Big Al is in the house and he's drunk. His work boots thud across the worn carpet. "Tanya! Tanya!" He thrashes from room to room, opening doors on no one. He is a bear trying to shake off the snapped …
He wasn’t a particularly good Dad (though we weren’t great kids, either, loud and ravenous, always asking for pizza or pocket change), but the holiday didn’t call for distinctions of merit.
And so it goes, day after day, night after night, as I rattle these torn and cheapened canvases around the dim and dusty byways of this once great nation. My tent is always full. Some come to weep, …
I was walking to Higher Grounds when the first one fell from the sky. A whirring sound preceded him so I was able to side-step to avoid a direct blow. He hit the ground at a distressing angle. Kevin …
Tomorrow she’ll get up early, ride so long that she’ll be bicycling in her dreams. But as she approaches the house, she wonders, what has she changed by spending this money? Nothing. Just another …
All axe-work, he says, the beams and the thousands of wooden shingles covering the roof and walls. The beams in the newer bays are shorter, mounted on stone footings, and do not match the towering …
It was disrespectful, a slur, something we were briefed not to do. The men tried, they really did, but the name stuck. Over time I let it go. I cut the men some slack because, after all, you've got …
Even the commentator on NPR said, in her living room concert voice, “It appears that, once again, we Americans have asserted our individuality in the universe..."
Your dad died most of 2 weeks ago. I don't want you to care too much about it. I sure as hell don't...
Grandmother's summerhouse is where Uncle lets Cousin fall from a highchair. Niece hears the ensuing chaos from where she is watching TV, on the front porch...
Broom clean, the realtor had said. Don't give the buyer a reason to renege. Certainly not. Not after so many delays: the dickering over price, the demands for repairs before the closing date. One …
In September, Pritch and his wife decided he should be the one who quit work and stayed home with the baby. Pritch's wife made a lot more money and, besides, Pritch seemed like daddy material. So, on …
At the duty free just north of the Canadian border, Tim stood in line with a case of Labatt's under his arm. The Canadian kind tasted better, his dad always said, although Tim only pretended to tell …
Tonight I'm almost asleep when the smells come. Intestinal pigs feet smells. She's cooking again, my grandmother, inside the little house. Abuela was a night person. She rises in the dark to stir her …
In November, all the women in Northwest Ohio have bats in their purses. They hang upside down within the purses, no matter the size, silent, peaceful, their tiny claws clinging to the cell phone …