Those days were an iron wagon loaded with rocks that we dragged through muddy fields with our teeth. You were a magnificent burning boat that would not sink. We were as prepared as anyone could be who was facing a long night like that. We had, at any rate, been preparing for it for decades. … Read more
–Image copyright Rocky Schenck Right now, right this moment, you’d like nothing better than to sit staring at the splendid moon floating in a shallow cloud-saucer of skim milk right outside your window. There’s a nice breeze, and surely memories are moving on it. Pleasant memories, I’ve no doubt, if you could manage to sit … Read more
The night doesn’t move at all. It doesn’t budge. It’s like it drops from out of nowhere, and all of a sudden I’m splayed in total darkness on the floor thinking about goats. And I know that it’s going to just squat there over me, to the point where I can’t move and can barely … Read more
On the first cool nights in late summer the old tribe of mountain giants would dig themselves out of the dirt and come down into town to watch the strippers. This was an annual occurrence that had been going on since the go-go bars first opened sometime in the 1950s. By the late years of … Read more
Look around and tell me what you see? I see the usual things, the too-muchness. I see the fuzzed scrim of darkness falling, the green world receding beyond the window screens. I see, everywhere I look, patterns and textures, sprawling across the upholstery of the furniture. The geometric chaos of the rug beneath me. I … Read more
The man who ran the Giant Wash was an obsessively neat character, inordinately conscientious, officious even. German, he seemed, like someone stepped right out of one of August Sander’s portraits. I’d heard it intimated that he lived with his elderly mother somewhere in the neighborhood, but this may have been mere speculation. Customers were always … Read more
By the time I got to the River Park, Jurosz was gone. An hour or so earlier I’d encountered a couple of tweaked out ranch hands at the Taco John’s in town, with Jurosz’s beat-to-shit little trailer attached to the hitch of a pick-up truck. There was no mistaking the trailer, with its corroded aluminum … Read more
A horse emerged from the woods, sleepwalking through the fog, its eyes literally closed. The hooves of the sleepwalking horse were long and yellow and curled like the toes of elf shoes. There was lightning in the blue windows of a treehouse, where scientists were hunched in the dark over their secrets, boiling the world … Read more
Lord, open my heart, said Moses, and give me the courage to surmount this hardship. Untangle my twisted tongue, that I may speak, and be understood. —The Koran, 20:26-28 I’m still standing outside the Yukon Club, wearing that ridiculous hat, teetering in the bright sunlight. I can barely stand up. I have to think hard … Read more
Thales, the son of Examyas, has met a harsh fate in his old age. He left the court of his house at night, as he was wont, with his maidservant to view the stars, and as he gazed, forgetting where he was, he came to a steep slope and fell over. Thus the Milesians lost … Read more