Memory Ranch

by Marc Sercomb

Every night at midnight, former western movie star Dusty Bob pours two shot glasses of whiskey and settles in alone to watch a scratchy old copy of his greatest film, Rendezvous in Reno. Right after the action-packed shootout scene, his beautiful co-star and paramour, Olivia Del Monte, walks quietly into the room, downs one of the whiskeys in one shot, and re-enacts the melancholy saloon dance scene with Dusty Bob as it plays in flickering black and white on the screen. As the music fades, Olivia languidly pulls away from him and withdraws into the shadows until the next midnight showing.

Only thing is, Olivia died twenty-five years before, shortly after the premiere of Rendezvous in Reno. Unable to go on without his great love and soulmate, Dusty Bob crawled inside a whiskey bottle and let his career slip through his fingers. Long gone are the big house and swimming pool in Beverly Hills and the fleet of Texas-sized, gold-plated Cadillacs.

All that’s left is Memory Ranch, his run-down motel and café on Route 66, a shabby tourist stop on the way to the Grand Canyon. Memory Ranch, nothing much to crow about, but the place where he lives out a nightly fantasy of lost love and desire – where he can finally hold her in his arms once again, but only through the magic of the blue, flickering projector light and the timeless yet ultimately fading images etched into the brittle celluloid of their last picture together.

He repeats the same ritual every night, and comes to live for these brief, wordless encounters each day. But he soon notices that each time he watches the film, the images become fainter and fainter, the celluloid in the projector becoming more transparent with each viewing. Like a fading ghost, he knows he’s losing Olivia forever, but he can’t bring himself to stop the nightly ritual.

321 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 13, 2025