Night Gallery: The Tune in Dan’s Cafe

It’s Jerry Wallace singing “If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry” no matter what you pick, the jukebox has been repaired and replaced, it’s waiting for Roy Gleason’s girl Red to come back. That’s Dan’s explanation, though “you wouldn’t believe it.” Dan keeps a garden at the place.

The record skips at the same groove every time, “till death... till death...”

A divorcing couple stop in for hamburgers on the road. She’s had enough after fifteen years, despite the house with swimming pool and tennis courts and a room for every year.

Roy took five thousand dollars from a store, left his girl waiting at Dan’s Cafe for an hour because “a deal came up”. Another man took her for a ride. Psychedelic music was on the jukebox. They had words. Red turned Roy in for the reward, one thousand dollars. “If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry” was their song. She left town, he was killed in a shootout at the cafe.

The couple leave, Red drives up with her new beau. She enters the cafe, the song begins, her screams are heard.