“He’s the Cassinger’s, family down the road’s, severely autistic son. He’s like forty and lives at their house. He used to do this all the time, but we eventually got pissed at them enough to where they must have locked him up or something at night. He used to scare the hell out of us all the time in the middle of the night like that.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Oh no. He’s actually pretty friendly if you go down and talk to him, but going and talking to an autistic guy at four in the morning is the last thing anyone wants to do. I’ll call the Cassingers when I get back. Don’t worry about it. Just leave him alone and he goes away. You can turn the garage light off if you want. Maybe that will help.”
“Thanks dad.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
I waited for Clayton’s next morning exchange with a surly demeanor. I bent over backwards to get the guy to be my low-key security guard and he bailed. I scowled when his burly truck slowed to me on the road.
