I wrapped the watch in the old cigar box just as he had when he gave it to me for my twelfth birthday. He said his dad had given it to him when he turned twelve and that he wanted me to have it now that I was old enough to take care of it. The box still reeked of the cigars he used to smoke when he drank. He gave the watch to me a couple of days before he locked me and my mom and my little sister out of the house in one of his fits. That’s what mom used to call them, fits. We had to walk to Grandma’s in the dark that night and sleep on the green shag carpet of her living room that smelled like cat pee that’d been there for twenty years.…
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Evening rain seeped into the city ground to sleep that night. The boys wandered down alleys, jumped fences because they could, and ran through the dorm corridors for recruits. They found Sharon and Ashley in their room, readying for the night. The dresser door hung open and clothing collected in corners. They enlisted the girls to join them in their aimless revelry. “The night will be dreamless, and boundless.” They bartered promises for company.
Charlie had just taken his final exam earlier that day. It was the last day before holidays began. Then they would return home for a winter hiatus of boredom, Christmas turkeys and lousy reunions. The kind when everyone pretends that they have their life together and, over cheap cocktails parading as symbols of sophistication, smiles broadly at one another, bearing teeth, to convey post-adolescent success.…
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Cassius O’Haloran was a loyal customer of Matlock Savings Bank. He opened his first account as a youngster to deposit the pennies he found in the street, the same account seventy years later holding over one million dollars. In the interim he opened numerous checking and savings accounts, personal lines of credit, credit cards, investments, a safe deposit box and a home equity loan that nearly caused him to lose the house his father built. Safe to say, Matlock Savings Bank made a great deal of money off him. He didn’t have a family and he enjoyed going to the bank and talking with the tellers, whom he treated like the grandchildren he never had.
Cassius took a trip to the bank to order checks and sat with the new banker whose upside down nametag read Alana. …
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You predict that running into the other woman will be traumatic, catastrophic, a ripping of the sandy earth beneath your feet. You’ve studied enough Jerry Springer reruns to know that a millisecond of the meeting might prove exciting, the pulled hair and a nervous energy that drags you into actions you’ve never felt capable of before. Your body will instinctually discern how to throw a punch, fingers curled into a fleshy puppet bent on exacting revenge. Time will slow to a crawl while you savor every word you say, every inch of respect you reclaim.
Except when the moment happens, nothing you expected plays out. It is sickeningly comical how mundane the incident is. The apartment, his apartment, smells like dust and mildewed soap. The other woman hangs back behind a spare bedroom door, because there is no bravery or excitement present. …
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Margaret’s friend Joseph visited her regularly in that lonesome hour between supper and bedtime. He always sat across from Margaret on the lounge suite.
“Do you know why I enjoy you coming, Joseph?” she asked him one night, early in their relationship. “It’s because you don’t know anything.”
Joseph raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, you don’t claim to know anything. You never jump in with advice or criticism. You just listen. That’s why I can tell you things.”
“Thank you,” Joseph murmured, with a nod.
Joseph talked quietly and his nodding was thoughtful and sensitive. Margaret knew nothing about his life. He never talked about himself. She didn’t ask where he came from or how he could materialize in her lounge.
She knew she felt safe with him.…
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There was this smell, acrid, in her hands. Perhaps it was hopeless to look for her brother at the bar last night. But she needed to tell him that their mother had secrets. Did he know? Yet as soon as she got there, she realized she didn’t really know what she wanted to say. It was just anxiety.
“I know what they did, near the laundry room. There was this acrid smell, remember?” She said, hand warming a whisky cup but not really drinking it.
He was busy behind the counter. Ten years separated the two. She had fast breathing when near him. His image made her think of her father, who had left them when they were young. Now there was nobody else.
“I have to work, Marlene.…
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The first time my uncle went to a doctor’s office was for his toe tag fitting. Every night after milking the cows, he rang up to the house for an icy glass of Alka-Seltzer. After he
drank it down, clink-slurp-clink, he declared it “good medicine” and started passing out
the creamy cow feed, rich with molasses and corn bits.
As for my cousin, it really came down to all those casino runs. She was a member of the
Poker Army, blitzing through many a floor in Vegas and even those silly midwest “ships”
that are floating in three feet of water, and therefore aren’t violating any statewide
gambling laws. When her bunker was finally blown at 58, she owed a cool $1.2 mil to
the state.…
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