Within a year of leaving the University of Nebraska I was dealing drugs. I liked to convince

myself that it was the choice I had to make between food and shelter that drove me to it. If

faced with similar dilemmas, anyone might do the same. It was desperation—or maybe it

was Shea. She had a way of influencing. When we met she was the lithe model type—not

the average Nordic blond corn fed farm girl. Rather she was big city artsy in her Doc

Martin’s, vintage store dress, and a flirtatious peek of tattoo on the back of her shoulder.

Her urban cosmopolitan air was refreshing after finding myself stuck in North Platte washing

dishes at Howard Johnson’s.


Like me, she became mired in the Midwestern limbo. She left Boston to move to

California, and for a reason I didn’t understand at the time, ran out of money on the way,

and started work at the restaurant. The place was just off interstate 80, facilitating the

comings and goings of truckers, cross country migrants, and new college grads looking to

relive Kerouac. To these travelers it was nothing more than a restroom and reluctant pick

from a salad bar with cold soup and browning lettuce. Being by the highway also helped

employee turnover. I suppose the fluid arrangement was what appealed to me, and the fact

that it was the first place I came to after pulling off the highway. In trademark fifties style,

the restaurant’s orange roof with its blue-green spire was a beacon in the buzzing night of

fireflies on the plains.


My temper had settled since hanging up with dad. He was adamant that I go to school

since he felt I’d get eaten up by what became the family vocation.

“You want to leave school? Fine. But you can’t come home.” He and my brother

worked for the State Department of Corrections, and thought I wasn’t tough enough to beat

someone. I did well enough at the community college in Lincoln, so it was off to University

for me. When dad came home smelling like human feces because one of the inmates had

thrown shit on him, I knew being on either side of the bars wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Once at University though, spending blustery days in the thick of the winter trudging from

class to class without an idea of why, made me restless.


Shea was from a well-to-do family and was expected to finish her time at Leslie College

but, like me, she couldn’t stand the predictability and fled. Any West Coast plans where

thwarted since she was pregnant within two months of us sleeping together. She had

become the hostess and night mana