Most Likely To Kill
By Anthony Scott Ashworth
The motor roars like a beast screaming into the night. I can’t hear it, but I can feel it. A wall of water pounds the roof and thunder rattles the panels. The wipers clacking and swiping are all my ears can register. I’m spiraling through the Appalachians down one of those dreaded backroads in eastern West Virginia. I don’t know why I’m driving so fast in such bad weather. Maybe it’s because of all the stories I’ve heard regarding this spooky, pitch-black stretch of pavement. Maybe it’s because I know my favorite burger joint is minutes away on the peak of the next climb. One thing’s for sure—the pedal isn’t to the metal because I’m in a hurry to get where I’m going. It’ll be the first time I’ve been back in over two decades. I wonder if my mugshot is still hanging up at Viv’s.
I can feel the give, the slithery slickness, between the tires and the blacktop but I don’t slow down. After cracking my window, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and allow the mountain air to tickle my nose. Storms in the city don’t smell the way they do here in the mountains. It’s the aroma of nostalgia. Of a time long gone. Of a life I ran from.
I pull into The Pit, gravel crunching under the tires. It’s a walk-up-and-order kind of place with a red and white awning hanging over an open counter. I need to be quick and tip big. They close soon. I can see the annoyance wiped all over the kid’s face when I approach the window. His disdain for me swells the larger my order gets. Sorry, kid, I’m not passing up the chance to surprise dad with a fat, greasy burger, a pound of crispy-battered onion rings, and a strawberry shake. Mom is going to shit a brick over it. I’m sure the doc has him on some strict diet. But I think a chocolate shake and a mushroom-Swiss burger will ease her anger.
I fire off a quick text to see if sis wants anything. She gets back to me in a flash. Thankfully for the kid taking down my order, she’s not arriving from Seattle until tomorrow afternoon. I tell him the three burgers, three shakes, two fries, and one order of onion rings will be all I need. With an eyebrow pop and a sigh, he reads off the items and total. I pay, wait patiently under the aluminum overhang, and watch lightning burst through the sky. This storm isn’t letting up.
US 219, known to folks in the area as the Seneca Stretch, isn’t the most used road this time of year. During the summer it hums with campers and RVs, trucks hauling jet skis, and family wagons heading toward the lake. Not during the fall. Not in a storm like this. People with good sense hop over to Bridgeport and take the 79 south, but most folks didn’t grow up in Lewiston Mills—a tiny town that sits twenty paces off the Stretch. It’s the kind of town where kids dream of moving away and never looking back. I didn’t have a choice. Once those cuffs were off my wrists, I knew there was no hanging around. If I did, I’d likely end up face-down in the creek like Jason Jones, the guy who everyone thought I killed.
It was a shock to find out about my old man’s diagnosis. It’s always the ones who take care of themselves who get dealt the hardest hands, isn’t it? The guy didn’t puff a cigarette or smoke a pipe his entire life—probably could’ve eased up on the Lambrusco and Rigatoni with meat sauce, but how else is a fifth generation Appalachian-Italian going to eat? Greg Felton smokes a pack a day and has done so for fifty-some-odd years. He struts around like God’s gift to humanity, but my old man gets back to the states after two tours, marries his high school sweetheart, has me and my kid sister, never misses church, and ends up contracting cancer before sixty. But I think cancer might be easier to deal with than having a son who may or may not have killed someone.
Let’s get one thing straight; Jason Jones was a menace. I don’t care if it’s frowned upon to talk ill of the dead. He was the kind of guy you wouldn’t piss on if he was set ablaze. The kind of asshole who strong-armed girls at parties and jumped at the chance to call me a queer. He would’ve grown into one of those adults who currently invoke the Bible while cheering on violence against immigrants. He’d drive a lifted truck and have a wife who covers up bruises. I’m sure you can see why the whole town thought I was the one who put a bullet in the back of his head. I didn’t like the guy. That doesn’t mean I shot him.
The reason the cops pinned me as the most likely to kill Jason Jones was because of the brawl at Viv’s Tap. Jason thought it would be a good idea to grab a handful of my kid sister’s ass. After turning him down, he then grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her to the floor. Of all the profanities spewed from my lips that night, the one everybody in the restaurant remembered was: I’ll fucking kill you, you worthless sack of shit. Three days later, Jason Jones was found six miles outside of town, executed by a single shot to the back of the dome. Cops didn’t waste a second tossing me into a cell.
The gate outside my childhood home squeals when I push it open. I trot up to the porch doing my best to shield the food from the rain. Mom throws the screen door open, pulls me in for a rib-cracking hug, and points at the two grease-soaked bags.
“You know he’s fucking dying, right?” she says.
“Marissa, give him a break,” pops says.
“I got you a mushroom burger, but if you don’t want it, I guess I can toss it over the fence. I’m sure the Campbell’s dog would love it,” I say.
“You got some fries in there for me, too?”
“Of course, ma, you know I’d never show up with just a burger. Here, pops, I got you some onion rings,” I say.
“Reminds me of when we would stop at The Pit on the way back from the lake when you and your sister were kids,” he says—that’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
Mom is all smiles when the chocolate shake hits her tongue. Dad pats me on the thigh from his Laz-E-Boy and drops his chin in thanks. He doesn’t look bad—yet—but I know it’s coming. Those big hands of his will shrink to nothing but skin and bone. His cheeks will thin. Soon he’ll be a shell of the man we once knew. And shortly thereafter—I can’t bring myself to think about him dying.
He coughs and mom darts up from the couch to make sure he’s alright. He says he is, but we know how this ends. Hard coughs today become short breaths tomorrow. He waves her away and takes the last of his burger down, crumpling the wrapper and tossing it into the bag across the room.
“Still got it,” he says. Mom rolls her eyes.
“How about some Lambrusco?” I say.
And for the first time, I believe to be ever, I am told there isn’t a bottle within arm’s reach.
“I’ll run down to Piggly Wiggly and get a bottle,” I say.
“I’ll go. You boys have some catching up to do,” mom says.
Dad and I nod and watch her gather up the trash, stuffing all of it into one bag and that bag into the other. I wait until she’s out of the house. Before he can turn up the volume on the TV, I jump in.
“Dad, I just want to tell you that I’m”—I fumble the phrase—“that I’m sorry for putting you through all that shit when I was a teenager. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must’ve been like wondering if I was a murderer for all these years.”
He sucks air through his teeth and crosses his arms. The look he gives me is like the one I used to see after little league games or during fireworks on the Fourth. Comfort. Pride. Love. He pushes the footrest down and leans forward, ushering me closer by curling two of his fingers.
“I always knew you didn’t do it,” he says.
“But how can you be so sure?”
“You couldn’t have killed that kid, because I did.”
I try to say something, anything, but my lips won’t part. I feel my brow furrow and my eyes must convey just how confused I am because he says it again.
“I killed him before you or your momma could for touching your sister. I knew the goof-troop cops around here wouldn’t be able to put two and two together. So if anyone needs to apologize for putting the other through a hard time, it should be me telling you how sorry I am.”
He waits for me to speak. I can’t find a single word to pluck from my brain. After an uncomfortable moment of silence, I finally speak.
“Does mom know?”
He drops his chin for a yes.
Again, words escape me. I take a deep breath and rub my face with both hands.
“What if they tie it back to you? I get a call from the county prosecutor once a year threatening DNA analysis.”
“What are they going to do about it now? Put me on death row?”
We both laugh.
“Dad, come on. I’m being serious.”
“You know what I did over there”—he’s talking about the war.
He had this saying when I was a kid. I thought it was the coolest shit I’d ever heard.
“You got real good at killing bad guys,” I say, and feel like a kid again.
He reaches over and ruffles my hair with a stuttering chuckle—another coughing fit erupts. Mom is back quicker than expected; the squeaky hinges on the gate announce her arrival the same as they did for me. I run over and open the door, taking the bag from her. She picked up two bottles and a box of Oatmeal Cream Pies—another of his favorites.
The wine flows and laughs are had. Neither of them bring up the name Jason Jones and I am grateful for it. The night fades away with yawns and I can see it on my mother’s face. Those eyes of hers are holding back tears that could flood the whole town. She knows sometime soon, she’ll be climbing those old stairs alone. She fights the couch cushions and gets to her feet, exclaiming something about getting sheets for the pull-out bed. I catch my dad staring at her like they’re nothing more than a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to watch someone time travel with just their eyes.
I’m not sure how long I’ll stay in Lewiston Mills, but I know this is one death I can’t run from. It’s strange to feel relief and sadness in the same breath; knowing he never questioned my innocence and processing his oncoming demise. When love you, pops leaves my lips, it may be hushed, but it has weight behind it. It means more now than it ever has. And for the first time in my life, I feel true, raw jealousy. I ask it before mom comes back with an armload of sheets.
“What’d it feel like to kill him?” I ask.
“Killing never felt good but killing him did,” he says.
Anthony Scott Ashworth 
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