“Your father loves you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.” The screen door slammed and Dad’s boots pounded down the stairs. Mom said he wasn’t himself since the war. I never met “himself” but I learned to take… Continue Reading
It’s like a jungle in the clouds and there’s this fog — like rain, except it’s not raining. Everything is wet and tangled, and the angles of vision are slightly distorted. Walking point, I can hear sounds that come from… Continue Reading
He had been cut this bad once before. In the Central Highlands, a punji stick had jabbed him below the knee. It had gone in less than an inch, but the feces that the VC had smeared on it had… Continue Reading
April 30th, 1972 I came home. It wasn’t the warm welcome that I had expected. What I expected was the abundance of romance and cheering that my father had told me about after he returned home from Germany at the… Continue Reading
Sweat crept down his back as he stepped off the rumbling bus and stood at attention with the other recruits. He’d used a cheap comb to part his hair with what he thought was military precision — on the right,… Continue Reading
Ivan uses the L.A. Daily News as a placemat because his wife – rest her soul – once told him it is easier to throw out a stained newspaper than to wash a stained placemat. He prefers the obituary section;… Continue Reading
When someone popped a champagne cork at the Christmas party, Carl dived under the table. No one said a word. The dairy lot laughed nervously, the butchers raised their eyebrows and carried on with their conversations, and the dot.com drivers… Continue Reading
The homeless man at the interchange is a veteran too and that makes me uncomfortable, especially today. His unkempt beard hangs past his collar and weaves with the fraying strands of his jacket. Headphones adjust themselves over ears, eyes glance… Continue Reading
Grace knew it was inevitable. The second her husband returned home from his deployment, his eyes tired and voice dull, it was clear it was only a matter of time. Joshua spoke then, but his words scarcely reached her. She… Continue Reading
It was a sticky glowbowling alley, Burton thought, more so than most. He clicked his fingernails on the scorekeeper’s table and stared into the dark screen of the bolted iPad, waiting for it to activate. Overhead, a disco ball cast… Continue Reading