The West Memphis Knock

Six o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m jerked out of a dead sleep.

It doesn’t matter what the clock says. When you’re sitting in this parking lot in West Memphis, Arkansas, you treat every hour like it’s after dark. That sound wasn’t a tap. Somebody was beating on the side of my truck, hard enough to wake me up out of nothing. My eyes were open and I was already listening before I even sat up.

This lot has a history. Drivers tell stories about people being shot here, killed, cut up in the same rows of trucks I was parked in. You hear enough of that from other drivers and you stop giving anybody the benefit of the doubt, daylight or not. So I stay locked in. Curtains drawn. Windows barely cracked. I don’t care if the sun’s still up.

“Daylight or not, West Memphis doesn’t get the same rules as everywhere else.”

I reached over, opened the drawer beside me and pulled my knife. Kept it low. I didn’t move toward the door. I just sat still and listened.

Engines idling. Other trucks coming and going out on the lot. No voices right outside. No footsteps moving away. Just that one burst of beating on the side, and then nothing.

I leaned toward the driver’s window and eased the curtain back with the tip of the knife still in my hand. Checked the mirror first, then shifted and leaned in far enough to see down the side of the truck.

Empty asphalt. The next truck over had its curtains pulled. A couple of people were walking two rows down, but they weren’t looking my way and they weren’t coming closer. Nobody standing by my door. Nobody walking off like they’d just left.

I held there a few more seconds, watching. Nothing moved. No one circled around. No second knock. Just the ordinary late-afternoon noise of the truck stop settling back in.

I don’t know who was out there or what they wanted. Could have been somebody looking for a handout. Could have been somebody who already knew the stories about this parking lot and decided to see if I’d open up. Either way, I wasn’t stepping out to ask. Not here. Not in this lot.

I eased the curtain back, set the knife where I could reach it, and stayed put. You stay locked in. You listen. And you don’t open the door just because the sun’s still up.