Naming The Moon — Joseph Valentinetti

Pauly Macy came to California, with Jilly, to buy a house and settled down. But settling down didn't work for Jilly. Jilly was gone and there he was, in a California backwater, among piles of dung, ladies auxiliaries, ministers, priests and Dutch dairy farmers. He filled his loneliness with his friends, the Madillacs, work and travel. During football season he flew to each Vikings game. At a season opener in Buffalo he met Loretta. Things between them couldn't have been better until one night she disappeared. The police found the van she had been driving, off the road by the reservoir, but couldn't find any evidence of a crime and soon gave up the search. Nobody was interested. But Pauly was interested. He kept searching the urban wilderness where the van had been found. Even after he himself had given up hope compulsion drove him on. One evening, in his search for Loretta, he stopped to rest on the shore of the reservoir and fell asleep. When he woke in the darkness he thought he saw a second moon reflected on the ground before him. He shook himself awake. It turned out to be a skull. Not Loretta's but part of the oldest Caucasian human remains ever found in North America. Then everyone, from the local native Americans to the Aryan Brotherhood, was interested.