Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen (Gutter Books Rock Anthology Series)

by Joe Clifford

back when he still believed he was living, not just drowning slow.

Breathing only because it’s what you did, not because you thought the next breath was going to be any better.

Young with something to prove. Young, thinking he had nothing to lose.

“Where are you going?” he asks me. “You tell me,” I say.

She huffs. “I’m one wrong turn from being a character in his songs.”

The thing I liked best about this one was the way her lipstick was on just a little bit crooked. I wanted to smear it all over her mouth until it looked like she’d recently killed a small animal with her teeth.

Nightshift at a 24-hour diner had to be the slowest version of suicide she could measure. Twenty-six years and counting and still the sweet, quiet stillness of death hadn’t claimed her yet.