My wife never talked about the accident. I only knew the barest of details: it had happened back in high school, a vehicular collision on a desolate country road. Alcohol may have been involved.
Sometimes there were nightmares. She’d wake me in the middle of the night with a hoarse scream or a series of somnolent moans. There would be nothing for me to do except hold her, waiting until she drifted off again.
I pressed for more information one time and one time only. When I did, a fog of uncovered terror fell over her eyes. She didn't speak for a very long time.
I had never seen that look in her eyes before.
I didn’t want to see it again.
I was scraping by on an advance from a book that had hit shelves several months back. Despite publication by one of the big four, the book was likely never going to earn its way into royalties. It was the result of almost a year of work, an occasionally humorous look at the cannabis industry explosion called Farmaceuticals: Reports from the Field of America’s Latest Cash Crop.
By the time the book was released, legal marijuana was old hat. The novelty was gone. I may as well have written a book on corn.
Aside from some freelance work and the rapidly dwindling advance, I was mooching off my wife. The school year had started up again and she was back teaching while I kicked around at the house, starved for inspiration.
Many times, she would come home to find me sitting at the kitchen table staring at a blank computer screen, scribbled notebooks scattered all around, my hair tugged in frustration. She’d place a reassuring hand on my back, not say anything, and I would feel a moment of comfort. That comfort would soon give way to thoughts of worthlessness and guilt, the fact that even though we were comfortable for now, I was failing as a provider.
She must’ve sensed this, too. One evening, over dinner, she let it drop casually. Like it abruptly came to her, something that randomly popped up in her mind. Yet, I knew that this could never be the case. Whether it was lurking in the corners or dancing at the forefront, it had to be something that was always there in some capacity.
“I’ve got an idea about a story,” she said between bites of chicken piccata. I’d been relegated to dinner duty in the wake of my unemployment, and I wondered if the mediocre outcome of this particular dish was what prompted her.
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“It’s about the accident.”
I paused, the food on my fork suspended in midair. I looked for the traces of unearthed trauma on her face. “It was a car accident, right?” I asked.
“Well,” she started. Her face was calm, slightly scrunched in recollection. “A vehicle was involved. Kind of. At the start.”
“So there’s more to the story? I mean, I kind of figured there was, but . . .y’know.”
“Yeah. I think it’s time. There’s one thing, though,” she said, looking down at her plate for a beat and then back to me.
“What’s that?”
“It’s kind of hard to believe.”
The story was so hard to believe, in fact, that she would give me no more information.
“If you hear it from somebody else first, it might be easier to swallow. Not that I think you won’t believe me, it’ll be better this way. Free of bias. More organic.”
“But what about the expenses and stuff? It’s kind of hard to justify right now,” I said.
“I’ve landed a few speaking engagements this fall that pay pretty well. I think we’ll be ok for a bit.”
“So, what are you thinking? You want me to go to your hometown and ask about what really happened back when you were in high school? That's all you're going to give me?”
“Aren't you a journalist or something? Isn't that kind of in the ol' job description? Figuring out what the story is and how you want to tell it?”
“I guess. Just need a little more to go on.”
“I'll give you a few contacts to hit up. They’ll be plenty helpful.”
“Alright, alright,” I said.
Despite my grumbling, I relished the idea and felt invigorated by the challenge. The previous months of worthlessness were already starting to melt away like a dirty February snow that had overstayed its welcome in the face of an oncoming spring. I scrounged up the last of my funds and made my travel arrangements.
With a flyover state my destination, I was to land in the nearest sizable city, rent a car, and drive two hours to the small, rural town of Somerset. My only resources were a 2003 Somerset Sabretooth yearbook, a few news articles, the name and number of a local hobbyist historian, and my partner’s parting words, “Ask about Crybaby Bridge.”
They say everything is relative. Case in point: how long a school year can feel to those still in grade school and how brief it can be to those of us approaching middle age. Ask a Minnesotan what cold is and how low the temperature must be for them to stop wearing shorts. Ask a Floridian the same.
Everything is relative.
We can approach the town of Somerset in much the same manner. On paper, it is a small town; its population is only about five thousand or so, certainly much smaller than what I was used to. But with its proximity to the interstate, its corridor of chain fast-food restaurants, and the only town in the county boasting a Wal-Mart Supercenter, it might as well be a bustling metropolis.
I certainly started to feel that relativity myself. The longer I spent in the town, the more miles I traveled on its back roads and side streets, the larger the town became. In sheer area alone, what was considered Somerset by the locals was massive. There were hiding places and secret spots, unique natural formations and varied terrains, neighborhoods that spanned every rung of the economic ladder and (most) demographics. Oftentimes, it felt like you could draw a map of the place in the style of an old fantasy novel, the kind of two-page spread that you flip back to at the front of the book for reference. Beware of Goblins. Here There Be Dragons. Stuff like that. (Except in Somerset, the map would most likely read, Here There Be Tweakers.)
Despite this deceptive vastness and the fact that it’s the county seat amongst an area full of one-stoplight towns, the residents of Somerset hold no delusions of its place in the world. John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” (the seminal love song to such municipalities), is a sort of unofficial theme song, played at the end of every home high school football game. The crowds join with Mr. Mellencamp’s recorded voice, singing along with him about how they were born in a small town and how they would likely die there as well.
Later, after I learned more details about the incident, I wondered if they changed the lyrics in the ensuing weeks out of respect for the dead. Many people had recently died in and around that small town.
I only had to go as far as the hotel lobby to gain some insight into just what it was I was looking for.
Juan Nuñez had worked the night shift as a front desk clerk at the Comfort Inn by the interstate for about a year. The night hours allowed him to take community college classes during the day. He was born and raised in Somerset.
“I was in preschool when it happened, but I didn’t hear about it until I was older,” he told me, fidgeting with a pen from the checkout desk. “They kept it from us back in those days. I mean, it makes sense, right? Who in their right mind would expose a young child to such a story?”
“Still, there was only so much the adults could keep from us. The older I got, the more I heard. I first started hearing about the gory stuff in junior high. It was always worse around Halloween. But with every version I heard, the story seemed to be different. Sometimes the killer wielded a chainsaw, other times a machete. He wore a mask or didn’t. The body count changed all the time. The causes of death, too. He ran over a guy with a brush hog, fertilizing a pasture with him. He strung a girl’s guts in the branches of an oak like tinsel on a Christmas tree.”
Holy shit. A killer? Is this what she went through?
“It was probably just a junior high pissing contest. You know, each kid trying to one up the other? Each version more gruesome than the last? I’d ask my parents about it and they’d deflect, say it was a bad accident. Some kids partying out in the sticks and things getting out of hand. I mean, I think that’s more or less what happened. Have you tried Google?”
In towns like Somerset, there’s a tendency for urban legends. So much in fact, that you see the same stories crop up across the United States. One such legend is that of Crybaby Bridge. No matter where you go, the legend is largely the same. Most tell the tale of a pregnant woman and her untimely death at a particular bridge in Anytown, USA and the ghostly cries that can still be heard to this day. If you’re in the United States, it’s likely there’s a Crybaby Bridge a short drive from where you are sitting.
Somerset’s Crybaby Bridge has taken on new legend, however. Something that could only be known as The Massacre at Crybaby Bridge.
Of course, there were newspaper articles, but they were rudimentary accounts of the events. The bare minimum, if that. The town of Somerset was never known for its crack team of journalists. Even the state newspapers were surprisingly sparse. It was as if the whole town had teamed up to keep the events as hushed as possible, letting the truth mire in rumor and hearsay.
Utmost care was taken to obtain many different perspectives, and in the end, I feel I have obtained the definitive story of that tragic and terrible night. The wounds may never heal for the survivors, but for the rest of us it has become a compelling and uncanny story.
And like most stories, it’s best told by those who lived it.