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 no idea where he’d wind up at. Maybe in a farmer’s barn for the night. Maybe pull over at a rest stop and sleep awhile. The moon was covered in clouds.

He left Ohio after a terrible fight with his wife. She threw punches, he returned em with a left hook to the guts and a cross punch on the jaw. She yelled at him for being drunk. He screamed at her for cheating on him. The problem was, she could prove he was drunk, he couldn’t prove she cheated.

They’d been married five years. For three of those years he said he could smell a man on her clothes. Some kind of musky cologne. And, she smelled booze on his breath the whole time. He’d often try to kiss her with a tongue that smelled of whiskey and beer only to pass out on the couch in the front room mumbling to himself.

It was a starless night. These towns were real quiet. He decided to pull over and park it in Michigan City, up around the lake. The sound of waves put him to sleep. Not a sound sleep. He tossed and turned with half his long body off the front seat. A hat over his eyes.

In the morning there was a terrible rain storm. He looked at his watch, the one he got from her for a wedding gift, and it said, 5:30. He sat there a minute or two. Pulled a gun out of his glove box. And, he used it.