Enough of us to constitute a class, a phyla, is what the redhead who cleans the Petri dishes calls us. He is taking us away from twisting our legs into DNA under our desks or leafing through bio periodicals in the library for Big Ideas so opposite sexes might fall into awe of us, he … Read more
For multifarious and age-old reasons the dense central city was girdled by a wide belt of poverty. Near the southern edge of this shabby cincture lay a large village. Within the village was a sandy square of sixty meters in which children played and adults gathered to talk. Everyone crossed it as they went about … Read more
I came here to lose. But the wheel won’t let me. Once again I pile all of my chips on three. People gasp. What are the odds for winning eight straight-ups in a row? Fools! Don’t they know wheels do not hold memory? That math and luck never go together? With roulette, every spin is … Read more
You have to get out of the house. That’s what he always says, on those rare occasions he’s home and not on the road. Or he’s on the road, on the phone, from his hotel. You have to get out of the house. Spoken truly like someone who has no idea how difficult it is … Read more
I heard a story at my great-aunt’s place that I told to my sister long-distance on the phone. Well, first I said, “Did you know her real name?,” because I knew or suspected that my sister did not. I will not repeat it here. But one of the cousins, a man whom I had never … Read more
My grandfather wanted to tell me the story of the horse that died of heartache. “What are you thinking?” my grandmother said. The horse’s name was Sully, my grandfather said. (Which must have meant something quite different in another language. I did not ask.) “A beauty,” he said. He said it was true, the story … Read more
“Want an animal cracker?” Renee asked, as they pulled away from a Shell along route 80. While Jack had pumped gas and cleaned the windshield, she’d gone in to buy bottled waters. They’d just crossed the Platt River, and had another day’s drive before them. “I didn’t know they still made these,” Renee said. “I … Read more
In the spring of 1965, Ione Butts, sole proprietor of the Knight’s Best Motor Lodge, widow of the handsome asshole Henry Butts, and mother to a ten-year-old child, inadvertently acquired a sixty-foot knight in shining armor. A man named Franklin Tort came into the motel office with his hat in his hands and said: “I … Read more
The blizzard shook the whole town like a cuff on the head and in ten minutes our house was not visible from the park across the street. It was a blessing and it obliterated the Christmas Day funk that had fallen over everything. There had been a two-day thaw and the old snow and raw … Read more
In August 1924, one year after a honeymoon tour of India, Alain Coulbec pushed my grandmother down the servants’ stairs at their country home outside Paris. Bruised but uninjured, she promptly pushed the noted aviator from family history, fleeing to Tahoe with her trust fund and newborn son. It didn’t matter that Coulbec had crossed … Read more