English teachers would draw steep mountains on the chalkboard and label them with nonsense such as “Rising Action,” “Climax,” and “Denouement,” a word he found unbearably pretentious. Life was nothing like that. Most people repeated the same tasks over and over day after day. They got up. They went to work. They came home. If a publisher wanted realism, that was as real as it gets. Life was more about cycles than linear, or even alpine, developments. And what was the climax of his average day? Lunch? … Continue Reading
In Texas, football is a religion, with elaborate ritual and fanfare. I was scrawny in middle school; one of the shortest, skinniest and weakest kids in town, I still laced up the cleats each fall. If you happened to be good at the game, say a quarterback or running back with speed and agility (i.e.,… Continue Reading
Even the sky didn’t want to be here. As Brandon and Tyler waited for more daylight to come down, piece by piece, they sat by an equally uninspired fire. The flames crackled in fits, reluctantly, but Tyler needed no assistance in the heat department. He was already fuming.… Continue Reading
It was the year when many men of a certain age wore high-performance athletic vests to work when all they did was sit at a desk all day, and accented their salt-and-pepper goatees by wearing porkpie hats with small upturned brims. Usually they were going bald, and the hats, which they wore both outside and… Continue Reading
He didn’t know whether the men he killed did so as payment for a petty grievance; more likely it was something serious, and it wasn’t up to him to decide who was right. Why was not a question he ever asked.… Continue Reading
He feels his arteries open. His heart starts to burn. The sensations drive him forward. He thinks about how the men probably laughed when they finally gouged the tusks out of the elephant’s face. Their laughter was probably high pitched. Maybe they even drank a beer to celebrate the carnage.… Continue Reading
Any time a kid goes missing, if her mam’s got a boyfriend, they always reckon it was him done it. We all know better now, but back then the whole world was sure I was a child murderer.… Continue Reading
As you might’ve heard, Jonathan Franzen’s back at it with his latest novel about suburban angst and ennui. Save your money. Buy Dawg Towne by Alice Kaltman instead.… Continue Reading
When I was fifteen I slapped a state trooper and later that day my youth service counselor grabbed my arm so tight I had to listen. I needed to be like other girls, he said, even if I had to fake it.… Continue Reading
The reports would all say the same thing: that he had ventured here in violation of safety protocols. That his death, far from an accident, was the logical outcome of a cascade of mistakes, poor judgements, and bad decisions.… Continue Reading