If you’ve been to small town America, you know this place.
You may live here.
You may have been friends with Summer.
You may even miss it, from time to time. How it used to be. Before.
But - do you know?
Who killed the town?
Was it
The Stranger who
Came in the night
All those summers ago,
And killed
Our girl? Left her
in the crick bed
picked dry as her daddy’s pockets?
It seems like
It all started going wrong
After that.
Wasn’t that when everyone started to forget
To whisper behind their folded hands?
Playin’ jump rope gossip-grapevine
With her ligature marks?
You know, last summer she got caught stealing
Eyeliner from the Osco’s
A deck of cards cracks
On a screen porch patio on 1st avenue
While ladies lunch.
Well I heard she’d been arrested before -
Out at a cornfield party, drinking, of course-
And where were those parents….you just never know about people anymore.
Isn’t that about the time they all started taking
deadly aim with crossed wires?
Well, of course you heard what they’ve said ?
About the autopsy results?
They say, they think…
A glass of sweet tea sweats
At the accusations in the church basement.
Was it Walmart that killed the town?
That helped us save money and live better -
Ran mom and pops shops off
The town square where we used to
Scoop the loop every Friday night
Watch all the farm girls with those strong, long legs
That know just how to hold a stallion-
But can’t quite keep up with the minimum wage.
Or was it the company store?
Paid our ancestors with scrips so low
It chained us to the lack in the land -
Told us our worth was as hollow as the holler
When they hollered for that black gold
and the only sound that came back to them
Was regret and retribution.
Was it the prison?
They sent all our uncles and brothers up state-
In and out of rehab with 120.00 and
three condoms in their pockets;
They got hooked on painkillers after high school
When they hurt their shoulder
in a football game in college
Or their back in that factory job
Or some other thing in that war
Like his mind, maybe -
But anyway, he just can’t afford to keep
Dad’s dreams on his back anymore.
So he bottles his rage like whiskey, writes his own
Supplemental script;
Puts on his nicest belt buckle,
Takes his pickup with a bed full of
His future’s empty promises
and his momma’s charm
And goes cattle calling city girls
who don’t know any better -
They’ve never seen what becomes
of those front porch gospel ghosts
After the screen door closes and
the smell of sulfur
Soaks into a lace tablecloth.
They don’t know what it took to be her.
She won May Day Queen, that year she died.
Got pulled down Main Street at 5mph
On a float she made herself,
Behind her grandad’s Lincoln continental
Sun-in hair done up like Farrah Fawcett,
Smile warm as summer;
Hands folded in her lap,
Ankles crossed, back straight and perfect wave.
Her mother’s lipstick in the glovebox
And grandma’s vintage perfume.
She was the most beautiful thing this town her parents
Ever did.
And don’t you think she deserves a little justice
For that?
Was it the FBI?
Who let a serial killer move from town to town
picking it clean of its town squares
and summer dreams,
Coming and going like an F5
And leaving an empty shell,
Right next to the prison
For us
to stare at in the distance-
But then again -
They work for that “ol man” Uncle Sam
Who sold us to them?
Like he was runnin’ girls or somethin’.
You believe that? You believe they’d
Turn us out on us
Like that?
We live in a small town -
Nobody is ever really a Stranger here
With an unsolved murder
hanging over it’s head -
Won’t someone help us
Figure out who killed Our Girl?
She was so important to us.
We’re almost sure her name
was Summer.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emilyergenbright.substack.com
