06/24/21 Snippet, WE LIKE TO TALK ABOUT THE PLACE.

Getting there.

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“Betcha I can get over the fence,” he told me that morning.

“I bet you can,” I replied. “But you don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t go near the Place.”

“Why? Are you scared of it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Andy waited for me to say something else, but I didn’t. “Why? Is it a haunted house?”

“Probably,” I said. “Why are you asking? You already know the answers.”

“I don’t!” I started a little, the angry way he said that. “Nobody will tell me about this house.”

That surprised me. “Really? My folks won’t shut up about the Place.”

“Oh? What do they say about it?”

Okay, that was a pretty good question. I remembered slow conversations around the dinner tables, idle talks while burgers and steaks were grilling, the chatter of smokers in the church parking lot after services. Whenever there wasn’t anything else to discuss, the adults would talk about the Place. I imagine it’s like how people in other places talk about the weather. Never saw the point in those, honestly.