Misgivings: Day 12

Word Count: 72,107

Summary of Events:

Greyson went to the wiener roast early in order to have some time to talk to his boss, Joe, about the Fransbergens. Joe confirmed Greyson's suspicions that Ayers was Mr. Fransbergen's son, and had inherited his brown eyes from his mother, although Greyson was surprised to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Fransbergen had divorced, and their other son, Troy, had gone with Mrs. Fransbergen shortly after Ayers had gotten married to the wife he no longer had, while Andy — who'd been Troy's best friend — had been taken in by the Fransbergens when his parents had kicked him out for excessive drinking at sixteen, which didn't really surprise Greyson…

Excerpt of the Day:

“I could believe that,” Greyson said. “But thankfully I don’t have dents in my hood to prove it.”

“Dents in your hood?” Joe asked.

“When I arrived to move in he saw me driving in and walked up to my vehicle grille, banged on my hood, and swore at me,” Greyson replied. “Later on we went toe-to-toe and he told me he didn’t like me, but he didn’t seem to have a valid reason for why.”

“That doesn’t seem terribly out of character,” Joe said, nodding.

Greyson nodded, even though he’d only known Andy for about two weeks now, and watched as the tongues of orange flame licked at the wood of the fire, set down in a pit slightly in the ground and burning brightly within the confines of the metal ring around it.

Thinking over what he’d learned, Greyson shifted his jaw. If Joe was correct in having supposed that Ayers had moved into the trailer with Ariann, that would mean someone lived in the trailer more recently than ten years ago, but if Ariann had since gone on to find and marry someone else, would they have really lived in the trailer four years ago? Also, why would Ayers have left his clothes behind?

“Do you think anyone else lived in the trailer before me?” Greyson asked.

“I don’t think so,” Joe replied. “I know so.”

“Oh,” Greyson said. “Who?”

“Ayers’ best friend, Terry,” Joe replied. “Ayers, Terry, Troy, and Andy were sometimes known as the AT-AT, not only for punny reasons, but because they were considered somewhat destructive, especially when they got drunk. There’s a lot of stories of the shenanigans they got up to. The most scandalous was Andy’s being found drunk, high, and naked in the middle of the highway by Gloria’s sister and her husband. They’d been coming up for an August long weekend visit, and they were so disgusted they turned around and drove home before calling Gloria and telling her what they’d seen. Not the sort of thing you expect to see on a highway at eight in the morning.”

“Wow,” Greyson said. “Is that what got him kicked out?”

“Yes,” Joe replied. “And from what I understand he still refuses to believe such a thing ever happened.”

“I don’t even want to picture that in my head,” Greyson said.

“Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t run with that crowd,” Joe said. “There were a few light drinkers in my crowd, but they were the hard-drinking crowd, and even if the stories can be entertaining, on one hand, they’re also disgusting on the other.”

“Yeah, my friends and I didn’t get up to stuff like that,” Greyson said. “But, um, what happened to Terry?”

“He was hit by a drunk driver and killed,” Joe replied.

“Oh,” Greyson said. No murder.

“But not just any drunk driver either,” Joe said.

“A driver who was drunk and high?” Greyson asked.

“No,” Joe replied. “Ayers’ cousin Travis.”

“Oh,” Greyson said. “That probably didn’t make family gatherings pleasant.”

“The Fransbergens don’t have family gatherings,” Joe replied. “They never did.”