Mrs. Schutzmann’s pudgy hands danced over the keyboard, her flabby arms swayed, her powdery face soft, alive with the music of Johannes Brahms. The music my mother listened to on the radio was nothing like this. Her music was loud and rhythmic–bangy. This music poured out as if it was coming from some

I listened for signs of life but heard only the hiss and pop of the coffee that I put on myself. Sarah hadn’t come downstairs. She was in another bout of depression.

She was taking antidepressants but all it had done was cause her to gain ten pounds—which made her even more depressed—and

And brushing my teeth, I think of Santa Claus and the North Pole and how round it is at the top of the world and how small my hand is, holding my toothbrush, going back and forth. The sink is white as snow, and there in the snow I can see the reindeer with their big round eyes. I don’t want to spit in the sink

Fire ripped through her right kneecap as she slammed herself onto the hard floor, pulling the boy to her left down with her. The linoleum was slippery, warm, wet. The blood was coming from everywhere, deep pools of it swallowing and suffocating. The boy was choking and screaming, trying to crawl away from her tightly balled fist that held desperately to the leg of his black jeans.

In the old days Italians must have had a lot of fun insulting each other. I don’t doubt they still do, but the difference is that many of the medieval jibes turned into family names. Before I married I was a Calvo (“Baldie”). When I was growing up we had neighbors named Nasato (“Big Nose”) and a street over was a

Norm lay in bed, aware of a sudden dampness on his skin and a bitter taste rising in his throat, poking the back of his mouth with acid fingers. It was awful. He propped himself up on an elbow and coughed. His head pounded and he glanced at the clock radio on the plant table, its face blurred by a thick layer of

Seb and Anne arrived at Franco’s past midnight. Anne had been sick all day, hungover from their night in Idaho Falls. After getting her fake ID confiscated by a bouncer, Anne joined Seb back at the hotel, where they spent the night drinking Heinekens, half-watching Larger Than Life, and fucking

It snowed all night but now bright morning sun beamed through the large front window of the barbershop. Kel Abendroth leaned back in the same worn red leather chair he’d sat in the first Saturday of every month since he was four-years old. He was relaxed and drowsy, enjoying the warm sunshine while the barber