Dead Girl Blues

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A man walks into a bar.

Isn’t that the way it generally starts? Except there’s something essentially urban about the word. A neighborhood bar, a dive bar, a downtown bar. A sleek hotel bar. An airport bar, to curb pre-flight jitters. A commuters’ bar, conveniently located right across the street from the train station.

This was more what you’d call a roadhouse, maybe a mile outside of the city limits of Bakersfield. That’s in California, or at least this one was. There may be other Bakersfields in other states.

I suppose you could look it up.

Picture a squat building of concrete block, set on a one-acre lot. Plenty of room for parking. Plenty of neon, but I couldn’t tell you what it said.

Country and Western music on the jukebox. Guys with Stetsons, women with big hair. Everybody wearing boots.

I walked in and my pulse quickened. No hat on my head, no boots on my feet, but I looked like I belonged. Still wearing my work clothes — dark navy pants, a matching shirt with a name embroidered in yellow script on the breast pocket.

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