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I’m on the downgrade where the speed limit drops to 55 and the Slow Truck signs are behind you. I come up on the curve and the twinkling expanse of Zenith City—and across the black waters of the bay—Bay City, Wisconsin, hit me in the eyes and make me feel for a moment like I never left this place.
Doesn’t look much different than when I blew town. A few more lights, maybe. Not as much smoke in the air, perhaps. But still, it feels the same.
My gut does the Mexican hat dance all the way down Thompson Hill. I’ve been so anxious just to get here, now that I’m here I don’t know where to go. No immediate plans are taking shape in my head.
I don’t want to rush into things. I need to get a feel for the local authorities. There are a few dead bodies in my wake, some I even caused, and I have attracted the attention of law enforcement on more than one occasion in my travels.
The killing started here in Bay City, back in ’78. But I’m hoping I got lucky with Johnny Wells. Hoping they never found his body in the trunk of his Chevy at the bottom of the Nemadji River.
I see the Wisconsin exit sign and instinctively make the right turn and wind my way toward the John Blatnik Interstate Bridge. A lot of the industrial blight is gone from the area and the town seems cleaner.
But maybe I’m nuts.
At the top of the bridge, a wave of déjà vu passes through me and my body twitches in response. This is where it all started, in that goddamned Blue and White cab I was driving, January of 1978.
For a moment I’m wracked with sorrow and regret over how things turned out. If only I’d never started up with the hard drugs. If only I’d had the sense to leave this town before I got in with the Cross brothers. If only I’d never gone to Peter McKay’s party....
And then the cruelest blow: If only I’d stayed married to Carole and never succumbed to my wandering eye, maybe a lot of misery and death could have been prevented.
But then again, maybe not.
As I hit the ground on the Wisconsin side of the bridge, a familiar sinking feeling floats in from the empty streets. A lot of old shacks and rundown buildings are gone but it’s still as dark as my heart out there.
I turn onto Tower Avenue.
The Cave Lounge building is still here but it looks closed. The only remaining vestiges of the town’s lurid past seem to be a couple of strip clubs. Bay City’s heyday appears to lie in the past and somehow I’m saddened by the change. Sure, it’s what the good citizens want, but something irretrievable and undeniably human has been lost.
Sometimes I succumb to the maudlin.
Please accept my apologies.
The farther along Tower I go, the action seems to pick up. A few more lights, a few more blinking signs.
Still a shitload of bars in this town.
Part of me wants to stop somewhere for a drink or several. A voice in my head is whispering that maybe the old magic is waiting behind one of those brightly lit marquees. With the right lights and the right mix of companions, who knows, the years might fall away. The fun, the excitement, the endless nights—they could all come back.
And the next morning would be sunny and warm and the creeks would be flowing and the birds chirping and my special girl would be at my side telling me how wonderful I was in bed.
But probably not.
Truth is, I really want to see my ex-wife Carole. Something there just won’t die. I suppose it has a lot to do with our son Mike but I know there’s more to it than that.
In Seattle, my most recent place of residence, I’d gone to the library and found Carole’s listing in the Zenith City phone book. Mike’s name was also in there, at a separate address in Bay City. The numbers are tucked away in my wallet, but I’m pretty nervous about using them.
But first things first.
I need a place to stay for the night and then a more permanent home. I’ve decided to live in Bay City and make forays into Minnesota when necessary. I figure the chances of anybody recognizing me will be slighter on the Wisconsin side of the bridge.
I can afford to keep more than one residence should the need arise, as I have seventy-two thousand dollars in cash in a suitcase in the trunk of the car. Which is drug money I ripped from a smack dealer in Seattle.
Killed the sonofabitch, too.
That made him the third person I’ve killed. I’m not bragging—it’s not something I’m proud of— but the facts are the facts. First one was the aforementioned baby-raper and abuser of women, Johnny Wells. That one sent me off on the run, although no one was actually chasing me, something I only discovered much later. My second victim was Dan Bagley, in sunny Florida, and then the dude in Seattle.
Thought I killed that crazy chick Dory Lanigan down in Florida, too, but she survived and blamed me for killing the deputy sheriff she shot in the head with that shiny little gun of hers. So I suppose they want me for that one, too. Loony bitch has a lotta nerve for someone who tried to rip me off.
And that stuff they say about seeing the people you killed in your dreams?
Hasn’t happened to me yet.
Only one I see in my nightmares is Dory Lanigan, because she’s still alive and can identify me.
I don’t feel a lick of guilt about any of them.
Well, maybe just a lick once in a while.
Mostly over Dan Bagley, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a sick-sad empty feeling, and my mind wants to go over the killings, so I guess there’s something going on.
But it passes.
I do wish the killings had never happened, but all three people deserved what they got and I’d probably do the same thing again if I had to.
I look into the rearview mirror at my shaven head and dyed-black mustache. Sun damage, aging and the lines and crags of a life often lacking in the proper nourishment—both physical and emotional—have changed my face.
The eyes are different too. I don’t look very friendly anymore. The one-time pretty boy has become just another dinged-up geezer.
Rolling through East Bay City, I feel it all coming back and my mind wanders. Oddly, it seems like there’s something out there for me still. Like maybe I can hook up with a young chick looks good in her underwear and have a couple of babies. My prostate cancer would go away and we’d live happily ever after. I could get a Packer jacket with a hood and nobody would ever recognize me.
I take the left turn onto Wisconsin Highway 51 and continue down to the Sleepy Hollow Motel. This is one headless horseman who needs to sleep.