A young man is screaming in my general direction as I walk down eighty second avenue. It is one thirty in the afternoon. I am heading to work. It is Friday. He says at the beginning of time no one needed a name, which I find to be somewhat interesting. He is wearing a torn flannel, torn jeans and three hats, each torn but the last. I am running late, and despite that fact I feel the urge to ask him about himself/how his day is going, but then I see that his tent is overflowing with torn cardboard, empty cans of beer, and a mess of other items indistinguishable from one another, so I change my mind. I avoid him. It occurs to me that I do not fear this man; however, I do fear the unbearable possibility that if I don’t get to work on time, today, or the next time I run late, no matter the cause, it could be only a few short weeks or months until I become him.…
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“You have my
complete devotion,”
so the letter ends,
but I mail it
to the pond instead.
The window opens
to an eastern haven:
blackbirds, catbirds,
Carolina Wrens.
With seasons of
attention,
I learned the
Cardinal’s song.
Even if the species
went extinct,
flew away,
or settled
somewhere far,
even if I hadn’t heard
their call in years,
I would run
at once
to hear the voice
I knew by heart.
– Grace Sullivan
Author’s Note: We open in the middle of a letter to someone. The kind of person who, even when life changes, has a hold on your heart that sustains over time and distance. The “Cardinal” could be a stand-in for this person that the speaker remains loyal to in spite of discouragement.…
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Rasputin was wasted again.
From a couch in the corner, I rubbed my eyes and watched, amazed, as he lifted another bottle and polished it off. He finished with a belch and a rub of his stomach. I downed a healthy hit from my own bottle. “And good morning to you, Father Grigori.” With Rasputin on one of his rages I felt it best to join him.
Even in the feeble morning light, the monk’s deep-set eyes shimmered with intensity. “And tell me. In all your wisdom. What’s good about it?” He knocked over several empties with a swift kick. Staggering from the couch he tripped over Ivan, who was sprawled at his feet. The monk lifted his cassock, and grinning idiotically, pissed on Ivan’s head.…
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When it’s time to end things, I plan to meet my girlfriend at the least respectable bar in town, and once I’ve set a time, I show up twenty minutes late. It’s easier to cut the cord when you start off on the wrong foot. If you can disappoint them before you show your face, they’ll pretty much do the work for you, and the breakup becomes effortless.
The first thing I do, when I strut inside as if I’m right on time, is order two pints at the bar before sliding into the booth where Gillian awaits me. She’s got that raised eyebrow of impatience and sits in a tight posture, as if the discomfort of sitting alone is suffocating her. She doesn’t have a drink in front of her, and I don’t ask if she wants one.…
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Mickey Lennon, lost in thought, stepped off the curb safely into the street. The light, he knew, being solid red- it was red, he recalled, remembering that he noted that distinctly before allowing himself to wander among the thoughts he had himself queued to think- when a honking car went by him. Lunging backward, Mickey sees that the light is green. By the speed of the car, telling him that the car was able to approach the intersection without slowing and that the car didn’t recently transition from a paused state to a moving state, that the light had been green for significant time. Mickey questions the certainty of his life’s certainties. …
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An excerpt from the memoir A Tree in a Storm (unpublished)
“You don’t know your own cousin?”
There’s a particular gift that some people possess, a way of asking a question that feels less like curiosity and more like cross-examination. The kind where guilt is already assumed, and all that’s left is your confession before sentencing. It was 1993 and I was casually shopping in store in St. Louis when it happened. I was living back at home and had just started my first year of graduate school. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t recognize her. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. But she recognized me.
Her name was Dorothy, my second cousin. She was the daughter of “Wash”, legally Washington Neal, my grandfather’s younger brother.…
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No planes left to fly, for two weeks we of the 21st Pursuit Squadron stumble across Agoloma Bay on shaky legs, our bodies weak from dysentery and a diet of rice mashed with the occasional monkey or lizard. We’ve cleaned out the west coast of the Bataan Peninsula; nights, the Japanese have been trying to clean us out across Bataan’s neck, sending invasion barges along the China Sea and Manila Bay coasts. They’re closer to cracking our front lines every hour. Agoloma Point, Captain Dyess announces one night, back on base at Marivales. Grubby-kneed, he sways, slaps a mosquito from an arm already dotted pink with bites, then the map. There’s about fifty holed up there, plenty of snipers to boot. We gotta strike from behind enemy lines if we’ll have any chance in hell.…
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