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Craig Nybo

6

popped its top with the church key. He settled down on the bench and got comfortable. This was going to be a good one.

“DePalma Beach wasn’t always the Rockwellian utopia it is today,” Hugh began. “There was a time in the early 50’s when terror hung over this place like a billowing shroud. People used to lock their doors in those days. They wouldn’t go out at night, especially on a full moon.” Hugh turned to Kurt and fixed him with a weighty glance, his brows drawing down low.

Kurt chuckled and sipped his beer.

Hugh stayed in character. “You say wolves attacked old Buren’s herd? Well, you may be right. But then, you may only be partially right.”

Hugh took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He raised his bottle for another swig. “Getting late. Maybe, we’d best call it a night.”

“Oh, come on, Hugh. You know you got me right where you want me. Now give a little. What else am I going to do, go watch reruns of 24 or something tonight?”

Hugh fixed Kurt with a warning expression, as if to say, son, this just might be too much for the likes of you.

“Just tell the story,” Kurt said.

“If you ask me, I think you’re just after the free beer,” Hugh said, inclining his head toward Kurt’s bottle.

Kurt spread his hands expressively. “What do you want? Oh, master storyteller, I sit at your feet, rapt on your every word. Please endow me with a tale.”

Hugh laughed, that powerful series of guffaws that seemed to invite Kurt to become even more a friend with every chuckle. “Fine then, young man; I deem you worthy of my tale.”

Kurt rolled his eyes and sipped his beer.

Hugh straightened himself up on the bench and looked off into the horizon, a bruise in the sky, painted by the flagging sun over a canopy of evergreens and tracing insects. He took a few seconds to compose his thoughts, then he began his story.

“The patriots of the Second World War, myself among them, had come home and settled, marrying their girls and