In the eyes of Phillip Kent, the town was going to hell. First, they built the air force base that caused large military trucks to clog up the roads. Then they built the test site where they plotted the end of the world. And plot they did. Phillip would rant and rave and scream and complain to anyone that would listen.
“They’re doing stuff over there that’s not right,” he would say, his hands shaking and his long face dripping with sweat. “I know. I read the Book of Revelations. I know end times when I see it, and this here’s the end times – mark my words. They’re messing with things that shouldn’t be messed with.”
Still, no one paid him any mind. Every town had their fool, and Phillip was the fool of Beatty, Nevada. So, when Doris and Marvin Hinckley moved to Beatty in the summer of ’57, they followed suit with the rest of the town. …show more content…
Ramblings about military experiments, chemicals in the water, and strange goings-on became the mainstay of his rhetoric. The town, sensing that perhaps he had become even more unhinged, tried to distance themselves. Phillip was not invited to the town carnival nor was he invited to the 22nd annual Pumpkin Patch Dance. When he showed up anyway, Deputy Mills escorted him back home, banishing him to his decrepit house on his swath of barren land.
The Hinckley’s tried their best to deal with him until the electricity in their home began to shut on and off – the reason, Deputy Mills was assured, was due to some tampering with the circuit breaker. Dead animals of all shapes and sizes also found their way to the front lawn. The last straw was when Marvin had to rush home one evening after Doris called him in a state about someone entering their home. Marvin raced back in his new Cadillac and marched up Phillip’s porch, punching him square in the nose the moment the door swung