When Highways Become Teeth

In 1963, the new interstate carves through corn and conscience. County men answer the blue lights—highway patrols turned border guards, radios like distant launch codes—patrolling a kingdom of asphalt and orders. When a sheriff's abuse costs a farmer his boy, a backwoods mechanic turns his saw—once for apples—into judgment. As cruisers choke the lanes with siren and mandate, revenge is slow, loud, and wooden: chainsaws tearing signage, barricades burned, the highway's promise of progress ripped open. A cold-era fable where modern authority meets primal vengeance beneath flicker‑bulb town signs.