The cold in Nebraska has a particular quality to it—not the wet cold of coastal winters, but a clean, sharp cold that feels like it originates from the prairies themselves, from the vast open spaces where the wind has nothing to stop it for a hundred miles. On December 15th, 2022, that cold settled over Valentine, Nebraska like a lid being pressed down on a box, and inside Holloway’s Diner, I could taste it even with the door closed and locked.
My name is Frank Holloway, and I’m standing behind the counter of my diner for what I believe will be the last time.
Tomorrow morning, the bank will arrive to take possession of the keys. Not a manager. Not a hopeful buyer. Just the institution itself, arriving to reclaim what they consider collateral—the building, the equipment, the forty-three years of my life that I’d somehow converted into a line item on a spreadsheet.
I’m sixty-eight years old. My knees ache in that particular way that comes from decades of standing on concrete floors. My hands don’t close the way they used to, the fingers somewhat stiff, slightly arthritic. I’m broke in the quiet, unglamorous way that doesn’t make headlines or inspire motivational speeches—broke like counting quarters in a mason jar, broke like keeping the thermostat at sixty-two degrees and wearing a sweater indoors, broke like stretching the same bottle of dish soap across three months by diluting it with water until it’s mostly hope and necessity.
