Reading Thursday, April 24, 2008

Carthage, South Dakota, population 274, is a sleepy little cluster of clapboard houses, tidy yards, and weather brick storefronts rising humbly from the immensity of the northern plains, set adrift in time. Stately rows of cottonwoods shade a grid of streets seldom disturbed by moving vehicles. There's one grocery in town, one bank, a single gas station, a lone bar -- the Cabaret, where Wayne Westerberg is sipping a cocktail and chewing on a sweet cigar; remembering the odd young man he knew as Alex.