1085 0 0
|
Most likely, the dead bear would be such a mind-fuck for the building crew that they’d probably just remove it quietly. There could be fines and reports and loads of paperwork involved…news would spread and inspections would follow. Yep, they would probab
|
1085 2 0
|
The president snapped awake at three AM. He realized he was a serial killer. Highly trained and equipped killers on his orders were summarily murdering thousands of raggedly dressed people in the name of Democracy.
|
1085 2 1
|
We were stuck sweating it out on a long suburban plain when you left. Or else we’d mob the one visible hill (in Palos Hills, or Hillside) and turn the televisions on, looking behind us nervously, hopelessly, until every evening became a Wednesday evenin
|
1085 0 0
|
This is between the two wars, so
it surprises you
when TV screens light up with this in the hotel breakfast room.
You are in Delhi, you were supposed to fly home
last night but
fog canceled everything.
|
1085 1 0
|
And I'm usually soft-spoken.
|
1084 2 0
|
Terry marked each spot where we did it with a red “X” on this map she had taken from my dad's gas station. In those days gas stations gave out maps for free.
|
1084 2 1
|
|
1084 2 0
|
“Pull out, pull out, you dimwit!” Cheryl B told Andy. “I told you to pull out before you came, if you ever expect to climb up on top of me again! God, Andy, what’s wrong with you?”
Cheryl had flaming red hair and was what we now call “Plu
|
1084 0 0
|
Because I was feeling so good, so certain, so ready to move forward, and then all of a sudden, BANG. I was the bad one, the careless menace. Unbelievable. How could my entire position in the universe suddenly shift like that, from one moment to the next? I was here, and…
|
1084 4 4
|
I rang the doorbell. Claire opened the door, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I opened my arms to give her a big hug. She stiffened and pulled away. Stunned, my lips parted, but I couldn’t think of a single word to say.
Ideal, Phillis. ”Broken”, Pure
|
1084 24 11
|
I remembered our wedding reception. I tasted the crab cake, pulled her from greeting people, said, you have to try. And she did.
|
1084 1 0
|
A man strolled by with perfect posture and a masterful comb-over. Bud gave me that 'get him' expression; sitting there with his own low side part. We razzed him about it all the time, but he still looked pretty-damn-good for seventy-five.
|
1084 9 6
|
Through feeling her life story,
I understood mine, more,
|
1084 3 2
|
I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora,
gray beard and long scraggly gray ponytail,
who had empty chairs pulled up all around him,
at the Loser Café,
maybe for his imaginary friends,
or maybe those who were already gone.
|
1084 3 1
|
I inhale the smoke from a burning cigarette
held between two stained fingers that are not mine.
|
1084 4 4
|
We were both looking up at the rainy sky, while the big jet barely moved through the clouds, coming in for a landing at Oakland between storms.
It sort of reminded me of 911, the way they just seemed to hover above us, barely moving, like they were poss
|
1084 1 0
|
You know when you see the flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror that you're not being pulled over because of a busted taillight or carelessly doing fifty in a thirty-five mile an hour school zone; your crime is being a Black man behind the wheel. It happens often…
|
1084 0 0
|
and he'll be dead within a week
but i'll still be ordering a large black coffee
and smoking upwind
|
1084 6 4
|
as you are, there's a big floating arm that separates both of us from each other. Widening, like a river, it touches us together often, but still keeps us drifting apart. The banks of your new life have different weeds and flowers…
|
1084 5 4
|
—but night does not reduce me to sleep / the dragging minutes keep awake / the dark that only opens its deep . . .
|
1084 7 5
|
"You wantin' one of them kittens? If we can't give 'em away we're gonna drown 'em. We got too many."
|
1084 3 1
|
The president is truculent today.
|
1084 1 0
|
Your insincere smile,
eyes drowning in kohl.
Sweat and sweet talcum,
and the maroon cashmere stole.
|
1084 0 0
|
Within 3 seconds the replicant Abraham Lincoln now knew everything there was to know in this world. The errant input function had created a memory leak that lead into the network. First local systems, local networks, to city, state, government, then world
|
1083 0 0
|
“Grow some fucking balls, Satan!”Did I just say that? To the prince of darkness?Yes. Yes, I did. Let me back up.*It was around 10:30 Saturday morning when the phone rang. I recognized the caller id.“Hi, Satan,” I said as I picked it…
|
1083 2 2
|
Beeswax
Just Kill Me
Beam Me Up
Deep-Fried Twinkie
End of Lust
Hootchie and the Eye Patch
Boy Crazy
Instant Success
Sleeping Geezers
Cyber Shoes
|
1083 3 0
|
Deciding what is important from the life of a man that you haven't spoken to in ten years was a task that had seemed impossible at the outset. But now, here she stood, having done just that.
|
1083 1 0
|
They’re friends, him and Sissy and Raul, you know, and live upstairs from Asa and he went up there. He kept texting me saying, B here all night, follow u 2 airport. Yelled down through the floor. Real crazy shit.
|
1083 2 0
|
Still worried. I could use some more hope in my oatmeal.
|
1083 1 0
|
Michael shifted impatiently as his mom steadied the gyrocycle above the parking space. A rather blank, empty smile came over her face, and Michael understood. The Proctors were everywhere and where they weren’t, there was always a Neighbor who would be h
|