“Ever give a massage to a big fat dude?” he asks, which is the most Midwestern thing you can say, even in the most Midwestern bar in San Diego. … Continue Reading
What is more singularly human than to adorn our lives with objects. Objects that accompany us to a time bastardized by memory, that remind us in our isolation of people we can no longer hold. That split us open at the hinges and leave us bare to the world.… Continue Reading
He was frightened that his wife had gone over the edge, that the neighbours would gossip about the crazy lady taken away in the night. I imagined his daughter’s classmates telling her that her mother had screamed so loudly that all the birds had flown away.… Continue Reading
There was no oasis. No needles. Only mirages. Like the imaginary tar pit that turned his bebop jaunt into a slog. And the swarm of bees that punctured him with empty stingers. Even the music came to life in the form of a fanged-beak, blood-red buzzard that circled overhead.… Continue Reading
The garage still smelled like her. Motor oil and lavender detergent. She used to change the oil in both trucks. Said she liked the quiet under the chassis. Said it made her feel like a mechanic and not just someone’s wife.… Continue Reading
As her non-existent father figure, Gwyneth shall mourn him for what could have been rather than what was.… Continue Reading
My wife says I need to give a shit. I say I never understood that expression. Who would want to be given shit? She agrees that it’s a peculiar expression, but that’s beside the point.… Continue Reading
Sometimes it’s too much, just too much. Really, God, if you’re up there, I just don’t know what’s wrong with you, sometimes. Can’t you give a Jew a break?… Continue Reading
Instead of sitting in my mother’s living room, thirty-one, drunk, and jobless, I would be twenty-one, sober, and doing something responsible and worthwhile and American, like fighting in a war somewhere, and everything would look like a 1940s comic book… Continue Reading
Your body is a dead and rusty brass section. French-horn shoulders and cornet forearms, tuba torso, your head a trumpet that cannot sing of how you’ve come to be this funky metal. When you speak, it’s all screeching off-pitch.… Continue Reading