window. It was right before dawn. On the twenty-third of December. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been up this early. Not since the last dream. Recently, he had been having these wicked dreams. He was always in his house or his neighborhood or getting some ribs at the Bone Yard, and he would see Kate Reese. She would be a little different every time, but always beautiful. With a key around her neck. And a wicked little smile. She would let him do everything that he ever wanted to her. Violent. Angry. Dirty. Hateful. It didn’t matter. She loved it. She loved him. Every night, he would go to sleep to meet the Kate Reese of his dreams. Then, every morning, Jerry would wake up. He would turn over in bed, and he would see the empty space where the real Kate Reese used to be. And that fucking voice would ring in his ears.
You miss her, Jerry.
Every morning, his mind felt like his car parked in the front yard after a bender. The lawn looks like your driveway, and those dreams look like your life. But they aren’t your life. Kate Reese was gone, and she was never coming back. He tried to let her go many times, but then he’d hear some God damn song or see some God damn girl in cutoffs and remember that this one time, he had been able to trick a legitimately good woman into loving him.
Until she left you in the middle of the night, Jerry.
Jerry turned over in bed. He didn’t have a shift today, so he thought he’d go down to 8 Mile. The bars weren’t open, but he knew an after-hours club that might let him in the back door. He could have a drink and maybe pick some low-hanging fruit. Sure, it was morning, but fuck it. There was no bitch telling him what he could do anymore. He got paid on Friday. What did he care?
He threw his jeans on and got in his Chevy. He was at 8 Mile twenty minutes later. He parked his car outside the infamous watering hole and walked inside. The jukebox was playing a great song. Hotel California by the Eagles. The room was covered in cigarette smoke. It was so thick, Jerry felt like he was walking through a cloud. He sat down and ordered a gin and tonic. He looked over at the girl at the bar, and he couldn’t believe his luck.
Sally.
He knew Sally from way back in high school. She was always a good Catholic girl until one day, she most decidedly was not. Like most Catholics, she went from zero to sixty in about six seconds once someone put the key in the ignition. A year later, she was caught tag-teaming a couple of football players in the backseat of her daddy’s Ford. She was forever known as “Mustang Sally” after that. Daddy’s car was actually a Focus, but “Ford Focus Sally” just didn’t have the same ring to it. Whatever the model, Sally wasn’t the sharpest knife, but she still loved to have a good time. And he needed a good time. He had a few bucks in his pocket. He was free. He was young-ish. He could grab Sally, get in his old Chevy, and just drive to the casinos in West Virginia to whitewash Kate Reese out of his skull.
“West Virginia?!” Sally said. “You’re crazy. It’s snowing like hell outside. They have casinos in Detroit. Why the fuck would we drive to West Virginia?”
Good question.
Call it his gut. Call it a hunch. Call it a gin and tonic. But something told Jerry that his luck would change in West Virginia. Something told him that today could be his lucky day if he would just listen to the voice inside his head.
You can’t lose, Jerry.
“You coming or not?” he asked Sally.
She was coming.
An hour later, his Chevy was sliding down a highway coated in snow. It was the worst snowstorm since that blizzard after Thanksgiving. Global warming his lily-white ass. Everywhere he looked, it seemed like one car was stalled out or another car got in an accident. But for him, it was smooth sailing. Sally kept flipping through the dial like a burglar trying to crack a safe. Top 40. Hip hop. An oldies station playing Blue Moon. He started to regret bringing Sally. All she seemed to know how to do was fuck up his radio and talk about