He mutters as he trudges through the woods, “They say they know who done it.” When he laughs, his belly rubs so tight against his shirts that you would see worms crawling inside, if they were there. “They don’t know everything. Posted that ugly mug shot all over.” 

He looks at the phone number ringing on his phone. “Phone alerts. Probably APBs. Road blocks.” He holds the button in, turning his phone off. “YOU cops don’t know squat.” James Frederick laughs again and scratches his stomach. He steps on a thick tree limb; it cracks so he picks it up and fiercely beats and beats it on the ground until it totally breaks in two. Carrying half of the limb like an ogre, he exits the woods onto the road circling the drive-in’s parking slots.

The movie playing on screen two is “Scream,” appropriate for the local drive-in’s weekend theme, Killer Night. “I’ve seen this who-done-it before. Humph, a drive-in,” James Frederick says, “a dying institution.” He pulls his tight-as-shit outer shirt off once he claws it from his belly-shoulders-head, leaving another tee-shirt beneath, gray and dirty, and throws it on the grass-and-gravel ground before him. He coughs, wheezes on the cigarette pulled from his shirt as he smokes. His body is angled more toward the back row—-facing the SUVs and trucks. But his eyes are riveted on the concession stand in between the two movie screens. The concession stand, where SHE works. He is hungry.

Just then the sound system announces, “Folks, the concession stand will close in five minutes. Last call.” Some of the concession pavilion lights darken.

“Humph, maybe it’s not my night. Might’ve missed my chance.”

He checks the bulge attached to his worn belt, underneath the dirty shirt like a second skin. “Still there. Thank you for your service.” He licks his fingers; the little boy nearby’s popcorn is sure enticing. 

“Shittlesticks,” he says, just as he begins to hoist himself back up on two feet with the “club,” just as SHE emerges. 

There she is, in the quickly questionable ambient light slowly being choked out by the surrounding darkness. There she is, a skinny, greasy-smelling, bubbly, bubble-headed blonde laughing—and the sound muffling with the river-valley-fog settling in like an uncomfortable wet web. 

There’s someone with her. “No, no, we’re hanging, it’s you and me, all night.” Her fellow worker pushes playfully at her in jest as they walk.

James Frederick, first surprised at the sight of another, then says aloud but mostly to himself, “An escort? He’s a clown. An idiot teenager.” James Frederick watches. “Red flaming hair exploding like a carrot top.”

There, her hair so lit in the misty dying light, she was the Golden Girl.

“SHE could never take a bad mug shot,” James says, easing himself back down to his grave-grass spot as the two near him in their walk.

Golden Girl says, “I DID bring a box of popcorn. Thought maybe we could unwind.”

“Whatever you want to call it,” Carrot Top says and they both chuckle. 

James Frederick fumes to himself, “That co-idiot, wig-haired bozo. I’ll take care of YOU. Thinking how easy is this. I’ll show you easy.”

“I haven’t seen this who-done-it yet,” she nods toward the screen, “have you?” 

“No, I’ve never seen it to the end, don’t know who done it, don’t care.” Carrot Top points, “Here’s my car, far corner.” He steps up to open the back door of a giant Oldsmobile. “What say you?”

“The bigger, the better,” Goldie says. And in they climb and slide.

“Wait, James, wait,” James Frederick says to himself and beats the side of his own head. “Wait, you never want to. But not too soon. Or you’ll ruin it all.”

Mutterings and rustlings are emanating from the Olds.  Around the cars and SUVs and popcorn-slobbering kids slinks James Frederick. His bulge of dark matter in the darkness moves closer to the car. 

Blood-curdling screams, “Help! Help!” fill the air. Screams fly from the car like ghosts from graves as James Frederick rips open the door. 

Golden Girl has slashed at Carrot Top and is continuing to wickedly work the knife.  

Carrot Top bellows, “It was in the box!!”

James Frederick wrestles the knife away as he pulls Golden Girl out of the car and to the grass-gravel ground. “You have the right to remain silent,” he says and pulls out his phone.

“It’s always been a silent scream,” she says.

“I need an ambulance,” James Frederick says. “No, not for me this time. Send it to the Brownsville Drive-In.”