If I buy the jumpers baggy, my mother mightn’t notice. I rifle through the knitwear in Penney’s. Saturday after lunch and it’s manic — young ones jostling, women aiming buggies like weapons. Mam let me come to the city, but… Continue Reading
Back when I was in college, if you were lucky you had an electric typewriter and a private room. If you were really lucky, now and then, you had someone to screw in that private room. I needed the typewriter.… Continue Reading
She’d rather it was a tumor. Rachel drove her hands deep into the cool meat. When she squeezed her hands tight, she felt the soft thickness work through and surround her fingers. She set one hand free and cracked an… Continue Reading
He seized me up like a carrion bird and like a dead thing I let him. Then I came alive again. “Oh no,” Reinhardt purred — defaming the language of cats — “oh no, my girl. Under Heaven you swore… Continue Reading
Alex stood on the edge of a rooftop fifteen stories high, staring at an exit sign that led to nowhere. His unlit cigarette was perched precariously between his lips, momentarily forgotten. He walked around the exit sign, looking at it… Continue Reading
Your mother called me after you went missing, asking if I knew anything they should know. There aren’t a lot of places to hide in Victorsville, and she was worried because no one had seen you since the night before.… Continue Reading
Jonas hunched deeper in the lawn chair with the rotting webbing and watched the puddle under his lemonade widen until it was the size of his hand. The condensation reminded him of the sweat under his armpits and the wet hair… Continue Reading
The January sky, with its waning moon, was a glistening onyx dome, hard polished and pin-pricked with the light of faraway suns. The young woman sat within shadow upon the wide concrete steps of the church; clutching a woolen blanket… Continue Reading
The morning milk was sour and Mom blamed me, sent me back to the liquor store to buy a fresh carton even though it wasn’t my fault it went sour. I said it was probably the little people and she… Continue Reading
In the early 1950s all sorts of salesmen came to the door during the day. Mrs. Patterson’s habit was to personally entertain as many as she could manage. It was said in the neighborhood that the Fuller Brush man had… Continue Reading