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The original plan had been to drive around Clear Lake and just walk through any field that resembled the one in the story. Large field, wire fence, possibly abandoned and overgrown. Simple enough. They’d do it up like Red in The Shawshank Redemption when he went trolling around hayfields looking for Andy’s black rock.

Fate threw them a bone, however. They met an old man while filling the gas tank at a run-down service station. He sat on the rickety steps of the small convenience store that stood behind the pumps. The man was sun-beaten and resembled a withered turnip. He noticed the out-of-state license plates and asked where they were going. They told him they were college students researching the local histories of small, rural towns.

The man’s wrinkled face bunched into folds of cold, stern contemplation. He pulled a tin of dip from his shirt pocket and pressed a pinch behind his lower lip. “Uh huh. You boys are lookin’ for that tired old weed, aren’t you?” He spat a string of brown saliva into an old coffee can. “Yep, know just the place you’re lookin’ for, too.”

“You do?” Lonnie asked, trying to remain calm.

The old man pointed toward the road. “Just up yonder, ‘bout five miles. The old Juhl farm. Albert Juhl, that’s the fella who used to own the place.”

A car pulled out of the gravel lot and issued a cloud of dust that consumed the three of them. The old man coughed into a handkerchief.

“So, what happened to this guy…Juhl?” Lonnie asked. “You said he used to own the place.”

“Just up and left one day, and nobody heard or seen him since,” the old man said. He spat again, this time wiping his mouth on his shirt and leaving a long brown streak on the sleeve. “Place stood empty for…oh, guess it musta been close to forty years. Was damn near ready to collapse ‘til some fella from Wisconsin bought it ‘bout ten years ago and started fixin’ it up. Done a good job with it, too.”

“Oh,” Will said, disappointed. “Probably no sense going out there then. I mean, if that field’s been cleared.”

The old man fished around in his dip tin and placed a little more in his mouth. “Well, that decision’s up to you. Don’t matter to me one way or the other. But that field ain’t been touched for a long while. That new fella prettied-up most everything from the house to the barn. Hell, even the busted old tractor that was rusting away out back. He ain’t done nothin’ with that field, though. Musta heard the stories. Probably superstitious.”

Will took a glance up the road, and then turned to the old man. “So, you say this place is pretty close?”

“Yep, like I said, just up the road a stretch. Can’t miss that old field, there’s a whole lotta commotion goin’ on where it meets the road. Some sort of shrine put up by the new fella. Keeps it lookin’ neat and all.” The old man pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it. “You boys ain’t gonna find nothin’, though. Musta been dozens of folks sniffin’ around up here lookin’ for that plant over the years. All left empty-handed. Figure you boys ‘bout to spend all night and tomorrow pokin’ around for somethin’ that ain’t there.” He took a drag, blew it out.

The sky was becoming darker; the universe was dimming the house lights.

“As I said,” the old man continued, “don’t matter to me either way, but you look like a couple nice boys, and I feel I gotta warn someone when I see them ‘bout to go off on some wild goose chase.”

“Duly noted,” Lonnie said. He looked into the old man’s milky eyes. “I mean, thank you. We appreciate the advice…and the story.”

“Yes, thanks,” Will added.

The old man puffed his cigarette, looking off at the sky. “Wasn’t nothin’. You boys take care now.”

Lonnie and Will got in the car and pulled back onto the road.

They drove in silence. The sun was sinking in the sky like a lemon drop in a pool of melted orange sherbet.

Will held a cigarette between his fingers. Wind circled through the car and carried flecks of ash into the air. He had the seat back as far as it would go, and his feet rested on the dash.

Lonnie chewed on an empty Skittles wrapper. He checked the GPS unit that was suction-cupped to the dusty windshield. The tiny blue car crawled up the screen, heading out into nowhere.

Will lowered his feet to the floor and flicked his half-smoked cigarette out the window. “I think we should have our heads checked when we get back home.”

Lonnie looked at him and grinned. “It’s a plan.”

Something glinted in the distance. They got closer and saw a collection of objects arranged behind a wire fence just off the side of the road. Lonnie pulled over, and they stepped out onto the dusty shoulder.

The old man had been right; it did look like a shrine. Two long stakes supported a guitar fashioned out of a single piece of stainless steel. The names of the three musicians were etched into the steel, right above the date 2-3-59. Behind the guitar, also attached to thin stakes, were three metal discs decorated to resemble records. Each musician was represented with a record bearing the title of their biggest hit: “Peggy Sue” for Holly, “Donna” for Valens, and “Chantilly Lace” for The Bopper. Towering above the guitar and records was a cross made from two metal bars that had been welded together. Surrounding all of this were flowers of various persuasions; they formed a lush circle of color around the monuments.

Lonnie and Will climbed over the fence. They stood in front of the display, held by nostalgia and an odd feeling of loss. Lonnie knelt down and ran a finger along the dusty surface of the guitar. A gentle wind passed over them, and the flowers did a little dance.

The sound of tires crunching along the shoulder brought Lonnie to his feet. A red pickup truck pulled in behind the old Ford. The engine quieted, and a large man stepped out of the cab.

“Hey there, guys.” His voice was warm, welcoming.

Lonnie and Will moved toward the fence and began to climb back over it.

The man put a hand up. “You’re good, stay right there.” He walked over and joined them on the other side. “Admiring my little tribute, are ya?” He removed his gloves and extended a hand. “Name’s Ken.”

Lonnie shook his hand, then Will.

“Yeah, an old man down the road told us about this place,” Will said. “Did you do this?”

“Indeed,” Ken said. “I put up this memorial when I moved in back in ninety-nine.” He stuffed his gloves in the pocket of his shirt jacket. “Been through different looks over the years, but it’s been here for as long as I have.”

“It’s cool,” Lonnie said. “Very detailed.”

“Thanks,” Ken said. He smiled and crossed his arms at his chest. “Keeps the ghosts away, you know. Good juju and all of that. I’m sure you guys know the story of this place. I mean, that’s why you’re here, right?”

“Well,” Lonnie said. He rubbed his neck, a bit embarrassed now. “Sort of.”

“Came to pay your respects, huh?” Ken said. “Well, there isn’t anything wrong with that.”

“Actually, there was something else,” Will said, and chuckled. “You’ll think we’re nuts, but we heard this story—I mean, it’s ridiculous, I don’t know how my friend and I let it drag us this far—but we heard about some weird plant growing up here in your field.”

Ken laughed. “I don’t think you’re nuts. If I had a dollar for every person who came snooping around here over the years, I’d be loaded.”

“So we’re not the only fools kicking around?” Lonnie asked.

“No need to feel foolish,” Ken said. “Nothing wrong with going on a little road trip and having some fun. You guys are young, you’ll be chasing after all kinds of things in your lives. Some will work out, some won’t.”

Lonnie and Will felt the knots of embarrassment loosen in their chests. The trip had been fun, despite the anti-climax they had secretly anticipated all along. They stood with Ken and marveled at the first shades of night that streaked across the horizon.

“Thanks for not shooting us,” Lonnie said, laughing. He lit a cigarette and pulled a drag. “I bet people around here love their guns.”

“Yes, they do,” Ken said. “And that’s why we’re standing here right now.”

---

You’ve heard the story.

Or maybe you haven’t. The one about the day the music died?

Well, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t pilot error that sent Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper to the pearly gates. It wasn’t faulty instruments. It wasn’t even the relentless, driving snow that plagued the early morning hours of February 3, 1959.

Nope, it was a series of rifle shots fired by a farmer named Oscar Moffett. He had been drinking—was totally cocked, actually—and when the sounds of the Beechcraft Bonanza’s small engine found their way to Moffett’s ears, he burst out into the snowy night clutching his peacemaker in his sweaty, trembling hands. He followed the plane’s lights and began firing. A few seconds later there was a loud pop, some sputtering, and the lights went dark.

A flash of clarity stole over Moffett’s main control center a moment too late. He darted back into his house and locked himself in the basement. He heard the ungodly sounds of shattered earth and twisted metal as he cowered on the floor next to a pantry full of corn.

The plane went down in the field of his neighbor Albert Juhl. The aircraft was so mangled that bullet holes were never found. The crash was eventually attributed to pilot error. Oscar Moffett made no effort to add his personal account to the official report.

Juhl found Moffett a week later with half his face missing. His body had been picked-over by birds. Next to him was his peacemaker, caked in blood and dirt. This was in Juhl’s field, right where the plane wreckage had settled and the grass no longer grew.

A few years passed, and Juhl’s wife took ill. Her health degraded quickly. She died in the spring of 1962. Juhl’s two sons found it hard to adjust. They fell in with the wrong crowd, and we all know how that goes. Juhl eventually decided that there was nothing left for them in Clear Lake. He packed-up his boys and left town.

Juhl had sold his farm to some developer from Texas. Shortly before the Texan was to install a small strip mall on the land, he fucked-over the wrong person and was offed in a nasty fashion. They found him with his balls in his mouth. A shame. The property would be tied-up in probate for the better part of four decades.

What the developer hadn’t known was that the Juhl boys had planted a small patch of marijuana out in the field where Moffett and the plane had been decommissioned.

The vacant farm attracted local youth as a place to party undisturbed. It wasn’t long before the brothers’ crop was discovered and smoked summarily. Details of the Juhls and Moffett, and of course Holly, Valens, and The Bopper, were tossed into a blender and pureed into a highly imaginative, albeit fantastic tale that lurched forward like Frankenstein’s Monster and took on a life of its own.

It started out as a story about Holly’s spirit seizing control of Moffett and ordering him to kill Juhl’s wife as she tended her garden, then morphed into a strange incest story involving Juhl, the boys, and an old record player they kept in the barn. Eventually, a photo of Holly, Valens, and The Bopper was discovered—the same photograph that would be restored, enlarged, and displayed on a wall at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame decades later—and the musicians’ colorful clothing planted the seeds for an outrageous story that played on the brothers’ small ganja enterprise. They even gave the crop a name: Creepy Bonanza. In later years this would become Creeping Bonanza.

The old Juhl place was scooped-up at auction in the late nineties by a guy from Milwaukee with a love of fifties music and the desire to start a new life as a farmer. His name was Ken.

As it turned out, Moffett’s nephew still ran the general store in town. He sat down with Ken one day and told him the story of the farm’s history. Ten years later Ken would meet two boys who had driven out to Iowa in search of something outside the conventions of their small town, and share with them the truth behind the lies.

Information is cheap these days. It doesn’t take much to get to the bottom of things. I miss all those old stories, as foolish as they were.

Every once in a while, though, you’ll stumble across something untouched by the Internet’s cold, skeletal fingers. And that’s what happened to Lonnie and me. That trip was five of the best days of my life.

Creeping Bonanza. Another myth torn apart. At least I was the one doing the tearing.

But the one about Ronnie Van Zant being buried in a Neil Young t-shirt, I’m pretty sure that’s true. The burial workers slipped it on right before they closed the casket and lowered him down. There’s a photo of it floating around out there, if you can find it.

At least that’s what I’ve been told.