He knew that the cops wouldn’t buy it.įirst, his father was the Bug Man of Trippton, the leading pest exterminator in Buchanan County. The latest accident had occurred that night, though David thought it was all perfectly explainable, if you understood the history and the overall situation. His own father had laughed after he found out that Trippton High School wouldn’t make him pay for the damage to the vending machine.īig Dave, Daveareeno, Daveissimo, D-Man. He had, nevertheless, given David fifteen days of detention, plus the additional unwanted nickname of Chips, a nickname that had hung on like a bad stink for twenty-five years. He’d tried to shake the bag loose and the machine had tipped over on him, pinning him to the cold ceramic tiles of Trippton High School.Įverybody who’d seen it had laughed – the fat boy pinned like a spider under a can of peas – even before they were sure he wasn’t injured.Įven George Marx, the assistant principal in charge of discipline, had laughed. Always had been.Īccidents were one reason he’d been elected as Class of ’92 funniest boy, like the totally unfunny time when he hadn’t gotten the corn chips out of the vending machine in the school’s junk-food niche.
That didn’t make him much happier.ĭavid – he thought of himself as David, rather than Big Dave, Daveareeno, Daveissimo, D-Man, Chips or Bug Boy– didn’t consider himself a killer.
He wasn’t thinking about that, or the winter, or the storm. He needed to get out to plow the drive in the morning. A light winter wind was blowing a soft, lovely snow into the storm windows. David Birkmann sat in his living room with an empty beer can in his hand and stared sadly at his bachelor’s oversized television, which wasn’t turned on.
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