Status Updates From Baja Oklahoma

“Was it self-defense, I hope, or… one of those manslaughter deals?”

“Naw, nothin’ like that. C.M. just always had a real bad temper.”

Ask a question, get back a plot—or a lyric. Juanita loved Texas, goddamnit.

Gradually, then, Juanita was lofted away.

She spiraled into a vague cloud of rapture, that cloud of maddening bliss…

She soared up and beyond that cloud, to a place you could only teach if you had a love of people, a drive for working hard at the things you enjoyed, a gratitude for simply being a part of funny old life itself.

Slick was a friend, a secret-sharer, a confidant, someone who seemed as interested in preventive loneliness as Juanita, someone who might be just as reluctant as herself to let a relationship get out of control.

Slick was a friend, a secret-sharer, a confidant, someone who seemed as interested in preventive loneliness as Juanita, someone who might be just as reluctant as herself to let a relationship get out of control.