The Wall Went Into A Witness Exposure Program

They’d complain about my tendency to hide behind them. Bastards. I’m what you call a closet introvert because, as a child, I was repeatedly told otherwise and bullied into believing I liked people, and of course, the idea of socializing followed. Such rubbish.

I found out the hard way people are not what you think, and what they say in the privacy of four ways will blow you away.

And that fallacy is about to disrupt everything.

If these walls could talk, according to Gregg Olsen, “the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone’s a liar.”

Here’s what went down, according to the only eye witness whose name has been changed to protect the idiot, I mean innocent.

I sat in the doublewide chair by the window, surrounded by dirty tissues, an empty coffee cup, and a glass of luck warm orange juice pulp. I’m down with a nasty cold, and due to COVID regulations, I would not be allowed to go into the office today. I took a double dose of Nyquil and stayed in my pajamas.

It’s just a cold, I had the house all to myself and a refrigerator full of food. What could go wrong?

You had to ask.

I’m sitting there, kleenex stuffed up my nose, feeling miserable, and I’m not keeping these feelings to myself when I hear something odd. Unexpected. Like strange rattling noise, or there’s a very aggressive rat in the attic, maybe a rodent building a fucking compound underneath the house.

I immediately swing the front door open wide because I have this delusion that if the front door is open, no one is going to try and kill me. What can I say? I was raised in the ’60s.

Then I listen. Intently. Nothing. It’s freezing, I have a cold already, so I close the door but don’t lock it. Again, I blame my mother, or As The World Turns. All I know is I’m screwed up, but I cover it well.

I flop back in my chair. I moan, whine, and complain to the walls about every grudge I’ve ever had, including the person who destroyed my reputation in high school and the guy who threw highly seasoned nachos at me from his car window when I was riding my bike one warm Saturday afternoon. Mortifying.

This is when I hear something very unexpected coming from the thin air, “if you end up with a boring miserable life because you resent your mom, your dad, your priest, the walls, or some guy who threw taco bell at you, then you deserve it.”

I’m like, “Where the hell did that come from? And by the way, that’s a Frank Zappa quote.” I check my phone. It’s off. The television, and the radio. Both are off.

I say, “What the hell?” Into the empty room, “it this a joke?”

I’ll admit to you, I’m totally freaking out

The unidentified voice says, “You want to know something? While you’re sitting there complaining about your life, there are five dead bodies buried in the neighbor's backyard.”

I yell, as best I can with tissue waded up my nose, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“They refer to them as the Campbell murders. Five people went missing on Friday the 13th in February of 1981, never to be found. Well, they were buried in the Thomason’s backyard. Go ahead, google it.”

“Who the hell are you? And why are you talking to me?”

“If the walls could talk, this is what they’d say.”

“Bullshit,” yet I google it while I’m wandering around the house, checking under the couch, behind the drapes, and in the garage. Nothing. I leave the front door wide open just to be safe, yet it appears I’m completely alone.

That’s when I read that the unsolved murders actually happened on that very date, they have the blood, the place they were killed, the transport car which was abandoned in Vasona Lake, and the murder weapon, but the bodies have never been found.

I say to the empty room, “the murders check out.”

It says, “Call it in, it’s the only decent thing to do.”

So I admit, I’m a little fuzzy this morning, but I call the police and tell them I had an anonymous tip that the Campbell murder victims are actually buried in the yard next to me. They ask a thousand questions but agree to send in a team.

Half the police force shows up with a bulldozer, shovels, body bags, and a lot of questions. Now I wish the wall would talk, but no, absolute silence.

I tell them what I know, leaving out that the source of the tip was the fucking walls.

They dig up the entire backyard. Not even a dead squirrel. My neighbor, Mr. Thomason, shakes his head and goes back in the house. He probably thinks I did this on purpose because he made me pay for half the fence when his tree knocked it down.

I return to the doublewide chair and reinsert the tissues. That’s when I hear, “hey dude, thanks, I’ve been wanting to put in a garden, but my damn back went out. Now the dirt is all tilled and ready to go.”

I yell, “What the hell? Is this Hank?”

“It is. When I came over and asked to borrow a screwdriver last night, I turned on the Bluetooth on your phonograph while you were in the garage. It’s a small button on the back. I figured you wouldn’t notice. All I had to do was connect, disguise my voice, and roll out the plan. Talk about gullible.”

I walk over to the record player and turn off the Bluetooth. Damn it. He totally got me.

I can’t change what happened to me that day, but I refuse to be defined by it. I read somewhere that walls exist so we can see who has the strength to knock them down.