The adult me racked my brain for dead body part connections I could make. BJ listened patiently.
My father killing a deer and slaughtering it in the shop—I had always been afraid of that shop. No, no, that’s not it. My grandmother dying around that time, and my mother telling me not to look at the body. No, not that either. The Indian grave my father and grandfather had threatened to dig up in Oklahoma. “God, I hope not. I was always afraid of going into the woods after that. Even though, they didn’t dig it up.”
“How do you know they didn’t dig it up,” BJ asked.
“Because they said so,” I began to doubt, “Oh…thanks a lot, BJ.”
What plagued me the most was where he might have gotten dead body parts. Until, I realized that DBPs were as close as the local grocery store. I couldn’t believe my father could threaten me with anything so crazy. Then, another connection was triggered that I shared with BJ.
“One night my mother and I planned my father’s murder….It was winter time, and the pilot light in the furnace had gone out. None of us knew how to light it. My dad was out drinking and wouldn’t come home. The three of us—my mom, brother, and me—were laying in the big hide-a-bed in the living room freezing.
“I’m pretty sure my brother was asleep, but my mom and I were so mad at my dad that we came up with the perfect murder. We would park his car at the Narrow’s Bridge or some train depot or something after we hit him on the head and killed him. Then, we’d put his body inside the neighbor’s cement staircase outside their back door which was hollow and had been there forever and seal it.
“The only problem, and this is what reminded me of dead body parts, was that he wouldn’t fit through the opening under there in one piece. I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I could cut him up.... We must have been really angry at him to think of doing that. A lot angrier than just being cold because the pilot light went out.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
BJ didn’t say much after that story. I knew there wasn’t much to say. But, I had one more part to tell. “I have to add this, because it’s part of the story. It doesn’t have much to do with dead body parts. But, three years later when I was living with my grandparents, my mother called me up and said, “‘We’ve been caught.’”
“‘What?’ I said.”
“‘I’m on my way to jail right now! The neighbors took out their back steps. They’ve found the body. I can’t believe we got caught. The police are already here.’”
“So, she remembered all that time,” BJ commented.
“Yeah, and so did I. That’s how seriously we took it. I got a little cold chill down my back. Even though, I knew my mother was only playing.”
(YOU CALL THAT PLAY? Yeah, what a game.)