Per the rules we had established, I had to pull his shoes and socks off and he mine. We wanted to lead our toe competition with good sportsmanship.… Continue Reading
Footsteps. The sound of someone walking toward me. I don’t look up. They stop. I feel them near me. I feel them looking down at me. I wait but they don’t speak. I wait to be nudged, told to move.… Continue Reading
I didn’t hear the backyard gate open or a greeting, if there was a greeting, until the stranger’s head was right next to mine, one eye closed. I smelled beer. “Well, looks like you’ve got yourself quite a project here.”… Continue Reading
Marty dives under the water and pulls her by the ankle back into the pool. Mabel struggles to get away. They are flipping and flapping, spraying water everywhere. The lifeguard thinks how much these two look like the fish his uncle catches when they go out on his boat on Sundays.… Continue Reading
In the woods lives your exhales and resting peace. Selfcare is an oak leaf. Thoreau was a phony. You’ll never work in television.… Continue Reading
What I didn’t say: that I remembered being sixteen, drinking until I vomited into the gutter, taking pills and swinging from the rafters below a Denny’s while my parents thought I was at a friends’ house.… Continue Reading
The speaker says something about are you doing what you want in your life, or are you believing in yourself, or something along those lines, and I may as well have been struck by lightning, because the answer, I realize, in no uncertain terms is no, I’m not.… Continue Reading
Maybe I was a little maníaco because I only thought about sex during our all-male camping trips in Puerto Peñasco every Easter vacation, beginning when I was twelve. Dad would load up his white work van with a bevy of motorcycles and minibikes and enough food, beer, and soda to last a bunch of fathers and sons an entire week.… Continue Reading
Jesus Christ, he’d say, throwing his head back. The eyes, he said. Ya had to bring the eyes back. Eyes are what make a guy, ya know? Jesus Christ almighty.… Continue Reading
It was just sitting there in plain view, exposed, vulnerable. There was nothing appealing about that bland, clear plastic handle and worn white bristles.… Continue Reading