Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature. In this essay, Kelly explains how the story does not divert from conventional reality as much as it first appears to do so.

Stuart Dybek's story “Hot Ice” ends with the memorable scene of two neighborhood friends, who have been estranged, united in a combined effort: they ride off on, of all things, a railroad handcar, a device hearkening back to the Civil War period, transporting a corpse frozen in a block of ice. The corpse signifies a local legend, in which a young woman was rumored to have been killed some thirty years earlier and carried to the local ice house by the deceased girl's grieving father. In the ensuing years the girl's fame has grown: she has been nominated for sainthood by the parish nun and Big Antek, the local drunk whom everyone knows, swears that...