One March afternoon in 1969 I was on the deck of a Chinese junk listening to the water clop against the wooden hull and enjoying a breeze that blew toward the South China Sea. The junk bobbed... [+]
The doctors, explaining the consent form, referred to him as an allergen. That’s the only reason he could figure they prescribed Claritin. Well, technically they didn’t prescribe Claritin, being... [+]
Lying in the dark, he whispered their names. The same names he whispered every morning.
“Spencer, Mack, Jones, and Cox.”
Luke Murphy woke up before the alarm, not because he was... [+]
The days couldn’t manage to become any more miserable or dour, could they? Drysalio Cervera sulked, swiping away the pile of expensive books that lay sprawled across his desk.
Books fo... [+]
They had been at the beach all morning, the three of them baking slowly, going into the water at different intervals and for different lengths of time. Their positions on the beach were similarly... [+]
It was 8 a.m. on an early St. Petersburg, Florida, morning. I always liked to get an early start on Saturdays. I grabbed my deck of Bicycle playing cards and a Beatles 8-track tape, “Sgt... [+]
Waiting at a lover’s door for courage to alight, who would think to call me a coward? For me, it’s wisdom that keeps me at bay, a nature well-versed in courtship and circumstance. In my case I... [+]
They say God is dead. I reckon I agree with them.
“Please, sir?” The girl stood on her tiptoes, peering over the counter. Her pleading eyes pierced my heart. “Please?”
She was... [+]
The machine breathed.
Its chest rose, fell. Each hiss followed a gasp, each flap, a hollow thump.
The father remembered.
His chest rose, fell.
Tears chased smiles, each memory, an... [+]
The room had become his world, for the most part. Two or three times a day he would totter to the little bathroom in a corner nook that had surely been a closet when the house had first been built... [+]
Here we are, two strangers standing at a deserted corner, waiting for a bus to come, while knowing deep in our hearts that it will never appear. Only a dull street lamp illuminates our view of the... [+]
It’s supposed to be easy. Isn’t it? You pick up a phone, dial a number and then... But it’s not easy. It’s not easy, because the phone has a full battery and you have everything ready to... [+]
Troy, NY 1848
There was one day I was looking for Morrissey. It was around the time of his first bare knuckle prize fight. He hadn’t told me he had a job with a mule skinner moving some... [+]
It seems we search for small joys in peacetime, but need them more desperately in wartime. Surely the first spring flowers that end the gray days of winter will lighten many hearts. For others... [+]
The balmy evening sent warm air rushing through the open window of Garrett Roth’s F-150, joining with his fingers as they ran through his salt and pepper for the hundredth time since leaving the... [+]
