Category: Crime

The Grizzly Ate Your Baby

Several years back, my buddy and I made a wrong turn on the way to Virginia. Appalachia is the kind of place with towns called Tightsqueeze, so you’ll understand that any wrong turn is...

The last lie you’ll believe

Somebody lied to you. You may not know it yet. You might be seething with hate. You feel it pressing down on your chest. You want to breathe, but you can’t. You see those...

Giggling at hell

There’s a man who makes birdhouses. He’s a jolly guy, the kind you’d think would be good to suit up as Santa come December. He’s a craftsman who hits the southeastern arts festivals, sits...

A letter to an American kid

I will never forget the day you were born. I will never forget the day you turned ten years old. They were both days that scared me until I could feel the fear in...

The monsters are real

I grew up on the west side of Springfield, Missouri. If you look on the left part of Springfield’s gridded streets you will find the map of my childhood. It’s where I rode my...

The kid you’ll never hear about

The gunfire started about the time we reached Field 4. Rat-tat-tats, small arms, over and over again. We were there for baseball practice. A sunny day in September. Mid-70s, blue sky, light breeze, and...

Using John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck died in 1968, four years before the landmark Furman v. Georgia capital punishment decision by the United States Supreme Court. It was the first moratorium on the death penalty in the U.S....

Cracking the comments code

This may surprise you, but I know a little more about crack cocaine than the average 37-year-old guy who grew up in a semi-rural community in southwest Missouri. I know how it’s made, how...