#* ALISON MacCLEAN / thread / dottie .

[someotherdog]

@thewolfruns / sonny & dottie! / outside bj's minute mart after two am.

since that night he came across dottie novak in bj's after work, he visited the store every night afterwards. for a whole week, he had been kicking his own ass for not being confident enough to ask for her number. katie briar had killed his self-esteem long ago and kim liu hammered the nails into its coffin not long after. sometimes he hooked up with newcomers, but they rarely turned into anything real and most of the time, their new toy shine faded until he couldn't distinguish them from the rest of boot hill's citizens. he was lonely and never would he readily admit that. so, instead of trying to seek dottie out—boot hill was only so big sometimes—he just hoped she'd have another late night craving for jiffy pop and surge cola.

it had been a week though, and nary a glimpse of her striking blonde hair and catlike eyes. sonny almost convinced himself to give up hope; perhaps dottie had been a newcomer that actually left town (though sonny wasn't consciously aware she couldn't leave, he didn't put much stock into the theory) or had been some ghost out of a sixties movie. perhaps boot hill was keeping her away for him. he promised himself this would be the last night he'd sit outside bj's for hours. dottie hadn't even said she was interested in him and yet he was giving devotion that he used to—and occasionally still did—give to katie. what a pathetic loser i am, he thought, the lovesick macclean. his one last night, and if she didn't stumble upon him, then he was going to stop for good.

and, of course, just when he was going to stop for good, who did he see? sitting on the stoop outside bj's, a svelte figure came out from the shadows. "dottie novak." sonny gave a sidelong smile, as if he hadn't been waiting to see her again for days. stop by bj's minute mart and see the lonely dog that longs for their master to come back! "fancy seein' you here."

[someotherdog]

the question always came with newcomers: have you ever left boot hill? the answer was no. for most of its children, the answer was no and always would be. the few lucky ones that somehow slipped away always returned in the end, be it just a year or decades later. they’d return like prodigal sons and be welcomed back like the town itself was relieved to have them back. people, sonny included, would eye these returnees warily at first, until they remembered what family they came from. sonny would remember they were the older sibling of someone he went to high school with, or the aunt of a childhood friend, and suddenly they were given an actual (albeit brief) smile on his face as he poured their whiskey. they were okay in his book because their last name was dominelli or o’rourke or may, their actual personalities notwithstanding. newcomers had to start from scratch and that was treated as if it was a crime. 

“no, i’ve never left boot hill.” sonny never felt the need to. everything he needed was already in town. all his siblings lived in boot hill, his second oldest brother eoin finally returning after twenty years. (his eldest sister, eileen, was the only one unaccounted for.) his parents, complicated as they may be, still resided in the macclean family home. boot hill was his entire world and rarely did it ever let one of its children out of its clutches—anyone let outside eventually returned home as if they never left in the first place. even the missing and the dead never actually escaped its clutches. there was nothing beyond the town limits for sonny and he resented being reminded of the other world, the one that stretched beyond the southbound highway, the one he’d never see. (well, what did it matter now anyway? boot hill dug its claws into dottie and soon the memory of los angeles would be hazy and perhaps confused with a recurring dream from childhood. a fact in sonny's favor.)

well, shit. she noticed his sullen demeanor. and then she pointed it out. like all macclean men, he didn’t want to dwell on offense. not unless he could punch the offender, and obviously he wasn’t going to do that. “s’okay.” sonny shrugged it off, though he was still a bit hurt. it wasn’t her fault anyway. the moment a new person entered boot hill, they were given the rundown on the town quickly after their arrival, usually by a customer service worker of some variety, and their spiel usually started with one fact: the macclean family was full of white trash drunks, best to stay away from ‘em all. it was hard to meet someone that recently moved to town that didn’t already know his last name and what it meant. dottie was no different, apparently. he would try not to hold it against her.

“your youtube videos?” sonny asked, brows raising to his reddish hairline. it seemed outwardly like he was inquiring about her channel and what it was about, but he forgot what youtube was until that moment… oh of course, youtube! right! sonny thought, briefly glancing away as he tried to remember what the website even looked like. just then, he became aware of his cell phone in the back pocket of his jeans. most times he forget that he had one until someone—usually a newcomer—brought them up in conversation. if anyone needed him, which they rarely did unless it was someone telling him to pick his drunk father up at the coyote’s howl, they would just call his work or his house on the landline. like the olden days. “what do you make videos about?”

her laughter salved his wounded pride and his own smile returned, genuine and toothy. “i wouldn’t make a good cop either. i guess that makes us outlaws.” to emphasize, he took another swig of his fruitopia. “can’t go wrong with jiffy pop.” unless she burnt it, but whatever. he was trying to flirt and seem carefree. “i just got off work myself, ‘cross the street at the bucking horse. i’m a bartender.” he leaned against the refrigerator door, cocking his head to the side. “don’t think i’ve ever seen you there. i’d remember you.” that and her vintage way of dress. besides, the bucking horse was the loyal home of many regulars that didn’t take too kindly to new faces; most people new to the bar scene in boot hill haunted the coyote’s howl or the olive branch, rarely pushing open the saloon doors of his bar.

in some other place or some other time, dottie might've pushed the issue. she probably would've had her phone out in a second, competing with other friends to google how long surge had been defunct--pretending like swift typing meant they'd had the knowledge on the tip of their tongue the entire time. it was more than the fact that her phone seemed to be more defunct than surge in boot hill. somehow it just didn't seem that important. her let me google thats had been replaced lately with i wonders.

i wonder if that cute little midcentury bungalow in midtown is up for rent? i wonder what the story is with the dominelli family? i wonder if social media is the right career path anymore? always a daydreamer, she felt like boot hill had been waiting for her. perhaps it had been created only for her, born from the daydreams of a girl who wanted to live in a different time. or different times all at once. without having to time travel into a world where she wasn't allowed to have a bank account, she felt like she could be at home in boot hill. if she stood out here it wasn't for her curated outfits. it seemed like maybe it was just her: dorothy novak. it felt kind of nice to be mostly a nobody in lieu of a novelty. more than that, boot hill made it seem enticing.

and it was fun. at least she was having fun now. having not been in town long, the locals seemed to blend into the scenery. only a few seemed like npcs from some video game an ex-boyfriend would've made her watch him play while she sat half-bored, scrolling on her phone on the mattress in his room. sonny was the most real person she felt like she'd met there, aside from the hair dresser in the fringe leather jacket who'd promised to touch up her roots next monday afternoon.

"yeah, los angeles. los feliz to be more specific. at least that's where i live now." except now wasn't really true either, was it? she was already fantasizing about painting the kitchen of a midtown bungalow and seeing if the painted sky had any unique light fixtures. "have you ever been?" she was eager to talk about her home with anyone, as if part of her was worried she'd begin to forget it like a childhood home left behind and sold before adulthood.

"oh, i'm sorry." dottie said softly, sincerely. she immediately recognized her misstep as his smile faltered. she almost stopped her heel in annoyance at herself. she had been immediately curious, but without tact. it hadn't really occurred to her that it would touch such a nerve, but that was the difference between being from a big city where rumors were worn like armor and the small towns where they were worn as scarlet letters. "you should read the comments sections on my youtube videos. everybody has some kind of curse, right?" her smile deepened, comforting, before it widened to laugh at his joke. "i don't think i'd make a very good cop. maybe the benefactor of some private eye or something, but a cop i am not." but why was she there. "i don't really remember." she told him honestly. "i was watching old movies at the hotel, i think, and craving popcorn. and then poof--" she held up the nostalgic popcorn tray. "--jiffy pop." / @someotherdog

[someotherdog]

@thewolfruns / 001, a convenience store past midnight. / sonny & muse of your choice, as long as they can be put in sb verse!

it felt like the sun had gone down just a few minutes ago, but the clock on the wall of bj's minute mart said it was almost one in the morning. sonny was used to that, though. like all boot hill locals, time was meaningless and fluid, even though very few of them were aware of that. like all boot hill locals, something weird happened and sonny would just blink and move on. time didn't matter, but he still was able to close up the bucking horse a bit early that night. alison, a man in his early twenties with two male roommates also in their twenties, didn't have anything in the house for dinner. that meant a late night trip to bj's, the convenience store down the street. entering the store, he didn't see anyone, not even the cashier, until he walked closer to the drinks fridge on the back wall. he nodded as his greeting, opening up the door and grabbing a bottle of strawberry fruitopia off the shelf. cracking it open the moment it was in his hands, he cast a glance at the other patron and smirked a little, "don't worry. i'm not stealing." though he could if he wanted to, but the owner, barry joe bennet, was a friend of his father's. like all boot hill locals, somehow it would get around town that sonny was a thief if he did—he was a dirty macclean, after all.

[someotherdog]

did he feel his heart skip a beat when she smiled? no, that was stupid and cheesy. he should have slapped himself for thinking such a thing, no self-respecting man would think that, but it didn’t stop the warmth in his stomach from seeing dottie. not just warmth, but excitement. sonny had hung around bj’s like one of the bucking horses’ most loyal barflies, just waiting for her to return. no, he wasn’t a barfly, he was a dog. he had been katie’s dog for years, and probably would’ve been kim’s if she hadn’t inexplicably dumped him in high school. all the women that he liked in his whole life saw his desperation on his face, a longing to be loved, and used it for their own amusement. twisted him and pulled him. did dottie see it? did she take one look at him and know he was willing to do anything for her, just for a moment of her attention? he made himself sick.

their inside joke was bare bones, but it was one nonetheless. sonny felt himself relax a bit at the comfortable rhythm of flirting with a pretty girl. “well, once an outlaw…” sonny trailed off, smirking with familiarity. it felt like they were criminals in a way, meeting only at night. was she a night owl? sonny had the pleasure of being a second shift worker, but he wasn’t aware if dottie snagged herself a boot hill job yet. somehow, mostly without anyone ever noticing, newcomers went from travelers on the way to somewhere better to another shopper in the amen grocery market or diner at the florita cantina; they went from guests of the copper cactus motel to becoming a new neighbor on laguna street or the new tenant at the silver spurs apartment complex. eventually, it was like they were never new at all, as if they had always been there.

“i do, yeah.” sonny felt around his pockets for a lighter. like any boot hill boy, he had been smoking cigarettes since he was twelve, at first stealing them from fearghas’ stash and then having brian buy a pack for him as long as sonny was willing to pay at a jacked up price. once he was old enough, it was his turn to buy them for cian. pulling a neon green one from his jeans, he proffered it with an open palm. “…as long as you give one to me.” he had his own pack somewhere in his truck, but that was parked across the street behind the saloon. plus, he was curious as to what brand she smoked—hopefully not virginia slims, like his mother. the mention of midol made his thoughts blank out for a second. he had grown up in a family of men; the macclean women didn’t fare very well, evident in his mother’s catatonia and eileen’s mysterious disappearance. everyone feared what fate had in mind for the youngest girl, isla. though her candor surprised him, he didn’t make any sort of verbal or visual reaction to it. luckily, dottie quickly moved on. “the moonlite closed about an hour ago, but they’ll let you in if you don’t have a car. you just have to sit in folding chairs by the snack hut.” sonny had a truck, though…

if the mention of midol stole his thoughts, the offer to join her for waffles at the diner arrested his heart. “oh, just my kid brother.” the only one he had that was younger than him, so that gave cian special reverence in his heart. cian and isla, the only maccleans below him in the family line, were the forgotten kids, so their care fell to sonny growing up. his mother, bedelia, had practically been in a fugue state since eileen disappeared, and his father was always drunk. there was no one else around to take care of cian and isla, as their older brothers had their own families or were wrapped up in their own bullshit. so even though sonny moved out from the family home years ago, it had been sonny who woke them up for school and packed their lunch boxes. now, isla was the only one still in school, and cian was a minimum wage slacker just like sonny. they didn’t need him anymore, which was a relief and a regret, but he still gave them rides when needed. it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him to pick his brother up after work, it was a suitable excuse. forget that now, though. even if he did promise to give his brother a ride, dottie’s offer would’ve trumped those plans. “cian can walk.” sonny said all too quickly, nodding fervently. 

“the turquoise star doesn’t open for two more hours, i think.” he knew, but he didn’t want to seem too eager to profess he knew the operating hours of the businesses in boot hill. “neither does may’s, but i’ve been ‘temporarily banned from the premises pending review’ for, like, three years now.” sonny rolled his eyes. kim refused to serve him, but bev, her hated coworker, was always willing to let him have a seat at the counter. it just took a certain mood for him to be able to withstand seeing kimimela and dealing with her endless coldness—as if she wasn’t the one to dump him! most of the time, he haunted the turquoise star where the waitressing duo, joey and margie, were always happy to see him. “i’m willing to wait, though.” shit, that was too eager. “i mean, i’ll be awake anyway.”

boot hill was a strange place. in the city, people told you not to go places alone, but dottie really found that everyone in los angeles was sort of alone. she didn't drive much, but she took public transportation and cabs or ubers at night if she was solo. if it was the weekend and the streets were busy, she didn't mind walking a few blocks. sometimes she got into some close calls, but mostly things turned out okay. in boot hill, she always felt a little touch of unease, but she found herself walking everywhere. if other people did too, she didn't really know. it seemed like other people passing her on the sidewalk were lost to the background. they were static. ambient noise. it was rare she ran into someone who stood out.

at least not like sonny macclean. he seemed like one of the only real people she'd encountered. a handful had a shine to them that made them stand out. sonny macclean. the gal who did her hair and always seemed like she was looking over her shoulder. that chaotic guy with the curly hair who asked her if he could sleep on her couch once. the popular owner of the olive branch bar. maybe a few others.

"still bonnie and clyde then?" she smirked, referencing their only inside joke. not much mileage left on it. they'd have to try their hand at making more. "do you have a light?" she asked as she pulled out her cigarettes to buy her sometime to decide what to ask next. if he was meeting someone, maybe it was a girlfriend or hookup. he was just vague enough that she wasn't sure and asking him felt kind of tacky; they'd only just met.

"i'm here for some a lighter and some midol." she answered honestly. if it grossed him out, he wasn't worth her time. as an afterthought, she tagged on impulsively, "i was thinking about checking out the drive in--" she wasn't. "--but i don't know if they let you in without a car." hers was, perhaps eternally, at chuy's auto shop. "but i don't think there's probably anything playing this late." disappointing, but that always opened up an offer for another night. "and it's late or early enough i was thinking i might go get some waffles at the diner if you wanna come." she smiled demurely. "or, you said you were waiting for someone, do you have plans?" she was hoping he didn't, but still not bold enough to assume.

[someotherdog]

now that he was faced with the reality of dottie finally showing up, he was at a loss for words. though he had spent the previous week desperate to see her again, he never actually fantasized about what would happen after their next meeting. knowing himself, he wouldn’t have asked for her number like he hadn’t the last time they met in bj’s, and that would require him to even remember where his cell phone was at any given moment. he probably wouldn’t ask her on a date; most of the girls he dated before, namely katie, just told him where to go and when to come to them. the few newcomers he hooked up with were usually one night stands and they only had to come to the bucking horse if they wanted him again. actively pursuing a woman was completely foreign to him and something that would require brotherly advice from any of the older macclean men—all with differing, usually misguided, answers. when it came to his crush on dottie, he was flying high and blind.

she didn’t seem creeped out by him sitting on the stoop. if anything, she seemed amused. getting up from the ground, he wiped the seat of his jeans off subtly as he straightened out. if there was anything that women liked about him, it was certainly his height—some claimed to like his red hair and freckles, his biggest insecurities, but he never believed them. alison laughed airily at her question. luckily, she seemed game to flirt. he couldn’t allow his hopes to soar, but it definitely looked as if she might’ve liked him back.

how should he answer her? should he be too vulnerable and say the truth, that he had been waiting for her? no, vulnerability bit him in the ass with kim liu and that relationship taught him not to show his cards too soon, if at all. being too eager cursed him with the push and pull of katie briar’s favor, something he was only now trying to permanently break since dottie came to boot hill. if he was too casual, maybe she’d shrug him off and he’d have to suffer no longer being in her company. he wished he had ease with women that gavin had, but then he could have the rap sheet, gambling debts, and angry baby mamas that gavin had, too. 

sonny decided on being sarcastic. “law ain’t caught me yet.” unlike his various family members, he had mostly stayed on the straight and narrow, beyond the frequent marijuana use. “i’m waiting for someone, actually. i just got off work.” he neglected to mention the someone was her. if he had to, he could always say he was waiting for his younger brother, cian, who often worked the night shift at the gas station off the southbound highway exit. it didn't matter if cian was actually working or not, or the fact that tiny al's gas & go never seemed to be open when stranded travelers drove in to town in desperate need of gas. “now what brings you to bj’s so late at night?” sonny turned it back on her, brows raising expectantly.

after their chance encounter, dottie would've been lying if she said she hadn't hoped to run into sonny again. her wasn't exactly the kind of guy she would've dated back home, but none of them had really panned out. he didn't have a james dean look about him, but there was something about him. enough so that when she heard macclean in passing, her ears perked up and she really listened.

what she learned, she was smart enough to recognize as half-truths. there was some family loss. a lot of dysfunction. essentially what sonny had alluded to at bj's. for dating history, she'd mostly heard about what a shameless flirt his older brother's wife was (though debbie from debbie and don's insisted they did really love one another). somebody said he was on-again-off-again with some girl named katie (a red flag), but some girl who clearly hated him and sounded like april ludgate's more dour sister said he and katie were through (and added his loss before skulking away). she took it all in and sort of hoped she'd run into him without just going into his work smelling of desperation.

after about a week, she hadn't seen him and was sort of feeling sorry for herself. though period cramps and a continued lack of cell phone service might've been at play. the only content she'd been able to upload before all hope of salvaging her sponsorships was a reel she'd made about visiting boot hill that read like a wes anderson directed vintage tourism commercial. whatever, maybe she'd try again tomorrow. for now, she was more interested in picking up some butterfinger bbs and wheat thins.

she hadn't really considered that he'd frequented bj's--maybe because convience stores were really just a place you went to pick up beer or corn nuts on a random evening, but there he was! she spotted him before she thought he saw her and tried not to look too excited. even if it amounted to nothing more than a friendship, he was the most interesting connection she'd made since ... well, since whenever she'd gotten there. time in boot hill seemed to speed up and slow down in such a way that she could never really know what day it was.

"hey there, stranger." dottie smiled. "do you make it your business to hang out on stoops or did they ban you for your devastating string of food mart robberies?" she was definitely buying some midol while she was there, rather than just going home to lounge around in bed.

[someotherdog]

“hm, weird.” sonny didn’t respond further on the subject of surge. sometimes people chatted about the things in boot hill that they hadn’t seen for a long time, or something they remembered from childhood that they were surprised to see again. he never noticed any of it. to sonny, nothing ever changed. there was a safety in that familiarity. and when things did change, sonny didn’t really see it. when time flowed forwards or backwards, or he saw something hazy down silver mine road, he would just shrug his shoulders and go on with his day.

“l.a., huh? as in los angeles?” sonny asked with a raise of his brows. normally, the name of such a city would earn a sneer from him. he hated when people came into the bar and talked about big cities like los angeles or new york city and how they had everything you ever could have wanted. things were always happening in cities like those. it made sonny feel ashamed of being from such a small town that he had never been outside of. he never felt the need to leave like some of boot hill’s other children. while he briefly dreamt of maybe playing baseball for some college team down in tucson, he shortly dropped out of high school and any hope, or want, of leaving town left him completely. maybe they didn’t have a fancy mall, but sonny wore a uniform of jeans and a t-shirt, maybe a flannel if he was feeling fancy, so what use would a mall have. maybe they didn’t have a bustling nightlife, but the bars were open late in boot hill and there wasn’t much else to do besides party, so what was the real difference anyway? they had twenty-four hour convenience stores where a working man could meet a pretty girl.

“maybe i just want to know the name of my alibi.” he easily volleyed, feeling encouraged by her smile. it had been awhile since he had been on a date. kim liu, his only real ex-girlfriend, dumped him many years ago, and katie briar never went on dates with him. she’d just show up when she felt like it, and like any loyal dog, he always accepted her back. the current interaction seemed to be heading in a good direction. he accepted her offered hand, skin cold and slightly rough against her soft one, then let go just as quick. 

his smile dropped nearly instantly at her question. that was the problem with newcomers. there was very little time for them to exist in boot hill before they quickly became acquainted with the local rumor mill. all it took was a meal at the turquoise star or drink at the bucking horse—sonny’s own place of employment—for someone new to get the lowdown on all of boot hill’s families. the maccleans were unfortunately especially infamous. “yeah.” he answered, glancing away down the aisle, “i’m number eight out of ten.” that was the problem with being a local. people mostly only knew him as his family name and his position in the family, nothing about who he was as a person. he tried not to seem like a total asshole, though, so he gave dottie a small shrug. “no point in dodging the family curse.” tragedy blanketed every member of the macclean dynasty, might as well just accept it. besides, sheriff kelleher knew sonny was pretty low on the list of criminals in his family. “what has you in here after midnight, then? you ain’t a cop, are ya?” / @thewolfruns

it was hard to say why dottie had ended up in boot hill. it wasn't like she went on a lot of road trips. she wasn't running from anything. she didn't know any residents who'd gotten out only to lead others back like so many dusty, ghost town pipers. she hadn't been looking for it. boot hill found dottie novak and when she'd entered its territory it had sank its teeth into her and would never let go.

it started as an instagram ad, she thought, or maybe a reddit post. she wasn't big on traveling for content creation, but it broke up the monotony and lately, she'd hit a creative block. the town seemed like just what the doctor ordered. it had the kitschy charm of the 50s and 60s. it reminded her of a fake town, set up to test weapons that would hopefully never be used. she knew it would be a great series to do. she could film all kinds of reels about what she was doing in the area--expertly directed like a drive-in theatre intermission (and it had those too!). once she got there, however, she wasn't sure how many posts were really getting through. and she kind of stopped caring. some would post easy as breathing--ones with intrigue and just enough description of the place. others had been a waste of time all together.

"that, too, remains to be seen." dottie smiled slyly. she had a flirtatious nature, but she also found it was rare that any of the local boys stood out to her at all. she hadn't been on a date since she'd arrived, if for no other reason that every person she talked to seemed unmemorable or else like static. some people in boot hill were simply smoke, hovering long enough to be perceived and then entirely gone from her mind. this guy seemed corporeal. and, better than that, despite his small town way of dropping the ends of words, like he could keep a conversation.

"surge? no, that's not been around since--" well, she couldn't quite remember, could she? maybe she just hadn't had one since childhood. it didn't mean they didn't exist. "actually, i'm not sure, but i haven't seen it in l.a. in what feels like forever." maybe it was part of some retro revival promotion thanks to the nostalgia wave of stranger things and the like. "why do you want to know my name?" she asked, smile still coy, but she felt sort of guilty and tacked on. "it's dottie." leaving off the novak. she wasn't really that formal. she offered a hand to shake and her hand was firm, but soft. demure. dottie novak really didn't have much to prove. "macclean." she repeated. "i think i've heard that one before." maybe whispered or as an expletive practically among locals. "macclean! are you guys like a big family here?" this town sure had its legacies. she scruched up her nose, remembering some details. "i think i heard you guys were all no good." it's said without malice, more curiosity. "is your family's reputation what led you to a life of stealing fruitopias after midnight?" and a joke to keep it light.

[someotherdog]

the blonde didn’t look out of place in the aisles of bj’s. well, that wasn’t entirely true. there was something off about the woman, like she was slightly anachronistic in a town full of anachronisms. she looked more like a movie starlet from the fifties, and if he was ever aware of boot hill’s time-related issues, he might’ve thought it was funny that she looked like the fifties instead of any other decade. they all existed in boot hill, some places had a more ‘ninities vibe’ as he once heard a newcomer say, while others had the charm of a seventies film, per another newcomer. he never understood what they meant by that, and he couldn’t remember their names now. all newcomers became locals eventually, until the point that no one remembered they were ever newcomers at all. like her. he knew she wasn’t a local, because he knew all the locals, but he didn’t regard her with the same contempt that he usually had for new arrivals. maybe that new toy sheen was rubbing off of her, just a faint glint that said she wasn’t born in the dust like the maccleans were. maybe boot hill finally claimed her, and slowly, she’d become just another face in his bar or another girl in the aisles of bj’s after midnight. 

at least she didn’t think he was an actual thief. there were actual criminals in boot hill, some of them were a few of his brothers, but sonny’s rap sheet was fairly short. “you won’t rat me out, will you?” sonny joked, thinking she was flirting with him. maybe he was a little flattered by the thought that she was. she was blonde like joey ryan and svelte like katie briar, eyes that had a similar glint of cleverness like kim liu. in a rare moment where he felt a little less insecure than usual, sonny was halfway to asking her out when she suddenly laughed. “yeah?” he looked over his shoulder at the offending beverage, “what, you come from some place that don’t got surge or somethin’?” personally, sonny liked fruitopia better, evident in the small sips he kept taking from his drink. “what’s your name? i’m sonny macclean.” he preferred to use his full name, or at least nickname and surname, to introduce himself. it was a good test to see what a newcomer had heard about his family, if they already had the preconceived notion that the maccleans were bad.

mr. jones and me tell each other fairtyales--dottie hears the counting crows crooning over the radio by the cashier. every so often the sound cuts out like a car stereo losing signal on a long stretch of highway. for a moment, she recalls her drive to boot hill. that was so long ago. the town she lives in now wasn't even her destination, but she can't recall where she'd been heading when she ended up in the town. all she knew was that she had admired its timelessness--having always felt like she was sort of timeless herself--and she had stayed.

the convenience store lacked dottie's preferred haunts' charms, but it was the only place she'd been able to find filtered lucky strikes. she thought you could only buy them in europe! and here they'd been hiding in boot hill instead of bulgaria. before picking up her smokes, she scanned the shelves for a white claw, but finding none and settling on a yoohoo before turning to look at the source of the bottle cracking open. "well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it?" she said with a smile and a lean, speaking quietly and casting a conspiratorial glance towards the register. something behind him caught her eye and she laughed suddenly--a laugh that lacked her normal affectation. "is that a whole shelf of surge?"