When Felix’s special phone rang at 2:00 in the morning, Kelly rolled over and punched him in the shoulder and hissed, “Why didn’t you turn that fucking thing off before bed?” “Because I’m on call,” he said. “You’re not a fucking doctor,” she said, kicking him as he sat on the bed’s edge, pulling on … Read more
The heat rose into the clearest dawn I’d ever seen. A corridor of one hundred men extended a quarter mile, their yellow hardhats bobbing against the gray terrain, the ring of their spike malls, the clang of their shovels quickly swallowed up by an endless flatland of dust, sagebrush, and rattlesnakes. I’d been given an … Read more
The brightness that sustains me is meant to blow away. Almost every day, I walk down to the college to watch the Buddhist nuns. The young Tibetans fold themselves crossed-legged on the wooden platform, funneling colored sand grain by grain onto a chalked pattern in the center. They wear cloth masks so their breath doesn’t … Read more
Some of you I would hope have read Dianne Hart’s monograph Enough Is Enough: Prodigality Celebrated and Condemned in the Carter-Era Recordings of Barbra Streisand. Although Dr. Hart’s study is limited in scope, her thinking is expansive. My own forthcoming book on Streisand’s middle period is indebted to her penetrating analyses. I must also thank … Read more
As the babysitter gathers up her schoolbooks and coat, William’s wife whispers—he catches the faint musk of bourbon still on her breath—that she will wait up for him while he drives the girl home. Then she winks, sort of. Gina has never been able to close just one eye without contorting her entire face. Tonight, … Read more
When someone’s standing at a bus stop with a human head wrapped in a shawl or tucked in a bag, it’s easy enough to stop them from boarding a bus. Simply move away from your coffee at the table on the bar’s patio. Catch the bus driver’s eye as you walk. He will either keep … Read more
It doesn’t take long to call the police. Sally is disappointed. She had hoped to be on hold for a while, listening to instrumental versions of Broadway tunes. She is poised to wait with her elbows and belly pressed against the counter, the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, an earring scratching against the … Read more
My desk is scooted into the darkest part of the Quonset hut, so that I can read Burro on the Beach while Mrs. Richards makes everybody else go through the math assignment. I hate math, especially fractions. I just can’t do it, and if I stay in the back and don’t make any noise, she’ll … Read more
Loyal collectors believed that Russell Kern was due for a revival. His dealer had kept faith; the right curators showed interest. But this was still the bad year that dear friends whispered about, the year Kern lost his wife in a car wreck, discharged a load of bird shot into a threatening shadow, burned a … Read more
Enough was enough, she thought as she stared out her kitchen window at the falling snow covering her garden. Growing things now bored her to tears. It was a brutal and masochistic hobby in such a harsh climate. She’d have three mostly satisfying months, preceeded by two months of dirty work and followed immediately by … Read more