Sauce Homicide

by Jeremy Williams

This is true
My town is famous for murder
No, it is
They made a podcast about it and a TV show and everything, you can look it up
We got the gas station murder
Got the home invasion murder
Got the dragged behind a car murder
But the big one, that’s the
Taco Bell Murder

That Taco Bell
Never did close though
Not for long anyway
Even today you can grab a quick bite there
Your tires can trace the tracks of a killer
You can go right past
Where the night manager fell
And bled out

They said she shouldn’t have been closing alone
Her partner called in sick
They said she shouldn’t have been carrying that money
What else was she gonna do with it
They said she shouldn’t have walked across that parking lot in the dark
But the lights were out
And her car was there
The man that shot her in the face though
He wasn’t the one they locked up

Picked the easy target
His life to them
Cheap as a bean burrito
Quickly wrapped up while you wait
At the drive-thru
Takes longer to make change at the register

But the police registered him
Slammed him
Slammered him too

Twenty-three years
and they kept the change

And now the judge says
It wasn’t you after all
And he says
I know

They can’t give him back the years
Can’t give the town back its time either

It just moves on
Shooting up the night club murder
Another gas station murder
Another body left somewhere
Out in the county

And while one life was lost
Under the magenta glow
Of the illuminated Bell
Another was stolen
And it’s 23 years later and they’re trying to give it back
But once the package is open
It never goes
Across the black metal windowsill
And into the restaurant again
Even if you’re still there in the drive thru lane
Just got to eat it like it was served

Jeremy Williams was born and raised in the swamps of rural North Florida. After
attending college in South Alabama, he moved to the South Georgia coastal plain, where
he taught literature, writing and drama for over 20 years. He is currently an
educator, actor and writer on the east coast of Florida. Read his previous poems in Deep South here.