Custodians are solidly working class, with economically valuable skills. It’s only the truly upper class that views custodians as poor, for the former have no knowledge of what poverty looks like up close. Poverty smells so much worse than custodian’s ammonia.… more
Author Archives: Ben Drevlow
Memento Mori
FICTION by John TavaresI’m not happy that Jan’s dog was killed by the police. But did you ever think that the dog was sick and tired of Jan? Did you ever think the dog may have hurtled itself in front of the police cruiser, in an existential act, fulfilling its fate and destiny, relieving itself of the miserable existence and life it lived as a slave of Jan?… more
Bean There. Done That.
FICTION by Natasha SharmaI may just be a bean, but I can portend the future.… more
JEN JOHANS
BULL Interview by Frank ReardonI was that weirdo whose first film crush was on Robert De Niro in MIDNIGHT RUN around the same time that everyone else my age were all about the guys from BEVERLY HILLS 90210. Not too many kids in 4th or 5th grade got excited to ID character actors like Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, & Joe Mantegna in movies but I did.… more
An Assassin, a Cop, and a Law: A True Crime Triptych
FLASH FICTION by Benjamin NiespodzianyThe cop placed the dead body in the holding cell and read the dead body its rights. When the commissioner arrived at noon, hungover and short-tempered, an under the weather veteran, he saw the dead body and nodded.… more
Outgoing Voicemail
FLASH FICTION by Ted VrountasAfterward, all his friends got tattoos but Harry didn’t get a tattoo because his parents convinced him it was unnecessary. They were right. You didn’t need a tattoo to remember somebody. But it helped to have something. As the beep at the end of the voicemail sounded, Harry hung up and played that something again.… more
Failure to Thrive
FICTION by Rory DohertyHis woefully small son’s failure to thrive put the fear of God in burly Boston cop Pete O’Malley, spooked him witless, unnerved him, unmanned him. He felt it in his marrow. They were into some seriously fucked up shit with a seven-year-old boy failing to thrive and needing a shrink twice a week.… more
Lies I Tell My Daughter
FICTION by Josh CookTruth: Middle of the night, after Leila had finally gone to sleep after a four-hour stand-off I grabbed the kitty piano from her toy bin in the living room, slinked through back door, slid into the garage, and smashed the fucker with a hammer.… more
coming home
FLASH NONFICTION by Ari Koontzmarquette, michigan, squats smack-dab in the middle of nowhere and there are no gay bars till green bay, unless you count the bar in the town of gay, michigan, where according to jojo on google reviews her group of 5 “felt unwelcome, bartender was very rude.”… more
The Love Song of Child-of-Water
FICTION by Tommy CheisThat night, sadder and wiser, singing of Sun, Cloud, Wind, Lightning, and Water, we buried Ina where white men will never go and Creator will never tell.… more
