End of day: A week goes by. Two weeks. I purposely make no contact with Mr. Mann. No text messages or calls are shared. No e-mails. I know where he is, which means I don’t have to contact him.
Word gets around that the Boy-Eater, Pedophile, and Old Faggot has left town:
“The queer’s house is empty.”
“No one has cut the grass over there for weeks.”
“The mailman is forwarding his mail to Tampa Bay.”
And things in our small, country town begin to calm down. Mr. Mann is easily forgotten. He ends up being a bad memory, but harmless now because he is gone. People stop talking about him. He is forgotten as quickly as he was condemned. Mr. Mann is gone. Vanished. Lost. The way Newberry wants it to be.
* * * *
July 14. I receive a business-size envelope lined in aluminum foil. Inside the foi
