“That’s the Larry I know.” Gina laughed sleepily and pulled me to her. She was a sociology major from upstate New York who talked about the City and dressed up like Lou Reed for Halloween. But she was no Kim. I would have grown up for Kim. I could have even grown to appreciate King Crimson, given the time, but at that age, time was a coupon with no expiration date. It always gave me a discount, it never turned, went bad.

Out on Old U.S. 27, between Elwell and Shepherd, a pipe stuck out of the ground, and anyone could drive up and fill up jugs full of cold, wonderful spring water. That fall, when we’d first started going out, Slim and I drove there in my old Plymouth, skidding into the gravel at the side of the road. Our bodies jerked forward, then back, in sync, laughing as empty plastic milk jugs tumbled over us from the back seat.

The world was no trick when water tasting like earth itself came out of a pipe in the Middle of the Mitten where Old U.S. 27 and U.S. 46 cut the lower Peninsula into four quadrants, where each winter the snow blew across…

They just stuck Old in front of the road instead of renaming it. Old Slim and Old L.C. on Old 27. In three months, she’d be twenty forever. Melodrama, she’d say to that. And I’d say, I’m no stranger to Melodrama. In fact, I’ve slept with Melodrama, and she’d hit me over the head with one of those jugs.

We tossed the empty jugs into the weeds and she did a little dance around the pipe. The kind of dance one does when surrounded by fields of flatness to rise above the earth, to levitate.

“C’mon, tough guy,” Slim said, “Let’s boogie.” I just smiled. I felt exposed on Old 27, the cars and trucks whizzing past on that long straight road, though whatever held me back was breaking down bit by bit under your gentle prodding, and I like to imagine, given enough time with you, I might have even stripped naked and danced down the yellow line in the middle of the road.

There I go, switching to you again. That happens a lot when people die. I want to go on talking to them, reminding them of that one time when…. Fair doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’ve been trying to write about her for thirty-two years and counting, passing right on by Old 27 — all I got so far is “Her hair like lit candles and a voice far off singing.” Or “She is the one pipe sticking above the earth, the one that flows always.”

The world was no trick when water tasting like earth itself came out of a pipe in the Middle of the Mitten where Old U.S. 27 and U.S. 46 cut the lower Peninsula into four quadrants, where each winter the snow blew across, leaving a mysterious white stripe like a bandaid on the state’s giant palm.

We filled the jugs one by one and shoved them into the back of the car till driving home, I could not see behind me. On the way, we stopped at the Elwell Tavern where we met two aging former Edmore Potato Festival Queens.

How lucky is this?” Slim asked.

“Pretty damn,” I said. “French fries for everyone.”

She fed me French fries and licked the ketchup off my face as the setting sun shone through the bar’s ancient glass-block windows.