Welcome to Big Wow

On the border lies a working town. Before they built the highway you had to drive through it, so it used to be busier. But that’s life - things change. What matters is it still hasn’t given up, and because of that, people want to visit. It doesn’t get any internet signal; no company ever built a tower. That seems to work out just fine here. People make their own fun.

Lily Motel

On the road into town, sits the Lily Motel: a small dusty place with a neon sign humming above it. Carlos works nights there. There isn’t much to do except listen to the radio and write. He likes it. From the front desk he can see the twinkling lights of the town and wonder what everyone is doing right now - maybe they wonder about him too. Tonight he’s wearing a navy cotton zip‑up jacket, cream chinos, white socks and rubber‑soled canvas shoes. On the pocket of the jacket, stitched in green thread, is a cactus and the words Lily Motel.

Big Wow Adventure Center

This used to be the heart of teenage life on Friday and Saturday nights. 20 cent, 8 bit video games: OutRun, Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong.

It was opened by a couple, Mandy and Jim, back in the day. They never had children, and this was their world. Sometimes you would see them dancing slowly in each other’s arms on a Saturday night, sharing jokes with each other we could never hear.

When Mandy passed, it sort of fell slowly apart.

Now it is haunted by the ghosts of teenage dreams.

Sometimes Jim still opens it on the weekend, for no reason at all. Every year, on Mandy’s birthday, he holds a free night there.

Kelly’s Cross

Just west of town, out the straight road, is a small crossroads. On the corner is a small wrought iron cross, with some love hearts and some flowers and a picture of Kelly smiling in her 'Go Rockets' Sweater.

She was in my class. One day, she was cycling home from school in December and she was hit by a car. She had no lights on her bike.

I was going to get a mountain bike that year for Christmas, but I don’t think anyone in the town got a bike that Christmas.

Toothless Tootin’ McGarry

Big Wow’s first proper famous musician - a harmonica player and dancer with no front teeth. He played fearlessly, always having fun, in the bars and out on the street on a Sunday. He was old, but he smiled like a boy. He came up with his own style of harmonica and somehow made it onto the Shopping Channel. My auntie bought a whole set. Nobody ever played them - except Tootin’.

Anthony’s Bar & Grill

On a Wednesday night all the college students would head to Anthony’s on Main Street to feed coins into the Juke Box. From the Launderette across the street you could see them dancing, jumping up and down and hugging when their song came on. Then there was a fight there one night and Anthony took Enter Sandman out of rotation.

Telephone Box

Outside the post office, there’s the town public telephone - a smoke‑glass box with a metal floor. Put your coin in, and hear it drop through the tired frame, then punch in your number. The mouthpiece stank of cigarettes. People used to say the phone box was haunted. When Jerry Huntsville came back from the war and called his sweetheart to tell her he was coming to see her, she told him not to - she had married a local policeman. Jerry was never seen after that, by anyone. They say on winter nights you can see cigarette smoke drifting out of the phone box with nobody in there. Mrs Manning has seen the door open all on its own.

Mountain View Restaurant

Even though the whole town has the mountain view. In fact, you can’t really not have a mountain view here in Big Wow, but you can really see it from this place.

One time they did a Jazz night here on a Friday night, and Town Council people and the mayor came and ordered shrimp. And they watched the band and looked at the mountain - but mainly the mountain.

Martha’s Secondhand Store 

One time Lucy Madison bought a record player from Martha’s - turns out it had once belonged to her own grandmother when she was young. It was a gift from her father for her 16th birthday, which she had to sell when they lost the farm. The same record was still in it ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow” which Lucy remembers her mother singing to her.