Fiction 72

After combing alleys and streets all over the goddamn neighborhood for an hour and a half, I turn the corner onto our block and see the little bastard pumping his pork chop legs, the fire engine’s plastic parts, faded pink by the sun, rattling all around him to the rhythm of the sidewalk. I pull […]

Gambling that a midnight serenade will soften his wife’s memory of finding him naked in the pool with their daughter’s nanny, my brother Tom insists I accompany him rhythmically. When I protest that I don’t own any drums he says, “Well, then get one of your beatnik buddies to loan you a goddamn bongo. I […]

The first time my father brought the woman who would soon become our stepmother along to our weekly Thursday night dinner I was up all night hugging my mother’s toilet bowl, my aching head swaying above the water, then writhing each time the contents of my stomach scurried out of me, as if my body, […]