the woman who lived in defiance

One day this lady comes in to the church where I work, says she needs help buying gas. I got to get to Atlantic City, she says. Ran outta gas on the interstate.

I tell her we can help but I need to see her ID. I have to photocopy it for our records. She gives me her license and while I'm copying it, I look at the name of the city. It's Defiance. Defiance, Ohio.

Sounds like a fun place to live, I tell her, Defiance. She says she don't know because man, she used to live there, but she never really lived there, know what I mean? And I tell her yeah, I know just what you mean.

She ain't got any family in Atlantic City, she says when I ask. No friends neither. I just got to get there, she says, because I had this dream one night that I lived in Atlantic City, and everything was alright there, know what I mean? I got to get to Atlantic City because then everything'll be fine. I just need some gas, she says.

Things aren't so bad here, I tell her. You could stay here; Georgia's not so bad. She says it ain't Atlantic City though and she laughs like don't I know it? And I do know, but I've never been to Atlantic City so I can't be sure it'd be that much better. I never had a dream like hers.

I ask her, how'd you end up in Georgia anyhow? Pretty far out of the way. And she tells me her son died here, and she gets real quiet. I'm sorry, I tell her. That's gotta be hard.

She says one day she's fine, everything's alright and Ohio ain't so bad, the next day her son's dead in Georgia and she's got to go be with his wife. She says they're all crying, sitting together after the funeral in his old house, and someone's talking at them and her son's wife is looking away, then she gets up, excuses herself from the table. She's says she'll just be a little while. Next thing, they're calling an ambulance for the wife too, but she's already dead.

Went to the bathroom and shot herself, the lady tells me. Shot herself in the head. Never expected it. That girl was strong, she tells me. But she's dead all the same. I tell her I'm real sorry, that's gotta be hard.

That night she dreamed about going to Atlantic City. It'll all be alright, she says. I got some living to do there, know what I mean? I just need to get me some gas first, then I'll be gone.

how to write a love story

kicking around a nonfiction story idea about my undergrad writing professor/mentor who died about a year and a half ago:

In my mind, I can't separate the memory of my father telling me that every song is essentially a love song and the memory of PC telling me that every story is essentially a love story. But maybe PC didn't say that at all; maybe I only remember it that way because when I wrote about my father PC told me I'd written a love story, and that's the only way I can make myself understand what he meant. I want to believe it, though. I want to believe that all the things worth saying about people come from a love place somewhere closer to the surface than we think, and that listening to music with my father is like polishing up our hearts for further, deeper use, and that everything PC ever taught me about love was the God's honest truth.