So, with all the background information I have given you, I feel sure you have some unanswered questions and want to know more about missing teenagers, crazed kidnappers and killers, Magdalena's mean-ass dad, the Wild Bunch, my mom's connection to a missing mayor, and probably the answers to countless other questions, including the improbable love story. Let's begin with the missing teenagers since that is where this part of the story starts.
I knew the missing teenagers because in a small school in a small town, everybody knows everybody. When I say I knew them, I mean I knew who they were, I wasn't friends with them. Damien lived nearby, not in the trailer park, but on the road behind it, off a road, near Wards Gap Road, but not on it. We were not neighbors, but we were near enough that Damien rode our school bus when I was in the 6th grade. When he first learned my name he said, "Hey, You got a dog's name. I used to have a dog named Daisy." This was apparently hysterical in the world of middle school. Damien proceeded to bark at me when I got on and off the bus. Before long, the meanness spread and other kids joined the fun. If I had not barked back and made a game of it, I would still be known as Daisy Dog. Eventually, another target came along, and I was forgotten.
Magdalena knew the couple better than me because Damien's aunt lived in Shadey's Trailer Park. The girl, Sienna, who lived in Shadey's too, was still in high school when she disappeared and still rode our bus, but the boy, Damien, quit school and graduated to a life of crime.
Damien was cute, overconfident, cocky, and flirted with a lot of different girls. He prided himself on being tough. Scars on his arms and homemade tattoos spelling cuss words proved he was either tough or stupid. I suspect both.
Sienna adored Damien and was his main girl. She was loud and brash and rough around the edges, but sweet enough to be pretty in the way where innocence is pretty. She wasn't innocent according to Damien who did not know that a gentleman never tells his business. Prior to her disappearance, rumors hinted that Sienna was pregnant. Damien, being ever the gentleman, broke up with her. Sienna was crushed. People thought she ran away, or Damien hurt her. The only problem - Damien was missing too. Did he bash Sienna's brains in and run for the border? Did they reconcile and run away to get married and raise their baby in a better environment?
Not a chance. The Damiens and Siennas of the world rarely get fresh starts.
This is what happened to them:
Damien was waiting for "the whore", as he was now referring to his baby mama, in the shed behind the mayor's house when a man entered. Damien had just finished mowing the mayor's yard in the half-assed way he usually performed his only job. Damien did not see the man. He had his back to the door. He thought it was Sienna meeting him like he told her to do. She always did what he told her to do.
"Where the hell you been?" he demanded.
"Looking for you, asshole," said the man who was not Sienna.
"Who you calling asshole?" Damien said as he turned. Damien thought he knew this man. He knew him from Shadey's. He was always outside firing his gun or screaming at his kids. Damien knew trouble when he saw it, but Damien was too foolish to respect trouble.
"Don't call me asshole, asshole." Damien continued, "and if you are here to get me to mow your yard, I am officially retired. I'm leaving this shithole town tonight."
"That's good. That is what I am here to talk to you about. Leaving. My boss sent me. He wants you to leave town. Now. Take your girl."
"Well, you can tell your boss to kiss my ass. No old man is going to tell me what to do. I do what I want. And tell him I am leaving on my own, but not cause he said so. And tell Mr. Matthew Jenkins - I am going to take my girl. See what he thinks about that."
"You are confused, you little prick," said the man as he stepped toward Damien. He reached to pick up a set of hand shears. "I don't know no Mr. Jenkins. I can see we need to start this conversation over."
Damien tried to run by him, but the man was bigger and stronger, and enjoyed his work. He liked to get paid for something he would do for free. He liked to hurt people. Teach him a lesson, a small one, the boss said. Then tell him what we want him to do. Tell him about the baby, but not the truth. Mention money. Convince him.
"Mister, what you gonna do with them shears?" asked Damien.
"We are going to cut something off, just a small lesson, just so you understand."
"Mister, please don't cut nothing off." Damien was scared now.
"I am not doing the cutting," Mister said. "You are."
Sienna, late as usual, arrived thirty minutes after the man left. She planned to tell Damien she was not going with him, and she would raise the baby on her own. She was pissed. Damien just broke up with her yesterday and now he wanted to run away? She tried to calm down. She recited her mantra before she opened the door to the shed:
"I have something to prove. I am intelligent, and I am going to make something of myself. I am not poor, white trash. I am important. I am brave. I am going to kick ass."
Sienna heard whimpering. "Damien?" She pushed the door open and peered inside.
He was in the corner, clutching a dirty, bloody rag to his chest. He wiped his face off with his sleeve. Damien gained his composure. "Where you been, sweetie? We got to go before he comes back."
"Who?"
"That old man," lied Damien. "The one who knocked me down last week at the Dairy Center. He came by. He said if we don't git out of town, he's going to kill us both and cut that baby out of you. We got to go."
Sienna caught her breath and put her hand to her stomach "Damien, what did you do? Why's he so mad at you?"
"Don't matter. This is my warning." He showed her his bloody hand with his ring finger missing. He pointed to his missing finger staple-gunned to the wall right above the herbicide shelf.
The bloody finger, with Damien's skull face ring still attached, convinced Sienna.
Fifteen minutes later. No Damien. No Sienna.
Author's Insight: If you visit Mount Airy, NC you will realize that a lot of the landmarks are real places, but some liberties have been taken. For example, there really is a Wards Gap Road, but no Shadey's Trailer Park. All the places mentioned in the story are in the same general area though, whether real or not, because Daisy and Magdalena are young and get around town on bicycles.