“Ever hear of John Wayne Gacy? He’s right down the street!”
"He's Right Down the Street!"
By Bill Kaufman on Monday Oct 31st 2022
Chip Johnson was a friend of mine way back in 1954 when I first met him in second grade at St Eugene’s grammar school. He lived on Summerdale. When I turned 18, he was supposed to join the navy with me but he chickened out. I went ahead in the Navy and he married a girl that lived down the block from him on Summerdale.
I remember this one time after I had gotten out of the Navy. I went over to visit with him. It was a nice sunny summer day and he went in the house and grabbed two beers. He handed me one and we went for a walk down the street sipping on the beer as we walked.
As we were heading west on Summerdale, Chip started talking about this guy that lives down the street. Chip said, “Guys go in his house and they never come out again.” I said, “Yeah, right.” I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just bullshitting me. But he told me “If his car comes down the street and stops to talk to us, I want you to run in the opposite direction.”
Now Chip was never afraid of anything in his whole life. He was crazy and he would do anything. But Chip was afraid of this guy.
When we got to the intersection he pointed to Gacy’s house and said, “That’s where he lives.” I wanted to walk past his house to see what it looked like but Chip wouldn’t go any further down the street. So he turned around and we headed back down Summerdale towards Chip’s house.
Sometime later when I was at home, I saw the news about Gacy. I almost freaked out. I turned to my wife and told her this story about the time Chip warned me about Gacy.
I’m glad we never saw Gacy that day. I sure wouldn’t want to be one of his victims.
After all the news about Gacy, I wanted to go talk to Chip about it but he was gone. I guess he had left his wife and little boy back on Summerdale and moved away somewhere.
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