IT WAS THE DAYS, for me, of Succession. Two of them, thirty-nine episodes. You can imagine the distress. Amanda, alas, could not. The last of us came in gradual, episodic spurts and then suddenly (or however that goes). I remember vividly my disgust at her suggestion that Tom Wambsgans would emerge as Waystar RoyCo’s next … Continue reading Islands, In The Stream
THE FIRST EIGHT HOURS were the best eight hours, when I still believed my lusty dreams would be fulfilled. Among the Amish, where I was born and raised, and up on Northstar, where I spent the better part two years, I’d marinated in high-octane fantasies of flesh and hair and spurting fluids, buttocks, breasts, and … Continue reading The Full Package
BY THE TIME I noticed the squirrel, it was way past too late. The squirrel had already eyeballed my driver’s license and the paper forms for the gun purchase with all my private information on them, and so had a firm fix on my telephone number, home address and who knows what the fuck else. … Continue reading Squirrel
DANNY MARTIN RAN within three feet of the rim of Bryce Canyon, screaming the word “Blam!” over and over with all the fullness of his ten-year-old voice. He didn’t particularly choose this word. It just arrived deep in his head, bouncing through his scull until escaping repeatedly through his wide-open mouth. He liked how … Continue reading Across The Canyon
A RED LIGHT BLINKS FAST, screams of panic erupt; amid the commotion a young man's voice shakes with sadness: “I'm sorry, mum...” Rapid heartbeats, amniotic fluid, a fetus within a womb. A mother's voice filters into the womb, singing, “Care is heavy, therefore sleep, while I o'er you watch do keep. Sleep, pretty darling do … Continue reading Where The Hearth Is
AS A CHILD, Arthur was mesmerized by the golden plaques affixed to building facades. Endlessly, he would ask his nanny to decipher the mysterious titles etched under the plexiglass: “Psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst.” The little boy would bounce with joy upon hearing those strange sounds. His nanny, a young woman of Moroccan origin, had explained … Continue reading Our Need For Consolation
IT'S A WARM DAY. Kind of hot. Almost too hot for June. Sitting in the car doesn’t help. Hair up, sweat on the neck. Home-dyed ombre. $1,015.01 in savings. Phone buzzing. You free tonight? Tinder. He never texted me back. Lorna. Reminder, you have an appointment on July 20th. Press Y to confirm or N … Continue reading Sheila Is A Queen
MY FIRST LOOK AT at the new girl that Jack pushes through the cabin door ahead of him reveals that she is slim, with hair as black as mine but long and wavy. She is perhaps a full decade younger than my twenty-seven, and her skin is pale to my dark brown. She is hyperventilating. … Continue reading Lovers
THE SHOW WAS UTTERLY and unapologetically high-budget trash. That was practically its title. Its actual title was For Love Within Reason. The premise was that an elderly king had three sons, all of whom had married good and sensible wives. The king had ten grandchildren—played by attractive actors in their twenties—who were allowed a bit … Continue reading For Love Within Reason (High-Budget Trash)
PATRICK CARMICHAEL WAS USED to people staring at him. Back in his school days, kids routinely called him ‘the Beached Whale’ or ‘Jabba the Hutt’. But there was something about today’s situation, that he happened to be sitting in a modern air-conditioned waiting-room, surrounded by people of similar size and bulk, bad skin, dated, ill-fitting … Continue reading The Cancer Diet Clinic