Little America

Here's the beginning of Little America, originally published in Beloit Fiction Review, now out in the collection of the same name from Ohio State University Press.

They'd all blow into some hick town where Hank and Lorraine would put on a program in the hall they'd rented for the night. Gorgeous in aviators and rattlesnake books, Hank jumped and spun and flirted with the ladies and men alike as Lorraine chain smoked and flipped charts to show how people in other towns had gotten rich or improved somehow since they'd bought what Hank was selling. When it was over--sometimes even before it was over--they'd jump in the car and speed out of there, driving a hundred miles before stopping to sleep, hank singing all the way.

Billie--who spent the evenings watching TV in the motel room if they had one or reading romance novels in the back of the hall if they didn't--knew they were crooks of some sort. Beyond that, she didn't know much, such as where they come from or what their real names were. Even the idea that most people had a "real name" as opposed to the name you were using just then was something she didn't pick up until the third grade when the teacher asked why she was writing Barbara Miller on her papers instead of Billie Moore which was what she'd come in as. . .