I have known an unusual number of people who've been murdered. I didn't know any of them very well, or intimately, but nine still seems kind of a high number for a middle class white girl. Ok, lower middle class -- but still, that's a bunch. This only has a minor bearing on the story I'm about to tell, which I'll explain momentarily.

I was eighteen, still living with my mother, still in church. A friend of mine from church, Deidre, was living with us. My cousin Bill, Uncle Linc's son, was her boyfriend. The three of us spent a lot of time at the church and with the church crowd because Deidre and I were still very much in church, and Bill lived in the parsonage with his dad, although he was an unrepentant wildass. One of Bill's buddies from church was this guy named Greg who lived in the basement of the church and worked as the church handyman. Greg was a good bit older than we were...somewhere in his forties. He was a big, heavy man with greasy dark hair and thick dark-rimmed glasses that always settled down on the end of his nose. He was missing half of his right hand, something which had happened as a result of an industrial accident. He gave me the creeps from the moment I met him, but Bill was convinced he was harmless. Greg was also a big drinker. I don't know how he ended up working for the church, but it wasn't because he was interested in serving any god other than the bottle.

One night, Bill brought Greg to my house. My mother was gone (probably at Denzel's, since this happened around the time they were starting to hook up). I don't remember exactly how much beer Bill and Greg put away, but it was a lot. Bill was nearly out on his feet. It fell to me to drive Greg back to the church. I didn't want to. I wasn't comfortable around him at all, but I didn't much like the idea of him staying all night in our house either. I tried to get Deidre or Bill to ride along, but they both refused. So it was just me and Greg.

I hadn't driven more than half a mile when Greg started talking to me about 'the evil'. He didn't want to do the evil, he said, but he had to. He hoped I'd understand that he had to do the evil. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but it was freaking me out. When I go to the church, he wouldn't get out of the car. Just kept going on about doing the evil. Again, I didn't know what 'the evil' was, but I knew I didn't want any part of it, and I was afraid his plans included me. I finally gave up on getting him to get out of the car at the church and drove him to a local bar instead, where he did get out.

I was relieved to get rid of him, but I didn't think too much about how he'd freaked me out until a few months later. I figured he'd just been drunk. And maybe he was. And maybe Bill was right and he was completely harmless. But there was a girl, Cindy, who used to hang around the church. She was about my age, and very pretty, but she was so messed up on drugs and so deeply disturbed and crazy. It was sad to be around her. I don't know what exactly her relationship with Greg was, but they spent a lot of time together. A few months after my run-in with Greg, Cindy turned up dead - one of the unusual number of murdered people I've met. She'd been beaten severely and left outside to die of exposure. A man from Michigan was arrested and convicted of the crime. He looked just like Greg. And I've never been confident that the police got the right guy. I mean, what kind of person goes around talking about doing 'the evil'? Maybe not necessarily a serial killer. I don't know. But it sure freaked me out.

I was so sad when Cindy was killed. I hadn't known her well, but something about her touched me. I had painted murals in the church basement and she used to come around and sit and talk with me while I painted. She was so earnest and seemed so hungry for someone to just be kind to her. She'd had a horrific nightmare of a life. I wish things had been different for her.