…sitting in her chair, well it’s not really hers, but the way her left ankle, embraced by an over fluffed cotton sock, flirts with the poorly waxed front left post and her creamy right leg, somehow finding a way to glisten and glow like the sparkles of a setting sun on the Atlantic despite lying underneath cheaply manufactured and cheaply installed florescent lights, caresses the ill-sanded front rim of the seat as her right heel, peek-a-booing between the heel of her sandal and the strap confining her ankle, toys seductively with the hardened gum and dried snot many failed to noticed and few left behind, … ...continue reading
When we say, “Bet your bottom dollar,” we mean we’re sure of a thing, so much so that we’d risk losing all we had. But I have never been that financially fragile, so strapped I’m clutching the last coins in my pocket and wondering where my next meal might come from. Even when I’ve lost a bet, my risk was marginal. But if I were living a life of such desperation, would I take such a gamble? Have I ever been that sure of anything?
Here are the things I’m sure of:
My grandfather believed money made the best gift, and from every holiday and birthday card a crisp and bemused Franklin stared out from an envelope. My grandfather was a teenager during the Depression and showed a willingness to work a strange array of jobs throughout his life, a vocational wanderlust he came by naturally.… ...continue reading
“See this knife? Maybe I’m going to stab you,” Sylvia’s mother said as she set the table for dinner. Then her mother swallowed a whole bottle of pills and the ambulance took her upstate to the mental hospital. They called it The Nervous Breakdown.
Sylvia’s father kept her home from school and drove them in the ancient Studebaker to visit Mom. He swore at the other drivers, words Sylvia had never heard before. “That guy’s tailgating me,” he hissed and stomped on the brakes in the middle of the freeway.
The hospital looked like a castle with patients calling to her in witchy voices, “Come here, little girl, come on.” Her father got her mother and they walked on brittle leaves golden, deep orange, red. They sat at an empty picnic table. … ...continue reading
I
Sex with you feels like survivor’s guilt. What were we but two figures at a bar sharing a gentle kiss and a Molotov Cocktail? I run my hand down your back like a train derailing off its tracks. This exchange of ecstasy will ripple chaos into this city—our city. When your lips touch my skin a trigger is pulled, a body hits the pavement, a splash of blood arcs in streetlamp glow. Two beings like us are not meant to feel passion—at least, not together. Every time we fuck we sacrifice a city block. Let’s call this what it is.… ...continue reading
I saw Sibyl with my own two eyes, and when I said to her, “Sibyl, what do you want?” she replied, “I want to forget.”
I want everything that makes me different from the half-remembered snapshots in the attic stripped from my bones. I want to be born old and die a baby, as I forget, day by day, my entire life. I want the coroner to hold my hand. I want to ask a question and be amazed by the answer. That is what she meant.… ...continue reading
Even the cats were skittish. They normally couldn’t be bothered with whatever was going on in the house, where they looked down upon their owners, or so it seemed to Claire. Now they watched Claire and her mother more carefully and started at the slightest noise.
Claire sensed that there was something amiss. She was only twelve, and sometimes didn’t think she knew enough to trust her suspicions.
Tick, she thought. A mark in the notebook in her head.… ...continue reading
It’s mid-morning the day before New Year’s Eve. You’re running post-Christmas errands. Circling for a parking spot so you can exchange a book at Powell’s. You head down to the North Park blocks where you’re usually lucky and grab a space between Davis and Couch.
The edge of the park is muddy, the grass trampled, so you walk in the street toward the meter. A skinny man, body taut as a bow string, is walking past the playground. He has straggly brown hair like a disheveled halo and he is yelling, “You bitch. You fucking whore. You cunt.” That t is like an axe chop, and the force behind the words makes your chest tighten, but there are plenty of people who walk around raving these days.… ...continue reading