Because the boys on the street beat your skinny ass and called you bastard. Because the man in the suit and stethoscope said he was your dad but only stayed long enough to give your feverish twin sulfa. Because you and your brother fought the street rats with garbage can lids and sticks. Because the Chicago Nazis beat up your brother.… Continue Reading
He realizes now that was a stupid thing to have said. It feels imperative that he go to Cambodia and apologize to Gen say the right thing. He should have said he loved her. Maybe he should have said she wasn’t a whore. He didn’t fucking know.… Continue Reading
Pierre Freeman was an artist, raconteur and dancer, destitute and a drunk. He tatted his hair to thick dreadlocks that flattened into the shape of oak leaves. He smoked weed, but never paid for it. He spoke with a Jamaican accent even though he had never been out of Minnesota.… Continue Reading
There were only two things louder in our house than my father’s laugh. One was the slam of the bedroom door whenever mom barricaded herself inside and the other was the sound of our rusting station wagon backfiring as it pulled out of the drive.… Continue Reading
What I loved the most was not the violence Oh I loved the violence but the walk down to the ring that’s why I was in the game I just loved the parade if only it could have been miles yes five miles wouldn’t that have been great five miles of cheering and clapping wonderful young girls peeing in their knickers the smell oh what a smell.… Continue Reading
Her hand grazes something at the bottom of her brother’s tin box of farm toys, something she’s overlooked, but recognizes now. She drops the piglet, falls silent, her nine-year-old heart galloping a fury.… Continue Reading
i was like ‘no i’m fine i don’t care’ and they both shrugged and did the coke while i finished closing the store by myself, it was like mad annoying but i didn’t really want to use the coke, i never really liked it anyways and honestly the last time i did coke with cloyster i think it was straight up all filler i didn’t feel that shit at all…. oh yeah and i’m uhhhh, 3 months sober… Continue Reading
Pick a goddamn fish, you’re holding up the line. Just buy whatever’s cheapest. Watch the fishmonger crunch the fish from the ice and plop it on the board to filet. When he asks if he should “bone it,” go ahead and laugh, but say, “No.” Where will you be if you don’t learn to bone a fish? … Continue Reading
Pop handled the calving season better than anyone. He claimed he could smell the fertility in the air, that the scent clung to him like pollen. Each year, the neighbors sought him out as if he were an augur, and he predicted each of their cows’ labors with shocking accuracy.… Continue Reading
Being a fresh transplant from California I wanted to see the state, so I took the blue road route meandering through mile after mile of woods, dead and dying farms, and based on the epidemiological data, dozens of tiny one-street oxy towns and heroin hollers.… Continue Reading