The Bar on 27th Street

“To hear my old man Jack talk, you’d think he’d done me a favor, killing my Ma the way he did.”

It’s been seventeen years since an infant child was abducted from the scene of an Alabama homicide. Taken in by the serial killer that murdered his mother, this infant—now known as the inconspicuous Simon Smith—has grown into a teenage boy twice as strong as an ox and half as smart. Uneducated, virtually illiterate, and plagued by episodes of crippling anxiety, all Simon wants is to keep his head down and not cause any trouble with the man posing as his father.

But Simon isn’t as alone as he fears: when his old man Jack brings him to the bar on 27th Street for his first beer and a prostitute, Simon manages to reach out to the underage boy hidden away on the second floor. The prostitute, a beautiful sixteen-year-old with a smoker’s voice and without an ounce of innocence, has his own fair share of problems. Despite this, it doesn’t take long for them to become the best things in each other’s lives...and when the cruelty of the adults around them threatens to drive them apart, Simon will do anything to make sure they stay together.

Anything.

“Just like burning gypsy moths in the driveway…”