Friday nights in the small town had never been exciting. Besides the high school football games, which everyone in town attended, there wasn’t much going on. Most anti-sports enthusiasts either hung out and played video games or went to the power lines.
Nobody knows when the tradition started. There was an empty field down at the end of an old gravel road that ran parallel to the power lines. Both teens and young adults would congregate there on Friday nights. It was the most unsecret of secret gatherings. Someone would have music blasting through their car stereo while everyone hung out around the bonfire and drank beer. A keg was always involved, along with a few other less than legal substances.
He had been out a few times but by no means was a regular. Having grew up in the city, he wasn’t quite used to small town living. There was a good crowd that night, just over 50 people, give or take. It was the middle of summer, August, that time of year when the air felt oppressive.
He was part of a small group clustered together in the light of the fire. They were already buzzed and well on their way to having a good time. The girls were fine, strutting around in bikini tops and short shorts. The guys were showing off their chests, or in his case his wit, since he didn’t have any of the physical prowess some of the other guys had.Â
The more they drank, the funnier he became. More people began to gather around him. Maybe this small town life wasn’t so bad, the big city would have never given him this much attention. As the night wore on, his jokes became more sexual as tops came off and couples crept off to make out in private.Â
He made fun of them, and even pretended to take the top off of one of the girls. He tugged gently at the string but stopped before it became untied, all while pretending to be one of the drunk girls he was making fun of. He had them rolling. Soon, everyone joined in, making jokes and poking fun.
The bonfire started to die. The crowd thinned until there were just a handful left, not counting those that were passed out in their cars. He drank a little but not enough to be intoxicated. Still, it was that time He had all the fun he could for one night.
A few weeks later, he was arrested on a warrant. Sexual assault. It was the girl he pretended to remove her top. After several months in county jail he was found guilty. Six years in prison and life on the registry. She tried to claim that he raped her. He admitted to joking around but denied everything else. Still, it was enough.Â
She was there with friends and had had way too much to drink. That, combined with the other things she took made her easily impressionable. She even encouraged the jokes. By the next day, she had forgotten all about it. Her friends began telling her stories, each one worse than the one before. She believed them, they were her friends, why would they lie? That, and she felt horrible. The drink and the drugs left her drained. That night she called the police.
Her old friends joked about it. They no longer talked to her, but stories of what happened circulated. He was innocent, but she would never apologize. She overdosed shortly after he was incarcerated.
He was always worried about crime in the city. Besides having the occasional drink, he never did anything to get in trouble. He was a typical guy and made the typical guy jokes, but this was too much.Â
As he lay in his bedbug infested bunk he decided then that would never live in a small town again.
