Everyone was getting stupid in the heat.… Continue Reading
So Bob knew that some people would give a groan or roll their eyes when they saw the t-shirt, but he wasn’t quite prepared for the frowns and headshakes that he got when he got off the elevator and headed to his desk. There was a lot of muttering, too. Bob started to feel uncomfortable, not casual at all, because he wasn’t sure what the source of everyone’s disdain was. Eventually, Jesse stopped by his desk. Quietly, Jesse said, “Dude, you didn’t see the headlines?”
My father died of heart failure the same Chinese New Year girls began to draw my eye instead of ire. I wasn’t present for his death but figured it even since he wasn’t present for my life.… Continue Reading
He has so much knowledge, and also he has none of it. He drives backcountry Minnesota where his father once lived. Because his father once lived—before he killed himself.… Continue Reading
Paul had pointed out my mother’s belongings to her when we first arrived—her needlepoint pillowcases, her porcelain figurines. I couldn’t say if she’d been fooled, but I wasn’t. When we got outside, it was a relief to breathe fresh air.… Continue Reading
The daughter was an anxious thing. She thought ghosts with massive cocks lived in her shower. She didn’t know how sex worked. An older boy down the street kissed her. She thought this made her pregnant. She thought she’d been had.… Continue Reading
Philosophers wonder about the tree that falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, but writers carry their own dilemma–mainly, is a story still a story if you never share it? I thought about this in the years that followed. Aside from being an alcoholic and working one worthless job after another, thinking was about all I could manage during those years.… Continue Reading
His parents called him Little Rambo because he liked watching Stallone manhandle the bad guys on an old VHS tape. He rewound the tape over and over until he copied Rambo’s posture the right way and shot his own little arrow through the air into mimosa trees lining their property. He ran through the woods and jumped over fallen pine, charging after imaginary enemies, calling out and telling them that he was coming for them.… Continue Reading
With Alfie, sometimes you had to let him run himself out, the same way you did those big trout that used to choke the streams around here. Pull back too hard and it’s over. Better to let them go. Sometimes, though, you let a fish run like that and it means you’re going on a run yourself… Continue Reading
I knew this fucking writer who every time he wanted to write something he’d go way deep in the zone and live the shit hard. I asked him do you call it method writing or some shit and he chased me with a butcher knife.… Continue Reading