Serial

06. The Missed Brunch

     In the fall of 2017, Bonbury had been blessed with a warm and mild fall, and on Thursday, October 26th, as classes let out and the afternoon could be called‘late', Arthur Baker sat on his porch, enjoying the crisp air and gentle rays of the sun.

      Arthur lived in one of the newer residential areas of Bonbury, where houses sat in rows, identical to one another in all ways but colour. The odd few had an extra room, a different fence, or a more well tended garden, but for the most part the houses in Arthur's neighbourhood were indistinguishable.

      Arthur sat, as he did often, on a swinging bench on his front porch. In one hand he held the day's newspaper, looking over the reviews from the previous night's show. In the other hand he had a fresh coffee, black and brewed from a french press. Arthur enjoyed the fresh air of Bonbury, far away from the city pollution. His bench was a place of peace and quiet for him, and he enjoyed watching over the neighbourhood from his perch in these quiet moments when he was alone at his house. Of course, every moment must end, and soon Arthur let out a peaceful sigh as his wife pulled into their paved driveway.

      Bonbury's residents could be categorized in four different groups.

      The first group, and most populated by far, were the students. Students were usually those attending Eastworrow College. They only lived in Bonbury for their few short years of their post secondary lives before moving on to bigger and brighter cities. Most students lived in dorms on campus, however there were certain neighbourhoods with a prevalent student population. In particular, there was one street in town that had such a high number of Sororities and Fraternities that locals had began to call it Sorfrat street.

      The second group of residents liked to refer to themselves as the Descendants. Descendants, as the name implies, came from the original villagers of Bonbury. They had the smallest percentage of the population, but their names held a lot of power in the town, with many streets or buildings being named after various original families. Descendants were very proud of their heritage, and had an air of importance to them at all times.

      The third group of residents were the staff. Staff were mainly employed by Eastworrow College, but it could be argued that any worker who had moved to Bonbury and worked at any of the other smaller establishments in town were also of this category. Oftentimes staff were students who had come to hold a feeling of comfort in Bonbury, and no job opportunities elsewhere.

      Arthur Baker, professor of Eastworrow College, could be grouped into the staff. He had a passion for history, and taught it 4 days of the week at the college, and one day of the week doing a special class for the high school. His main interest lay in ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian weapons and warfare, and he even had converted one of the extra bedrooms of his house into a display room for various antiques and recreations of that kind.

      The fourth and final category were simply known as the housewives.

      The housewives of Bonbury were like housewives of any other town. They ran their houses while their husbands or wives were off at work, making sure to keep it spotless and the lawn well manicured. They were often valued by the other housewives by the cleanliness of their homes, how manicured their lawns were, and the intricacies of their dinner parties. Millie Baker, wife of Arthur Baker, was the ringleader of a group of housewives in Arthur's neighbourhood.

      Millie Baker was a chairwoman of the Homeowners Association, volunteer at numerous charities, as well as planner of the Bonbury Centennial Festival. She also was a member of the Parent Teacher Association, despite never having children, or as her neighbours whispered behind her back her children were blessed they were never born to her.

      Millie liked to stick her nose in everyone's business, and could often be traced back as being the source of most of the town's rumours. So as she got out of her sensible SUV, with a box full of groceries for that night's town celebrations, and talking away on her cellphone, Arthur could smell trouble.

      Arthur got to enjoy a few more minutes of quiet as his wife took the groceries inside and finished her conversation on the phone. He took his last few sips of coffee, and folded up his newspaper neatly. Then Millie came out with her own cup of tea, sat beside him on the bench and let out a big sigh.

      “You would never believe what Mitchell told me!”

      Arthur knew there was no escape to his wife's gossip, so he listened patiently, as she rambled on.

      “You know how yesterday morning there was that brunch that was planned by the girls? And I had wanted to go but they were going to Murdoch's and I said we should go to Flap's because I still refuse to go to Murdoch's after Agatha was so rude to us last time we went. Remember? She absolutely refused to give us that discount on that fish even though it came out completely black-”

      “I've told you before Dear, you ordered the charred fish.”

     “And I've told you, I thought I was ordering char! The fish! Either way. I said I couldn't go because I had to help out with the history show, and I did have to help but I could've went because I didn't have to be at the theater until the afternoon, I just didn't want to see Agatha's smug little face if I walked into Murdoch's again.

      “But I should've went! Mitchell said she got there a little late, and Nancy and Deb were already there, but Rose wasn't. And they all thought that was very odd because you know Rose, she shows up an hour early to everything! So Mitchell asked the girls “Oh what's happened to Rose?” And of course none of them knew, and they tried to call her phone but she wasn't picking up. So they assumed that there was some sort of business on the farm and they started ordering.

      “But then after a little while who should show up but Rose! And she looked absolutely ghastly according to Mitchell! Apparently her eyes were all red and her clothes were rumpled, not that you could tell the difference between her clothes being smoothed, but either way her face was all pale and she looked like she had seen a ghost!

      “And Mitchell first thought that maybe she got in a fight again with Harold. You know how his is once he gets a drink in him, he can be downright rude. But Rose walked over to their table, took Nancy's mimosa, and drank the whole thing in one gulp! And right as Nancy was about to say something, Rose just starts bawling! I mean she was wailing like a banshee! So the girls calm her down, and give her some more drinks, and finally Rose quiets down enough to tell them what happened.

      “Apparently, she was on her way into town, driving her normal route that she always takes so she can look along the fence line to make sure there were no fallen posts, when she saw a Black van pulled off to the side of the road. Rose thought it was odd, usually the highway is pretty empty that early, especially to see someone pulled over. So she got out of the van to go check if she could help at all.

      “Now I think Rose is crazy. She may be a farmer, but she's still a tiny little thing and if there was someone dangerous in there she could have been in trouble. But either way she left her truck, and walked up to the van.

     “First she looked in the back window, seeing if maybe there was someone asleep back there. It was kind of hard to see through, and she could only make out hay. But she thought that was really weird, because she knew all the farmers around and none of them drove a black van like this.

     “Then she kind of looked up towards the driver seat, and she could see someone sitting there and it looked like maybe he was sleeping or something because his head was off to the side.

     “So Rose walked up to the driver side and was about to knock on the window when she almost fainted right there and then. The man in the van had a noose wrapped around his neck!

     “So Rose panicked, and she ripped open the door to see if maybe the man wasn't dead and she could give him CPR or something. But then when she opened the door and could see everything she let out a scream and ran back to her truck to call the cops.

     “The man had his p***s out Arthur! One hand was on the rope and on was fondling himself! Rose swore she had never seen anything like it. So she called the cops and had to wait for them to show up and interview her, and she couldn't leave so she kept looking at the body and sobbing.

     “But that's not the best part! Apparently, this dead man had the biggest p***s Rose had ever seen! And you know what they say she was like before she settled down with Harold. I didn't know her then but it seems all the other men in Bonbury did.”

     Arthur looked at his wife to make sure she was finished her story. She looked content, sipping her tea with a smug look on her face that she always had when she got to share some juicy gossip. Arthur was sure that over the next few days the whole of Bonbury would hear of the dead man on the side of the road.

     After a moment Arthur looked down at his watch, then leaned over and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. He stood up to go inside to get ready for the night's festivities, taking a small stack of letters from the mailbox on the way in.