I Woke Next to the Corpse by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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When the conditions are snow and ice, that must necessitate the use of chains, as the only access is the sloping, dirt driveway or trying to cut and hoof your way through heavy timber. The backside ends at the lake. If they wanted to come in by boat they’d meet the lumber at the shoreline. I suppose they could bring helicopters, but there’s no place for them to land. I’m expecting a single file assault through the front driveway.

Positioned at the top of the hill I can pick off plenty of them before their numbers overtake me. If they made any mistake, it was to use this property, which was designed to truly hide and maybe actually protect a fugitive, to ensnare a patsy. I have no illusions. This can’t end well. They’ll keep coming until they get me or I bite the linoleum out of starvation. I don’t think

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anyone will make a delivery. Too late for that. If all else fails they can burn me out.

This cabin and land have been property of the Genovanoria Crime Family since before I was born. It’s been used as a hideout when someone needs time to let something blow over. Margie brought me here, as though not a family member, she has holed up with a few of the reluctant desperados right here, though you really couldn’t call her a chippy; maybe a floozy. She finds it exciting to be with a renegade outlaw. Funny, I now think of myself more as a patsy, but maybe Margie has reached some sort of mental impasse and wants to explore other moods. Ah, much more likely it was the age induced desire for some scratch.

“Some Scratch of One’s Own” has always had better box office among those beyond high school years than “A Room of One’s Own.”

Hunterdon County was far from town and an unpoliced hunting area. I assumed that was where I was as there were more deer around than people, and there was a Hunterdon County phonebook under the phone. I may have been here before, but really don’t know. Pre-school age my folks used to drive me somewhere they described as “in the sticks” to a tourist trap called “Deer Park.” For a buck, you could buy a wafer ice cream cup full of old Taboom Brach’s Original Classic Flavor Halloween candy

I Woke Next to the Corpse