A fictional narrative as told by Northeast News Creative Director Bryan Stalder

The next time I slipped into the Avenue Inn, I brought Peter, one of the journalists from the paper. He was covering a story about a local businessman, Geoff Younger, who faced charges for shooting an intruder at one of his warehouses.

“He put a bullet in the guy’s leg,” Peter said. “They had to amputate it. Honestly, Geoff seems like a lunatic. But I got a crazy call from someone who grew up around here — Jeremy.”

“Jeremy Graham?” I asked, thinking I might know him.

“No. Hopkins. Jeremy Hopkins.”

Peter leaned in. “He and his friends used to play football on the green space in front of that warehouse. Said Geoff was actually decent. Once caught a kid breaking into the soda machine, stealing change. Instead of calling the cops, he gave the kid a job to pay it back. After that, Geoff handed out sodas while they played ball.”

It didn’t fit the picture of Geoff that the local media had painted, but Peter kept going…

Read more in this week’s print edition of Northeast News, or at Sub-stack…
https://elbryan2.substack.com/p/chapter-2-the-man-in-the-corner

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