The moon slips down to the bar Friday night, finds mostly locals still in work clothes, talking loud, beers in hand, shaking their heads about the wreck on Wednesday, the minivan, everyone dead, the mother, the father, two uncles, four cousins. Everyone dead but the baby. The moon eavesdrops, nurses a vodka soda that leaves rings on the scratched wooden bartop. A band plays, local guys, the lead singer a part-time cop who, when he works nights, pulls everyone over. If you’ve had too many, he’ll bust you, handcuff you. Or sometimes he’ll have you drive slowly home, him following you like a shadow. Sometimes he’ll just laugh, wanna shoot the shit. Punishment or reprieve, which way he’ll go, impossible to predict. At the bar, things get loud. People get loose. Women dance with their second husbands. An old man in overalls dances by himself. The band plays “Freebird,” the lead singer dedicating the song to the baby. Everyone cheers. The old guy in overalls tries to buy the moon a shot of Jäger, but the moon turns it down. The moon’s still full from the other night, the way the clouds parted like a curtain, revealing the bend in the road, the minivan, the father’s face entering agony.

Bio: Hilary King