Men like James don’t know softness, don’t know a whole lot other than work. They still look for God, though. Even after hours on the floor at Honda, they crawl towards church fronts, hungry and tired and missing their wives and brothers and sisters and cousins and mothers. The gods they know during the day are not gentle like the one they are here looking for. … more
Tag Archives: Blue Collar
True Outlaw
FICTION by Brent AtkinsonSanta Claus always gets the credit for delivering Christmas gifts, but it was tired, overworked bastards like me making sure everything got there on time, 13-speed, 500-horsepower white Freightliner pulling a dry van, and rather than shouting ho-ho-ho and whipping reins, we were throwing gears and blowing our horns at assholes in beemers cutting us off at every exit.… more
WORK DON’T STOP WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING
GENRE NON-BINARY by STEVE COMSTOCKThe only things I’ve ever learned about loyalty, compassion, or real life love I’ve learned from folks with gnarled up hands and backs that don’t lay down right.… more
Sometimes The Air Stills
FICTION by Chris Di PlacitoA boy under the cancerous spell of his abusive father. A town under the deprived grip of misogyny and violence. Both stunted and silenced with fear.… more
RYAN W. BRADLEY
BULL Interview by Benjamin DrevlowSo I’m a sucker for reading too much into an author’s bio. Example A: “Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, painted houses, swept the floor of a mechanic’s shop, worked on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronted a punk band, and more.” Give me a bio that includes “worked construction in the Arctic… more
A. H. B. A.
FICTION by Doug Murano“Travis swings that chainsaw with the same abandon with which he approaches everything else. He climbs on top of the stump, braces his foot against the section he wants to remove and pushes down as the blade slices through the wood… more
