Poppy, without a second thought opens the door and yanks the young man from the vehicle throwing him some twenty feet into the weeds. The boy is stunned to see him, and even more stunned to hear him speak.
“That’s quite enough son, the little lady said ‘No’ so its no.” go home and sleep off that booze that’s got your head on crooked boy, before ol Poppy turns your spoiled behind over his knee.”
He helps the young girl from the vehicle and wraps her up in his coat, allowing the boy to get in the car and return home, while Poppy walks the girl back to Brighton.

Revenge.



For all of his sixteen years, Chad Telfa’s parents had rarely told him no, High school jocks of the area usually got whatever they wanted, and Chad Telfa was team captain of both of the boys varsity football and basketball teams. He always got what he wanted, right up until the time he ran into Joseph “Poppy” Pappas. Jennifer McClendon wasn’t even on the cheer leading squad, and Chad Telfa’s only interest in her was the fact that she was another boys girlfriend. But now something else had Chad Telfa’s interest. Revenge. Revenge on Poppy. He sees Poppy walking down the street carrying a sack of groceries, and along with two of his friends attempts to taunt the ex boxer. He ignores them until the vehicle rolls to a stop, and Chad Telfa gets brave and gets out , he strikes Poppy but doesn’t even budge him. Poppy grabs him by the shirt and lifts the boy off of his feet. now looking him square in the eye.
“Boy.. You’re heading to a bad place, and you best straiten yourself up before you get there.”
He embarrasses Chad Telfa in front of his peers, and instead of heeding the older wiser mans warning the youth becomes even more angry. And now begins to plot his revenge. One night later he and two other male friends are driving on a rainy afternoon on Crows Crossing Road, they have been drinking and partying all afternoon, and it is here that Chad Telfa gets his chance at revenge. Ahead in the misty light rain Poppy is out for an evening Jog, an angered Chad Telfa has decided to put a scare into him, and steps on the gas, but the alcohol and the slippery pavement impedes his judgment and his car strikes Poppy doing 55 mph. he is thrown some twenty yards into the grass beside of the road, not realizing that Poppy is dead he turns the heavily damaged car around and begins to cheer, the three drunken teenagers continue back onto Crows Crossing Road. But Chad Telfa doesn’t realize that he is now driving on the wrong side of the road and around the next turn, he pays the price, as a fully loaded logging truck hits his damaged vehicle head on, killing all three boys instantly. The car is thrown aside as the logging truck slowly screeches to a halt. The truck driver gets out and sees the vehicle laying on its side beneath a billboard for a local church. On it there was written but a single word.. Repent.

Scratch © 2007.