Crossroads:

The place of intersection of two or more roads.

A crucial point, especially where a decision must be made.

The Interstate System has made dealing with crossroads a thing of the past. An off-ramp with all of its signage can hardly be considered a crossroads.

Historically, crossroads have enjoyed a reputation of other worldliness. It's been said they're places of wrongful dealings.

And yet there are some people in rural areas who actually live at a crossroads.

***

Two county highways, one going North-South, the other going East-West, cross at Baileyville, Iowa. Actually, they help frame Baileyville in its entirety.

Baileyville, Population: 2, isn't actually a real town, it has just four lots in the area the highways have carved out for it.

One lot has a bar, Tessie's Place. Across the road from Tessie's is a gas station, Bobby's Gas and Auto Repair, and across the other highway from Bobby's is Tessie's and Bobby's two-story, 100-year-old farmhouse.

The fourth lot to complete this little burg that's in the middle of four eighty-acre Iowa cornfields is vacant. It has a billboard in the middle of it that says "Lot For Sale" with the name and phone number of a bank in Des Moines. The sign is well-weathered, it could have been up there for ten years, or even twenty years.

The cornfields come right up to the property lines of all four lots, completely enclosing Baileyville with thousands of eight-foot-high corn stalks that whisper in the breeze. They sometimes whisper even when there is no breeze. It's a sound that's a bit creepy, and it goes on twenty-four-seven all summer long.

The small sign on the north-south highway coming into Baileyville from the south that says "Baileyville: Population 2" is also weathered. It had been put up as a joke by Tessie and Bobby Bailey five years ago when they'd bought three of the four lots that had come complete with the house, bar, and gas station. The bank and the realtor had both been evasive about where the previous owners had gone, but Tessie and Bobby had been happy with their purchase.

But that was then.

The sign rarely causes either Tessie or Bobby to smile at it anymore.

Some humor doesn't age well.

***

A young couple had gassed up at Bobby's and were now having burgers and beers for lunch at Tessie's. If people driving on one of the two highways into Baileyville did any business, that's usually what it was. Gas and lunch.

Both Bobby and Tessie had chatted with the customers at their respective establishments. When the couple drove off, Bobby walked across the road to the bar for his own lunch.

"Nice couple," he said, taking a place at the bar.

"Yeah, they were," Tessie mumbled, gazing out the bar's picture window at the highway.

"Somethin' wrong, babe?" asked Bobby.

"They're on their honeymoon. He's taking her to Dubuque. Poor thing."

"Maybe that's all they can afford right now," answered Bobby a little defensively.

"We went to Niagara Falls," Tessie said wistfully. "We couldn't afford it and went anyhow. He could at least have taken her to Chicago."

"Maybe she makes the decisions," offered Bobby.

"No woman would choose to go to Dubuque for her honeymoon. She's in for a dreary life, if ya ask me."

"Well, I guess it's their business, right?"

"I suppose," Tessie said, setting Bobby's burger on the bar. A tear had trickled down her cheek and she brushed it away.

Bobby pretended not to see it. He was irritated.

"Bobby, are we gonna ever leave here and go to Florida like we planned?"

"Sure, we are. Soon as we can get somebody to buy this little business enterprise from us."

Tessie turned from the window and looked Bobby in the eye. "We both know that's probably never gonna happen, Bobby. I bet the people before us just up and left. We could do that. Just call Bill Dobson at the bank and tell him all the keys are under the mat. Just leave and go to Florida. Start over. While we still can."

Bobby sighed, looked at his half-finished burger, and got up from the barstool.

"I don't think I could do a thing like that, Tessie. We've got a mortgage, remember?"

He walked out the door and headed back across the road.

***

Two young toughs stopped for gas and sodas and took off heading west. The one in the passenger's seat gave Bobby the finger as they left the lot. They were the type that Bobby thought might sometime remember how isolated Baileyville was and come back some night and rob Tessie's Place and Bobby's Gas and Auto Repair.

It would seem like easy pickings to them.

It was because of this thinking that Bobby had purchased two small Glocks a couple of years back. One for the bar and one for the garage. His was on a shelf under the cash register, and Tessie's was on a shelf behind the bar. Thinking about Tessie's gun brought him up short….

"Shit," he said, running out of the station toward the bar.

As he ran, he tried to push the picture out of his head of Tessie lying on the floor behind the bar. Blood starting and then stopping from a bullet wound to her temple….

He was across the bar's parking lot in seconds. He would've heard a gunshot, wouldn't he?

Tessie looked up from drying a beer glass when he rushed into the bar.

"What's up?" she asked, looking surprised. "Forget somethin'?"

Bobby let out a deep breath. "How long would it take you to shut things down here and pack up what we need to go to Florida?"

"Oh, Bobby, honey, do ya mean it?"

"Yep, I do, sweetcakes. We're outta here."

Bobby and Tessie are done with the crossroads.

And the crossroads are done with them.

THE END

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