Sixty Feet and Six Inches

Sixty Feet and Six Inches “I bet you he’s a fucking pedo. Who else would do that shit with the statue every night. And do you think he ever takes a shower? Washes his fucking hair?”  They watch him from beneath the tree, up against the chain link fence. The one that runs along the […]

The Boy in the Leopard Skin Shorts

The Boy in the Leopard Skin Shorts When I first met Keegan, he was beautiful, in the way only the young can ever be. It was the cusp of summer, before we ran away together to LA, headlong into a life both magical and flawed in equal measures. And though we watched ourselves unravel, until […]

Fifty Word Stories

Fifty Word Stories The nighthawks down bad coffee and talk about all the chances they never took. Catherine hears withoutlistening, counting out her tips in nickels and dimes, aching to be someplace else, where love is gentler, andthe past no longer lives in the very marrow of your bones.

Drive All Night

DRIVE ALL NIGHT Nowhere, Nevada Lois is curled up like a cat, asleep on the backseat of the stolen car. Kiera sleeps too, resting her head on Mitch’s shoulder while he drives. Her purple hair falls forward to shadow her face, a strand carefully following the ridge line of her jawbone. The radio had started […]

Chasing Magpies

Earlier today, Mrs Jacobson stabbed Ronnie Arnold with pruning shears for stepping on her lawn. Amelia tells me this while I stand hugging the trunk of the Delarney’s big old horse chestnut tree looking up into its upper branches. Mrs Jacobson loves her garden. We see her pacing along by the flower beds in her […]

Three Needles Cave

My husband Cecil Maitland has gotten himself stuck behind a rock fall down in Three Needles Cave and this whole town it seems has turned out to watch him die. I have done so much crying over these past four days that now all I am is angry as I look around the clearing. The […]

The Dealey Plaza

His head exploded and all. Just like a big juicy Halloween pumpkin was how my buddy Joe Teal described it. To tell the truth I didn’t even know what was happening until it was over. One moment we were applauding and waving our flags. Next minute folks were screaming and running everywhere and that big […]

The Devil Visits

Larry is in town. And when Larry is in town there is almost inevitably trouble for someone. He is a business leader of the old school. Not for him new fangled three hundred and sixty degree feedback gathering, team effectiveness programmes, diversity targets or style awareness training. You can tell he still secretly hankers after […]

The Second Chance Diner

She is a funny looking woman; finely dressed in a suit, pinned hat, big ruby brooch at her throat. She slides in next to me in the booth without asking and gives me a big smile, looking over her eye glasses which perch on the bridge of her nose like a bird about to take […]

Sad-Eyed Jesus

Sad-Eyed Jesus I take one final gulp, then dump the rest of the bottle of vodka into the sink, watching the liquid circle slowly down the plug hole. At AA, we talk a lot about each day being a chance for a new beginning. But, Father Leopold taught me that there can be no beginning […]