Bus Riding VIII

“I doubt any twenty year old grudge is going to cause a murder now,” I said.

“No, there’s a reason for there to be more recent bad blood, that was just the start of it,” Jane said. “You see, Mike’s son was the father of the boy that Henry’s daughter had. In spite of the bad blood between the two fathers their children meant to get married. They loved each other a lot from what I saw. When he found out that his girlfriend was pregnant I though that Mike’s son would burst with happiness, he made a lot of plans. That was one of the great tragedies of the boy’s death; he never got to see his son. The problem is that the family had hardly started to mourn their loss then Henry shows up demanding that Mike help support their grandson. Mike refused.”

“What a mess this whole thing is. I think we can count Annie out of the equation, a small grudge wouldn’t lead her to kill,” I said. “Which would leave Billy and Henry, both because of Mike’s children, so we go to our final qualifier, which would the neighbor want to protect so badly?” Even as I said it I knew the answer.

Even though I wasn’t part of that crowd I knew where mob opinion lay. Billy wasn’t about to win any popularity contests. He stole from anyone, that didn’t make him popular. Usually people had rules about not eating their own so to speak, Billy didn’t. Billy wasn’t the sort of person anyone would protect.

“I remember, a long time ago the neighbor used to go on trips down the river with Henry and Mike. They would all be laughing together, people used to ask if they were brothers, that was all when they were all young men of course. They all changed after a while, as people do,” Jane said slowly. We all looked at one another.

“Should we just never speak of this again?” I suggested, and the others nodded in total agreement.

So I set down my pen, probably for the last time for this sort of account. If you can’t tell from my tone I have been thinking of ending my nightly bus rides. It isn’t doing me any good to be the foolish one who remains. I would be a lot better off if I dedicated myself to more fruitful things. I have enclosed this account of last week’s events for all of you, who at one time belonged to the same club as me, as a sort of nostalgia piece. I thought that all of you, no matter how far away you are would be interested to find out what has been happening around here. But I have a manuscript due soon, and should go back to doing my actual writing for work, I hope you enjoy, goodbye.

Mathew