Michael Gills—the irrepressible author of the stunning collection Why I Lie—recounts a night he didn’t drink with George Singleton—remembering it with the enthusiasm and clarity of one who’s looked at a corn tortilla and seen the face of Mary, Mother of God.
… July 17, 1988 to be exact—George gave a reading in Winston-Salem. My wife and I drove up, and I was really looking forward to going out drinking with George. But his girlfriend—B., I’ll call her—had absolutely one-hundred percent forbidden the two of us to drink together. So I resigned myself to buying a six-pack, cranking a country station and cruising the back roads home to Greensboro. Only my wife, Jill, for whatever reason, said, “Hell no. We’re driving home. And you’re going to cook me a bygod steak.” Good thing because at that very hour this lunatic Michael Charles Hayes walked out into the middle of Old Salisbury Road and started headshooting passersby with a .22 rifle. “Roll down the goddamn window,” he’d say. “Take this motherfucker,” he’d say and stick the barrel right up to these poor peoples’ cheeks. Listening to demons, he killed four and maimed five in a thirty-minute spree. So the truth of it is, had it not been for my sweet, stern wife, that reading of George’s would have killed the both of us.
—Michael Gills, author of Why I Lie
Photograph by Christina Storozkova.
Hey Miguel—
How is it that I’ve always had I-hate-drunk-men women in my life? Weird. There’s something psychological about it, if you ask me. We should write Dear Abby, or Oprah.
I thought YOU were Michael Charles Hayes…