THE CAT WAS BACK, which was fine with Sanders because he sure as hell wasn’t getting any writing done. Hadn’t the whole time he’d been here. Blame the cold, the rain, and now the cat. Even when it was dry, the magnificent desolation of North Wales distracted him, too. This soaked, mewling, clay-colored cat gargoyled … Continue reading A Man Without Prudence
DAVID SOLOMON TURNED into the hotel parking lot shortly after seven o’clock in the evening, but the summer sun held brightly in the sky. He pulled up to the main entrance, turned off the car, and stepped out. As he did, a young boy, maybe seventeen, rushed out through the automatic sliding glass doors, pushing … Continue reading Two Funerals
AMBER WAS CONTEMPLATING life and the processes of nature as she rocked on the porch, enjoying the spring breeze. Surrounded by tender green leaves, blue sky, and cumulous clouds, she was trying to solve a persistent problem, an obstacle that threatened to block her passage into the life of her dreams. This dilemma, besides being … Continue reading Dented Tin Box
WHEN THE FIRST SHELLS fall nearby, the early afternoon prayer is underway. I am explaining to young Khaled why his mistake was due to the incorrect verb usage. “You wrote, It rain in autumn. It should be, It rains in autumn. If the subject is he, she or it, the correct verb is rains, … Continue reading Autumn Rain(s)
OUR FAMILY LEARNED of my father's death, or non-death, I suppose, through FedEx. My son found the package abandoned in a puddle by the garage. My wife opened it at the kitchen table. I was in the other room and curious as to why she was not saying what was inside, and when I came … Continue reading Sincerely, Dad
AT 9:30 PM ON A THURSDAY, Skip’s phone rang. Not his cell phone, but rather his office phone, the phone only the sales guy from Rawlings ever called. The ring interrupted the lighting of a cigar. Not a Cuban, but a decent one nevertheless. Six games into the season, it was a bit early for … Continue reading Skip, Prez and The King of Dirt
IN THE EVENINGS after she gets out of the shower, which she takes with the bathroom door ajar so that you and a nurse can call to her every two minutes and make sure she’s okay, you help your daughter thread her i.v. tubes and monitor wires through the wide sleeves of her hospital gown, … Continue reading In 2020 Everyone Got COVID But She Got An Eating Disorder Instead
GOLETA, CALIFORNIA, is known as the Goodland — avocado and citrus groves, lush farms, Pacific beaches — but I only know it as the Postal Badlands. It’s 1981, I’m thirty-one, and I hate my job. My head pounds as I walk in. The mail processing plant overwhelms me. It’s larger than a baseball field, noisier … Continue reading Random Distribution
GABBY MCCURTRY PULLED INTO the narrow garage under her townhouse. The day she’d moved in, she tied plastic spoons to bright yellow yarn, suspended them from the ceiling as parking parameters. She eased her car forward, nudged the dangling spoons, and peered into all corners. Once certain she was alone, she pushed the gearshift into … Continue reading Risk Management
EVERYTHING ABOUT ANSON VAYE was underground. His life, his career – if you could call it that – even his personality had the feel of something that had spent most of its days covered in earth. A jack of all trades and a practitioner of none. One late barroom night, some professorial sloshed egghead announced … Continue reading The Man Comes To Town