There's a restaurant attached to a motel at the edge of town that gives onto a convalescent home across the highway, Chalk
Chank Manor. It was shut down for a reason that's mysterious in a town whose most powerful most always get a pass in the press. The Manor is the last real estate that's not
pharmland or plain sand from there to Chukka, way beneath the turn of the horizon. The road takes a deep dip also, at the bottom of which there's a mannequin who looks like a
bandanna bandito selling junk wood. Kevin has evening meals
there at
Finister's, flirting with bologna-face truckers, cement miners and horny carpetbaggers. After a quick dip at the newspaper machine by the door, he'll walk in and spread the
Sports N' Alleged Sex Crimes Bugle across the chilly tabletop of the booth with the best view and look out on the dusk. The dead palms at The Manor have radically U-turned, their fronds upside down. The blacktop between is untrammeled enough to be a runway of sorts.
Enterers see
Finister's and The Manor and Manor Motel as their
de facto introduction to the Low
Chanks.