Features
Hostages
It’s 4 pm on a Tuesday and Tim Browsky is next door with his wife and a gun. Orange cones and yellow streams of caution tape encircle Tim’s apartment…
Pool of Tears
Two days before Valentine’s Day, a Friday, you give one dozen red roses, candy, a mixed CD, and a card, in which you use the word love. You are…
Artless Dodgers
In the first few months of 1968, it was never far from the thoughts of young men like me that one morning soon the mailman would arrive with a…
Natural Mechanics
I couldn’t understand why my brother, whose sole income was $600 and change a month from Social Security, would spend up to $300 at a time on plastic robots.…
The Fears of Children
“Have you seen these?”
Bright streaks adorn the pages in my wife’s hand. “No,” I say.
She gives me one. “They were hidden behind his nightstand.”
A house sits at the first…
How Tommy Soto Breaks Your Heart
1. Tommy Soto is short, and it is embarrassing. He is both Mexican, and Jewish and that is peculiar. He is freckled and in drama club. He has braces,…
How to Survive Dental School
Try acquiring a taste for energy drinks, purchasing highlighters in bulk, then bleeding them dry. Try saying, “Fuck PowerPoint,” in front of your peers to earn their respect. Try selling your…
A Conversation Worth Having
I can tell Lucas wants me to suck him off by the way he spreads his legs. So I’m not surprised when he says, “Suck me off.” The problem:…
Cocaine Katrina
In 2004, after six years of menial kitchen apprentice work, I began to help run a busy restaurant. Under its roof, in my four years there, I’m sure chunks…
She Knew Better
In the morning she found Ray at the kitchen table cleaning her fecal matter from the barrel of his .22-250. He didn’t look up. Last night he’d rolled his…
