in yer hometown

i ain't ever really like drivin' without no music.

maryanne taught me that.

you'd think a person'd know somethin' so simple like that 'bout themself, but she was always teachin' me stuff i'd never thought of 'fore.

turns out i needed maryanne for lots of things.

even though she was just the neighbor girl i'd take to school ev'ryday, she made a lastin' mark.

i 'member when she finally told me to turn off the radio. first day of classes our senior year, and she says to me, "ain't nobody gonna take yer music away, tammy."

"whatchu mean?" i ask.

"i mean ever since i known you, you playin' the loudest music. you playin it like somebody gon' take it. and i'm tellin' you, that ain't nobody gon' take it. ain't nobody can."

'fore her, i just thought ev'rybody played music all the time. and loud as they could. it din't make sense to me why anybody would choose to sit in silence if they din't have to.

"whatchu mean to say?" though i already knew what she was gettin' at.

"you ever just sit with yer thoughts?" there. this girl knew i ain't have no luxury of time like she did to sit around thinkin'bout how things coulda been or what i wish they could be like.

besides, even if there was time, there ain't no room in a county like this for the thoughts in my head. our property is just outside the albany line. i got kin in laramie, and they ain't say the kinda shit that make my thinkin' any easier.

"yeh. i mean, no. not really. i prefer music."

"i know, tam. i know." is all she said.

maryanne was a sweet girl that was sweet on me. or maybe i was just sweet on her. i think it depended on the season. cold months, she'd warm right up to me; we'd hide away in my truck parked between our houses — listenin' to nuthin' – talkin' bout movin' somewhere excitin', somewhere full of different kinds of people, and most importantly, somewhere by the water.

we'd talk til' just minutes 'fore curfew, then we'd hop out of the truck and scurry back to our front porches with moments to spare. nobody the wiser.

but come spring and summer, she'd pretend i barely existed, until she needed me for somethin'.

she worked at a christian church camp, and all the other boys workin' there as camp counselors kept her busy. she also had to deal with that creepy preacher's son, luke. maryanne couldn't go nowhere on that campground durin' business hours without him knowin' and pullin' her aside for some "special project." all he wanted was to watch her do some random shit. it din't matter what it was: pullin' kayaks to shore, pickin' up goose poop on the beach, scrubbin' the mess hall, luke just wanted to be a creep. maryanne told me he just watched, and once she even caught him lookin' up her shorts when she was bendin' over. she din't like that. made her feel like she was under a microscope. all that meant was that durin' the summer she liked to keep her relationships on the "straight and narrow," so to speak.

maryanne was livin' there over the summer, right on the campground, in the old groundskeeper's shack, since the end of junior year. business hours may have been off limits, but she was usually the only one on the property after hours...

so she'd call me out sometimes. not that offen, but sometimes when she was alone. ev'ry now and then she had some boy out there that she wanted me to meet. or a couple 'em, and she'd try to pawn one off on me. she knew i din't like that. she knew i only liked 'em iffin she was there, too...

don't get me wrong, i teased all sorts of boys 'fore i ever started doin' it for real with maryanne. i kissed 'em, touch'd 'em over their clothes and all that, then told 'em i was savin' myself for marriage. maryanne was the first person i got naked with. first person whose skin ever touched mine, and she knew that.

most people in our class thought my first time was with this boy named bobby jo. bobby jo struggled with thoughts like mine, but good thing i had this idea that saved us both a lot of trouble. a stroke ah pure genius on my part.

we went to this dumb party this rich girl named loretta was throwin'. she done this every year since her parents started going to couples therapy and flyin' off to cancun to celebrate findin' their love agin or whatever.

the basic ingredients for a loretta party are easy: pizza, ice cream, shots from her parents' liquor cabinet. once everybody is fed and loosened up, truth or dare comes up. the dares are simple enough: kiss this person, lick that taxidermy, take a body shot. if you got a strong nuff gut, you can do mosta the dares people can think of.

the truths get sticky.

i feel like they're a sorta punishment for not goin' with a dare.

they dig too much for my taste. my first loretta party, i asked for a truth, and first thing outta that bitch's mouth (in the third grade!) was "how come i ain't never seen you with yer momma?"

i learned real quick to just do the dares. nuthin's worse than showin' yer figurative ass, not even showin' yer real one.

but bobby jo ain't never been to a loretta party 'fore. he was homeschooled for most of his life, so he was lucky enough to miss most of this horseshit. not lucky enough to know askin' for a truth was like askin' for yer own trial.

as soon as he said the words, "truth, please," loretta spoke up so fast no one else had a chance to even think.

"are you gay?"

bobby jo turned a fiery color, more like his hair, less like his usual freckled egg self.

"no." he spoke flatly, but quickly. leavin' no room for questions or follow-ups. it din't matter, though. the damage was done. people done thought he was gay 'cause loretta said it, and loretta ain't never been wrong bout nuthin' yet.

poor bobby jo thought he was outed, but it was then that i had that stroke ah pure genius i mentioned earlier. i took him to the back bedroom, where nobody was, and told him my idea. i explained that people been breathin' down my neck bout bein' queer too. i said all we had to do was wait there on the couch together, and when someone came lookin' for us, they'd find us neckin'.

bobby jo din't like that idea very much. i told him i din't like it either, but that's why we din't have to touch each other until we heard the door start to open. that made him feel a little better, so he agreed.

we waited for what must have been nearly an hour. nobody noticed we were gone, or cared. we made small talk for a little while, but grew silent 'fore long.

maryanne finally came lookin' for me. we din't know it was maryanne, though.

bobby jo and i just heard the doorknob start to turn. we dove into each other so fast we smacked our foreheads and reeled back, rubbin' our wounds. maryanne laughed so hard that i knew instantly it was her and relaxed.

she swore to keep our secret and even offered to help spread the rumor that she found us naked in the bedroom together, "so you's both can catch a break," i 'member her sayin'.

maryanne was a good friend, even if she did seem to only enjoy my attention sometimes. i s'pose that's why i kept givin' it to her all the time, because she showed up in big ways. not all the time like me, but when it mattered most she was always there.

maryanne died the night after graduation. she walked, went to her party, all that. police said she was walkin' home from another grad party when she either "got picked up or ran off." whatever happened, she went missin' for three days. they found her body by the little river a few miles from the trailhead. police told the family who told us that they couldn't find no evidence of foul play, but that she'd been dead the whole time. "probably got lost and fell," they guessed. "funny business," says her dad.

we ain't never get to know what happened to her.

that was just a couple weeks ago, and the town's been real quiet since.

i have been, too.

i ain't listened to a single song since she left. drivin' 'round in a daze, not knowin' which way to go or what to listen to, so i ain't listen to nuthin' at all.

shit got real weird last night, though. i was just sittin' in my truck, thinkin' 'bout what she used to say to me 'bout movin' to a big city. i wondered if it was somethin' i could do now. thinkin' maybe i should.

that's when it started. the old leonard cohen song, "so long, marianne" started playin' on the radio. that coulda been fine, if it were playin' through the speakers i had rigged throughout my truck, but it wasn't. it was playin' through the tinny old radio that to my knowledge din't work 'fore i took it apart, but definitely shouldn't be playin' nuthin' now that i had stripped the wires and used them for my system.

but there it was, clear as the old radio could muster.

i turned the volume dial all the way down, but the music kept blarin'. i punched the power button, but the music din't stop.

"maryanne, is that you?" i whispered. the radio went silent.

i waited a second or two. then i turned my truck off and waited some more.

"maryanne, if yer here, do that agin."

right on cue, the music picked up.

i started cryin'. i ain't never believed in no ghosts, but why else would the broken radio on my truck sittin' there with the engine off have played a song 'bout sayin' goodbye to a girl named marianne? i know good and well when i been wrong, and i been wrong 'bout ghosts. maryanne was there with me, sittin' in my truck just like she used to, only this time she was usin' my music to communicate with me.

"maryanne, what happened to you? ain't nobody believe you got lost or fell into the river. we all know you ain't never been lost a day in yer life, and you sure as hell ain't clumsy."

a scratchy recordin' of johnny cash came on next.

it stopped, and a pained silence filled the truck. i din't know what to say. she just confirmed it, she was killed, but i was havin' a hard time believin' what the other lyrics was sayin'.

"'i'd have had her for my wife.' maryanne, is that part of the clue?"

played agin.

that was a yes as far as i was concerned.

there were plenty of people besides me who wanted to wife maryanne after graduation, but i could only think of one who might have done this.

that damned preacher's boy.

luke was just the sorta nut who might kill a girl. i knew some girls who ignored him 'fore and he just stalked 'em fer sport. he wasn't a popular guy, but that din't matter, he had connections. his dad bein' the preacher and all meant he was in good with the whole town, most importantly the mayor and the sheriff. ain't no one in this town get elected without the preacher's blessin', so ain't nuthin' he or his family could do that would get them in trouble.

"was it luke?"

the imperial march from star wars blared over the speakers.

"got it. ima gonna kill that fucker."

the music switched abruptly.

i recognized the soft melody immediately. maryanne knew i listened to sufjan stevens to calm down. but i din't feel calm. i felt sad.

"i can't let this go, maryanne. ain't no way this man gon' get away with killin' you." i started the truck, but maryanne wasn't finished sayin' her piece. the volume raised as sufjan turned into tracy chapman's "fast car," which switched to "born to run," and then "we gotta get out of this place." each song gettin' louder, faster, and more urgent than the last.

by the time i made it to the highway, the volume couldn't go up any further and i had all the windows down tryin' to save my eardrums from explodin'.

when i got near the preacher's house, i pulled off the side of the road a ways back so they wouldn't hear maryanne's latest effort to make me stop: a punky soundin' song i'd never heard 'fore, but i got the meanin' of the chorus easy'nuf. damn song just kept repeatin' "don't die in yer hometown, don't die in yer hometown."

"i ain't gonna die, maryanne. damn. i just wanna talk to the man." i emptied my glovebox of the p365 my dad had given me as a graduation present. "this is just in case he wants to do more than talk." i said as i got out my truck and stuffed the gun in the back of my waistband. maryanne, in her undyin' wit, played folsom prison blues as i walked down the street. she ain't have the sense to turn the volume down and i listened to johnny all the way up to the front door.

i knocked. and waited.

i been to a gun range plenty of times with my dad. it's one of the few ways he knows how to connect with me. he been strugglin' with that ever since my ma left. i think he's afraid i'll ask 'bout her, but it's hard to ask 'bout anything with a sig sauer goin' off. we keep the earplugs in even when we ain't shootin'. just makes it easier i guess.

i'm a good shot. my dad likes that. i hit that paper person nine times outta ten, and i'd say seven of those nine are kill shots. my dad says always aim for the vitals, and i always do. he also says don't ever take yer gun out "lessen yer fixin' to use it." i 'member he made me promise him that i ain't never gonna point it at no man unless i plan to kill that man.

i knocked agin.

i intend to keep that promise.