She threw herself at his feet. Begged for forgiveness. He stood there, in the kitchen, streetlight coming through the window, and just looked down on her. The house was dark. No lights on, just the lamp in the living room where she waited for him. All night long she waited for him. He’d left early […]

Corn fields were dead along 41. Debris had piled up on em. Drivers throwing out cigarette butts, McDonald’s bags, Happy Meal boxes, beer cans, all over resting soil. Soon they’ll come alive again. Soon. Green stalks reaching and the smell of corn will come quickly to this land. Almost as if it were over night. […]

There’s a time of the year when the sun never goes down in Alaska. They call it midnight baseball. That’s what he longed to see; midnight baseball. He’d been to almost every state in the country. Spent a lot of time in the Midwest; Indiana, Ohio, up around Chicago. Big fan of Michigan too. But, […]

He would go looking for her in the strangest of places; bars, Baptist churches, grocery stores, woods behind his house, a truck stop out west of town. Never could find her. She left him one afternoon in the summer. The air conditioner hummed, dog barked. His old lady lay in bed with both eyes closed. […]

There was never enough. He took on as many jobs as he could; grocery stores, a greeter at Wal-Mart, security guard, even tried washing cars; nothing ever panned out. And, she would threaten to leave him when rent was due, or, an electric bill would come in the mail. At times he wished she would […]

They’d throw stones in the river. Skip rocks against the water’s current. Watch em ride for awhile, then sink to the bottom where the catfish and carp did their feeding. Muddy water. Tree limbs floating down stream. A greasy old John Deere cap atop a wave. Did he throw it out there? or did someone […]

He was like a ghost. Pitch black outside, but you could see his image. Tall and white. With slicked back black hair. The way Elvis used to comb his when he got older. When he got fat. There was a pickup truck out in the parking lot. Music came from it. Marty Robins singing about […]

There was a fire out on 30 that night. The woods were a flame. The whole community came out to watch. Mothers holding babies, dads with beer cans in their hands; volunteer fire department tried their best to put it out. It took hours. And, there was this smell of burning pines, oak, cherry wood […]

The house was in need of a paint job. Bluish gray strips and chips of wood clung to the old two story, making it look run down, beaten, tired. A window had a crack in it as well. On cold nights when the wind blew, glass would make a screaming sound, like it was getting […]

The names of towns he drove through were pure Midwestern. Places like Goshen, Middlebury, Elkhart, small towns that folded up after midnight. One minute he’d go south and then the next headed west. He was wandering all over Northern Indiana. Had a half tank in the old pickup and did not want to stop. Had […]