The best thing about being the first guy off the plane is that you get first crack at the luggage. And since I only brought a backpack, I’ll look completely inconspicuous when I roll off with someone’s suitcase. To be honest, I don’t even care what’s inside. Hotel
Continue reading… "Luggage Check"It’s such a weird story I really haven’t told many people…even in bars like this. Almost nobody’s drunk enough to believe me and the ones who nod and say, “Yeah, dude”, I know they’ve never even heard of Johannes Brahms or Franz Liszt, much less George Sand. Ms. George
Continue reading… "Where a Real Muscle Car Took Me"Sunlight dripped through the liquidambar trees caged in large planters around the cafe patio, etching star-shaped leaf-shadows on the white tabletops. The small expanse of red brick formed an island of old-world security lapped by suburban concrete, the trees
Continue reading… "A Tenuous State"Mary Lou’s tits are no longer the size of pert silver dollars. Her silver dollar tits are more like silver dollars accidentally dropped in an Insinkerator garbage disposal–dulled and marred by the spinning blades. Silver dollars that need to be taken out of circulation.
Continue reading… "This Thing She Is Now"It’s a bombshell, lobbed between gasps. Mom’s having a decent day, meaning she can talk, but she tears up, straining to continue. “I met him in college. Your Dad and I were separated for a few months. He knew.”
Continue reading… "Wednesdays at the Club"Jessie started every Monday morning with a class meeting in a circle on the rug in the back of the room. It made the transition from weekend to school week a little easier on her and, oh yes, gave her students a chance to practice their listening and speaking skills.
Continue reading… "Class Meeting"‘Good Luck and Have a Nice Life’ read the handwritten message in the middle of the card. Anyone examining it would be left in no doubt that the well-wisher, who signed herself ‘loadsaluv Jasmine,’ had gone to particular trouble in composing and presenting her greeting.
Continue reading… "Last Afternoon"Ma scratched the stubble on her ninety year old chin. “You want me to paint a chair?”
Her friend Stephanie nodded. “One we can auction. Just fix up an old chair and give it that ‘Ma’ look.”
Continue reading… "The Tale of Ma’s Chair and What Happened to it at Auction"Doris pulled the last jar of the summer’s tomatoes from the shelf and set it on the counter. She’d have to ask Liz to get on the stepstool and bring the rest of those beans down lower where she could get at them. Robert put them up for her like he always had, with no thought that he wouldn’t be there to get them down.
Continue reading… "Tomatoes"After heading to the grocery store to pick up a quart of milk and a box of animal crackers, Jade must have had some trouble navigating the three block return trip home to the falling down shack of a house we shared in Iowa City, because it was a week later that she called me collect from Paris.
Continue reading… "Somewhere in L. A."