The town was called Dry Creek, though there was no creek left and nothing dry either, because in the summer the air stuck to you like a wet towel and in August the place smelled like frying oil, gasoline, and grass dying slowly. It had one main road, two churches that hated each other with Christian consistency, a town hall small as embarrassment, a bank nobody trusted but everybody owed, a diner called Dot’s Grill, and a bar called Blue Comet, as if someone had read poetry once and then decided to pour bourbon.