Satin Baby Blue Prom Dress

“Tonight, a grisly murder of a young teenage girl leaves a small Midwestern town enveloped in fear. Authorities are nowhere closer to finding the killer. Join us at 9 P.M. Eastern for the story. Only on WFRW.”

“Turn off that racket! You know yer’ niece is trying to sleep down the hall!”

I attempt to swallow, to allow words to spill out, but it's to no avail. Those reporter’s words still echoed inside my mind.

Could it be Jaycie?

“Did you hear me, boy?? TURN IT OFF!”

I cough hoarsely. “Sorry mom! My bad.” 

I hear her muttering to herself around the corner. Something about how foolish I am, how my hearing doesn’t work, and how if it did it wouldn’t matter. A damned fool’s a damned fool. 

Jaycie Howard. The mother of all tummy butterflies. How she swayed in that satin baby blue dress at junior prom. No warm-blooded boy in that gymnasium that night could take their eyes off her. 

You’re as smooth, as Tennessee Whiskey…

Didn’t matter that none of dem’ Michigan boys had ever tasted a sip of Tennessee Whiskey. They’d drink whatever Jaycie Howard asked them to if it meant slow dancing with her, arms against that satin baby blue dress. The old ‘Girl next door’ mantra didn’t even begin to describe her. The ‘Girl next door’ type would think she was too easy-going, too unkempt, too free-spirited. 

Because as she bounded across that creaky, farm-made country hardwood, it was her old bum cream-colored Chuck Taylors that accentuated her modest midwestern style. She stole the hearts of every boy in that gym that night, including Rodney McKnight.

“While you’re busy getting your bum ass off the couch, fetch the keys and make a run to the grocery store. I need some fresh strawberries for yer’ niece, and grab some milk while you’re there. 2% percent. Don’t bring me back any of that watered down cow piss now…”

“Yessm’” I muttered, as I grabbed the Chevy keys and headed for that beat-up Marion Motley on wheels as Granddaddy called it, after the great Browns fullback of the 40s. He was racist scum, but not when they could run the ball like ole’ Marion Motley. 

Several years had passed since that junior prom when word got around that Jaycie never made it home one night. Her daddy had waited up for her to come home from cheer practice, until he finally conked out after one too many Bell’s Lagers and slept it off on the front porch, only to awake to a house devoid of Jaycie. When he finally got around to calling the police, it had been 12 hours since anyone had last seen her. 

Anybody from the town was immediately a suspect, especially when she had no family but her beer drunkard ole’ man. Sure there were some leads, her ex, Steven Wills, was known for his violent temper around these parts, but he’d been up in Ann Arbor on a college visit all weekend. Then there was Jill Lepoy, her best friend for years until they got into a spat about god knows what and never were the same. Jaycie would open her locker as hate note after hate note spilled out, all spattered with trashy rumors of Jaycie being a slut and sleeping around with the whole football team, all of which were demonstrably false, but Jill knew what she was doing. However, her alibi soon checked out as she was passed out at a friend’s place all night, drunk off Bell’s Lager just like Jaycie’s old man.

Going out in this weather was a near death sentence I soon came to realize, as snow piled down on the Chevy in droves. Mom always had a way with sending me out on these errands in the most inopportune times, like when she demanded I make a beer run to the liquor store down the street, just hours after my wisdom teeth operation. Hardly lucid, I’d demanded that I see the manager’s I.D. to ensure that he was legal to sell alcohol in Michigan. It was a long night. Mom gets what Mom wants, though.

As the snow continued to bury the hood and made the windshield wipers work overtime, I tried to remember when I’d last heard news on Jaycie’s whereabouts. That news story had my mind running a million miles an hour, wondering if I’d just heard the latest news from that faint, gravely old TV in Mom’s living room.

Pulling up into the spot, I managed to get the door open, just enough to realize no one else was around. Surely, I considered, the lights wouldn’t be on if the store was shut down for what was quickly becoming quite the snowfall. My heart slowed to a comfortable tempo as I made eye contact with the old cashier, Mary, I think. As I waved, she smiled sheepishly, almost with a concerned look on her face, as I pushed open the door to step in. 

Against the near thunderous roar of the snow outside, the brisk grocery store air felt soothing against my damp jacket, clinging to my shivering arms as I tried to recapture my bearings and quickly retrieve those few groceries for my ever needy niece.

Passing the frozen food aisle, getting closer to the produce, I heard what sounded like rapid flickering coming from above. As I peeked up, the atmosphere in the quaint grocery store grew unmistakably sinister as the lights went out. Surely it was just the weather, I presumed, but I’d better not get caught inside an ever-increasingly haunting situation. 

As I wound the next corner, again I heard a strange sound coming from the aisle directly to my left. Believing it was just the freezer door creaking but becoming increasingly suspicious of the rather whiney resonation, I stepped back and peaked around the corner. And there, covered in a thinly veiled blanket, in the dead center of the aisle, lay an infant baby.

I felt my blood freeze as did my feet as my eyes struggled to comprehend what lay before me. Do I pick it up? Do I call out for its mother? My back seized as a violent shock ran down my spine, exacerbating my horrifically fearful posture. Stepping toward the baby, I let out a cry for help.

“Help, someone please! There’s a baby over here!” What felt like an almost celebratory moment, recognizing a most beautiful remnant of one of life’s greatest joys, was quickly turning into the most heinous of nightmares. “Please! Help!” 

Hearing no sound from the front of the store, and surely sensing no one in my direct vicinity, I scooped up the baby and headed toward the bright EXIT light in the front of the store.

I then remembered the cashier’s name, hoping for a reliable companion to assist me or even better, take over for me. “Maddy! Maddy! Where are you!” No answer. It then occurred to me how quickly the temperature seemed to be dropping in the store, as I noticed the baby’s face beginning to change colors, as the wailing that I had been able to ignore resounded in my reddening ears like a grim alarm clock.

Only then, as I turned back toward the front of the store, did I see a silhouette moving back and forth across the doors, only projected by the faint glow of the emergency lights directly above them. 

“Hey! Who are you?! Help me! I have a baby and I’m not sure what to do!”

Realizing how few minutes I had left to save this baby, I threw off my jacket, wrapping it around the baby, and began bounding for the exit. As quickly as I began to sprint for the exit, desperate to get to the truck, did everything go completely black.

While attempting to lift my head up off the floor, I found myself without a clue as to what had just happened, and no baby. As I wiped my eyes, my head throbbing, what came into vision left me numb.

Standing over me, with a baseball bat in his hand and the baby to his right, was Jaycie Howard’s old junior prom date, Rodney McKnight, peering back at me with bloodshot eyes and a sinister grin to match. 

With what little voice I had left, I struggled to whisper, “Rodney?”

No sooner did I mutter his name than did his spit come flying back in my face, landing just a speck away from my right eye. 

His midwest twang was palpable as he sternly snarled, “Yeah. And let me tell you something, too. You got about a minute left until I leave most of you out on this store floor.”

“Wha..wha...what happened tuh..to Jaycie?” Just a moment before, it became clear to me. Not only had I heard the latest news on Jaycie’s case, a death notice, but I was now staring down her murderer on the floor of our local grocery store, awaiting my own end.

He chuckled at the question, revealing his sinister motives, and said softly, “Don’t you worry ‘bout her… She’s all fine now. She always did want to spend her days out in the mountains.” He paused, and looked off into the distance, as if to take in the moment, to soak in all of his glory as a town mourned the loss of one of their own.

“She didn’t want this life anymore… she told me. Said, I want to go be famous. Said, I don’t care for this little ole’ town or any of these little ole’ people. I want to be a star….” He chuckled once more, took a long pause, and a hit of his cigarette. “Well, she’s a star alright… Everyone, in every part of this city, county, hell...whole state of Michigan knows her name by now.”

“It’s a shame. She was pretty. Damn, so pretty. I know you remember her in that statin baby blue dress, now don’t ya?” As he lowered his gaze to me, flipping the bat in his band. My breath growing slower and slower by the moment.

“Answer me, dammit!”

I catch my breath, just enough to let the words fall out, “Yeah… I remember.”

He laughed again, this time louder, with bravado in his voice. Almost a celebratory howl. 

“Well, we had our fun. Yep… and she said she loved me that night. Swear to ya’. Said, I love you Rodney, and nothing is ever going to come between us. Love you to the moon and back. And ya’ know what, I believed her.”

“Come to find out, dumb bitch didn’t mean a word she said. Had dreams bigger than this place, she’d say.” Once again, he took a deep puff off his cigarette, taking in his own triumphant moment. “So ya’ know what I did. I waited. Let her get pregnant…”

He did seem to really pause then, looking down at the baby, lying on the floor, wailing as he went on, as he showed no regard.

“Please”, I gasped, “Please help this baby… please.” 

As I paused, he leaned down, inches from my face, as I sat up.

“You need to listen real close… I’m not going to tell you agai…”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

A bright light flashed in front of me, as three deafening blasts rang out, echoing through the walls of the store, matched in tone with the continued wailing of the baby, as Rodney’s lifeless body crumbled on top of me.

In shock, and unable to shove his body off me, I cried out, “What’s happening!!!” With tears filling my eyes and running down my cheeks, collecting by my temples as my head lay down.

At last, a voice rang out from a short distance away. “Hold on… I’m coming!” 

As I found the strength to get out from under Randy, my eyes met with Maddy. Our eyes glistening, and unable to find the words to say, I collapsed into her arms, nearly bringing her down with me.

Approximately 17 years later, inside a brightly lit gymnasium, I watched a young woman dance her heart out, bounding across the floor, with the world at her back, just like her momma, singing along to Tennessee Whiskey in her satin baby blue prom dress.