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Talk at the bar
June, 2017 — Denver, Colorado Ross greets the whole gang at the door as they enter his hotel “room”. That’s how he described it when he talked to them all on the phone, because he had more on his mind at the time than talking like a travel agent. The hotel describes it as a…
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Front Range
June, 2017 — Watkins, Colorado Mike Ross finally finds Front Range Airport at the end of a dusty little road in the middle of Absolutely Fucking Nowhere, at ten minutes past eight, after spending the last half hour cussing out vague road signs and the totally useless navigation app on his phone. Since the destruction…
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A Job in Colorado
June, 2017 — Denver, Colorado You don’t want to appear too eager, but you also don’t want to look bored or uninterested. Mike Ross shifts around in the chair to get a view out the window at the blue Denver sky. He’s come a long way fleeing the collapse of the housing market, looking for…
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Fired
11 Jan, 2017 — Ann Arbor, Michigan Waking up is like tearing himself out of a chrysalis of covers and confusion. In the world he inhabits, composed of one part waking and two parts dream, the struggle seems to last forever. It takes forever for Bill Geisler to even remember who and where he is,…
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Whitmore Lake
11 January, 2017 — Whitmore Lake, Michigan The territory around I-94 in the no-man’s-land between Jackson and Chelsea is mostly open fields. Wind can basically come all the way from the North Pole and have nothing to slow it down but barbed wire. And with how cold it’s been, the snow that fell a week…
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The only ones who know
January, 2017 — Grass Lake Charter Township, Jackson County, Michigan Patrick Leonard walks restlessly around the big common room of the Cedar Knoll retirement community. At this time of the afternoon on a Wednesday there would normally be at least a few people in here relaxing or working on small projects. Today, however, it is…
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It’s happening again
5 January, 2017 — Ann Arbor, Michigan By the time Bill Geisler wakes up for his new work week, it’s four-thirty in the afternoon and sunset is only a couple hours away. He sits on the edge of the bed to collect himself, then forces himself to get up and open the light shades. Westering…
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Arriving
4 October, 2016 — Ann Arbor, Michigan Geisler is just getting his jacket on in the room that serves as an office and break area for security staff, when the door opens and Shawn comes back in, looking glum. “What’s going on?” Bill asks him. “You forget something?” Shawn should be taking his place at…
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Routine
October, 2016 — Ann Arbor, Michigan This late in the year the sun doesn’t come up until seven, an hour after the end of Bill Geisler’s shift at the Comerica Building. He hasn’t bothered to ask about extending his hours further. It was hard enough convincing the building management to give him a shift-and-a-half at…
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Waldron Road
13 April, 1987 — near Addison, Michigan The rain picks up the moment they pull out of the parking lot and just keeps getting heavier as they work their way through town and out to the highway, heading west. Geisler had been planning to use the flasher for a little extra speed on the way,…
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Blood Lake
April, 1987 — Ann Arbor, Michigan At two a.m. Bill Geisler has discovered entire new classes and families of noises that the office can make on a breezy April night, none of which he has ever noticed in the daytime when the place is full of boisterous, amused, angry, sarcastic, complaining, argumentative people. First there’s…
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At the Golf Course
April, 1987 — near Addison, Michigan Gravel crunches under the car’s tires as Leonard slows to a stop in the Devil’s Lake Golf Course parking lot. “You called, right?” Geisler asks with some concern, looking around at the empty lot. “Yes, William, I called,” Leonard answers. “He said he would be here. Let’s at least…
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The Wolverine Truck Stop and Motor Lodge 