Free The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman

summer gig resulting in 4,321 infatuations and 3,964 Real Things. And there’s always rock and roll on the speakers, much to the dismay of some of the older citizens, though you have to wonder what they’re doing here in the first place. Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, Ricky Nelson, the Platters, Frankie Avalon, all the greats and sort-of greats help you digest the wonderfully greasy food. And day or night, there’s summer promise in the air, swimming and beer at the sandpits, drag racing and beer out on the highways, making out and beer in a myriad of backseats.
    Winter is a different matter. The girls come out all bundled up in parkas and gloves and there’s no flirting, either. It’s too cold to flirt. They just hand you your order through the window and disappear back inside, their breath silver on the prairie winter air.
    Today was no different.
    The last food I’d had was a doughnut on my way back from Kenny Whitney’s. Now I sat at the A&W listening to Paul Anka sob “Lonely Boy.” Even the music was more subdued in the winter, Paul Anka being a long way from Fats Domino.
    I was just finishing up when I saw Debbie Lundigan walking on the sidewalk past the A&W. She’d been a good friend of Susan Whitney. I stuffed the remains of my early dinner into the paper bag, backed up until I reached the large wire wastebasket, put it straight in the basket for two points and then backed up and wheeled around so I could reach the exit drive just as Debbie was about to cross it.
    I rolled down my window and said, “Hi, Debbie. You like a ride?”
    “Oh, hi, McCain. I’m just walking over to Randy’s.” Randy’s was the supermarket used by most people on this side of town, which was mostly a working-class neighborhood.
    “Get in. I’m going right by there.”
    When she got inside, I could see she’d been crying. She was a tall and somewhat awkward woman. We’d gone to school together since kindergarten. She had one of those wan faces that is pretty in an almost oppressive way. She always looks as if she might break into tears at any moment. She’d gotten married three weeks after we graduated from high school. It had always been a rocky marriage made even rockier by Susan Whitney. They’d gone to school together for years, but had never paid much attention to each other. Suddenly, they were fast friends, two married women with bad marriages. Debbie’s husband had taken to hitting her; Susan’s to ignoring her. There was a lot of town talk about them being easy lays after a few drinks but you couldn’t prove it by me. I’ve never had any luck at all with women who are called easy. In fact, once I hear a woman described that way, I know I’ll never score, not even with a submachine gun and a bag of cash. Life is like that sometimes.
    Debbie wore a pair of festive red earmuffs and a winter jacket with a fake-fur collar, jeans and loafers with bobby sox. Her nose was red from the cold and looked little-girl sweet. She took a pack of Winstons from her pocket and tamped one out on her gloved hand. She pushed in my car lighter and when it popped out, got her weed going.
    She said, after exhaling, “I just hope this town is sorry now for the way they treated her. You know, like she was some whore or something.”
    I didn’t have to ask who she was talking about.
    “She was the nicest girlfriend I ever had. You know how many clothes she bought me? Like this jacket for instance. You know how much she paid for it? Thirty-nine dollars. And you know why? Because she said she was tired of seeing me freeze all the time. She knew I couldn’t afford one like this. Thirty-nine dollars. So I hope all those bastards are happy now that she’s finally dead.”
    “I don’t think he killed her.”
    She looked stunned. Or stricken. I wasn’t sure which. “What? Chief Sykes is telling everybody he killed her.” That was the nice thing about a small town. You didn’t have to worry about your pronouns. We hadn’t mentioned any