About the Author Jon Boilard's fiction has appeared in literary journals in the United States, Canada and Europe. One of his stories was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and several of the others have won individual small press awards. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Ascent, The Baltimore Review, Barbaric Yawp, Beloit Fiction Journal, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Black Mountain Review, Conversely, CrossConnect, The Dalhousie Review, Dirty Dishes, Event, First Class, Front & Centre, Heartlands Magazine, Hindsight, Ink, The Laurel Review, Lynx Eye, The MacGuffin, Parting Gifts, Puerto del Sol, Rattapallax, RE:AL, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Francisco State University Review, The Sulphur River Literary Review, Third Half Magazine, Thought Magazine, Transfer, Whiskey Island Magazine and The Xavier Review.

Fat Johnny set his uncle’s pond on fire. I sat in the truck and watched. It didn’t do much but kill all the fish. He used a gas can that was for his lawn mower. We drove around and smoked cigars. We stopped at the Conway Inn and drank beer and played cards with the Sadoski brothers who everybody called the mental twins. Fat Johnny won ten dollars. That was good enough for two lap dances so we went to the Castaway Lounge. Jimmy the Greek let us in free because I plowed his driveway all winter. He gave us white t-shirts that said Budweiser and we put them in our back pockets. There was a new girl named Suzanne who studied at UMass. I took her out back and gave her the money. She made a face and said I smelled like her daddy’s old Chevy. I told her that I just got off work. I felt bad for not showering. My hands were so dirty she wouldn’t let me touch her. But she did a pretty good job to a couple songs by Hank. It was more than I paid for.

I got cleaned up the next night and went back. She almost didn’t recognize me. We talked and then she had to go on the main stage. I ordered a beer and sat up front. She moved around like a real pro and made a lot of tips. She was classier than most girls. I

bought her a drink. She grew up in Bernardston. I knew a couple of her cousins from playing football against them in high school. They were a wild bunch. She told me that she wanted to be a teacher. Jimmy the Greek was giving her looks so she made the rounds. When she returned I asked if she wanted to get something to eat after her shift.

She looked like a school teacher in her regular clothes. The BP Diner was open all night. It was mostly truckers in there at that hour. We got a booth and I ordered biscuits and gravy. She ordered a short stack of pancakes. She played some Loretta Lynn on the jukebox and knew all the words. Dennis from Double D’s saw me and he could barely stand up and he tried to be funny but I shooed him away. Nothing seemed to phase her. She had an apartment in Sunderland but she didn’t want to go there yet. She wanted to show me where the UFO picked her up the first time. It was Peter Melnik’s cornfield out past the drive-in theatre. We parked on the side of the road and she described the experience to me. She didn’t remember everything because that’s the way they wanted it. She told her story on Oprah and that’s when her daddy threw her out. She asked me if I thought she was crazy and I told her I could think of worse things and she kissed me.