Otis Green

Otis Green                      9-20-2014

By John W. Vander Velden

Otis Green was a hard man, so the stories tell.  They speak of a big man, tall and broad, with dark brooding eyes that seemed to stare right into a body’s soul.  He had a temper to match.  Those that dared to approach the Green farm met the big man with a scattergun in hand and threats upon his lips.  I heard tell of the time he beat his mule to death, when it failed to pull out a stubborn hickory stump.  Few dared face the farmer of Yangle Road, whether to approach the man on his farm or in town.  Otis had no friends.

Why Millie Connor married the man none knew.  Some say that Millie had been cast out by her family, had nowhere else to turn.  Others think that the young neighbor saw something in the big man no one else did.  Everyone hoped that the lovely young woman could bring a change to Otis’ disposition.  But Otis Green was just plain mean, and Millie and their baby did nothing to soften him.

Now Yangle Road remains little traveled.  Just a strip of dirt and gravel going from nowhere and leading to nothing in particular.  There is only one place that stands on Yangle Road, though most might pass it unknown.  For the grand barn fell most of seventy years ago, and the house remains scarcely a remnant of the structure Otis Green’s father built.  If you force yourself through the briars and brambles, past the gnarled twisted scrubs that have swallowed the old farmstead, you will find the building, the paint so faded that no trace of color remains on the weathered wood.

No one has lived in that house with its broken windows and faded taters that blow out those openings, not since that night Millie and her one year old left in the Chevrolet.  No one know what drove the woman to the point of leaving.  And no one knows where she went that dark October night all those years ago.  How Otis became locked in the root cellar, carved in the hillside behind the house, remains a mystery.  Oh, the gossip tells how in a fit of rage he beat his wife -- whooped her good.  That after, when Millie found the man in a penitent mood, she sent him to fetch potatoes for their supper.  That Otis Green went down into the cellar -- the dark hole carved in the dirt -- and she closed the heavy oak door, slid the bolt, locking it fast.  Stories tell of the rage filled shouts she heard as she walked away.  The sound of heavy blows against the planks as she loaded Albert and their things into the sedan, and the profane vile threats as Millie looked back one last time before she drove away.

But those are old stories told around campfires.  For no one knows the truth and Otis was in no condition to tell them when he was found.  Weeks had passed before some brave soul found what remained of the man.  Couldn’t be certain the corpse found among the onions and potatoes was Otis.  But each time someone closed and bolted that heavy wood door that sealed the farmer to his death, they would find it open the next morning.  One time Nathan Martin nailed it fast, only to find the door shredded and scattered the following day. 

Those that force themselves through the brush as they venture among the rotting remains of the Green Farm, find an eerie sight.  For among the tall weeds and brambles they see a worn path that connects the old house’s back door to the yawning pitchy black portal of the cellar.  And times footprints, large work boot’s traces, can be seen on that tread bare way.  Only the brave, the curious, or fools wander the place where others speak of knowing they are watched from eyes unseen, hidden in the dilapidated long abandoned house.  The ancient structure from which a flickering light spills out an upstairs window on the thirtieth night of each month.  The wise know to avoid Yangle Road, a place where only the disoriented or lost find themselves after dark.  For many times – a tall broad man searches the night – wandering that gravel covered way -- calling out into the darkness.   You see Otis Green was a hard man – perhaps he still is…

(732 Words)