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Ripple Effect

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I discovered Ripple (by that fine winemaker Gallo) in a dusty “specials” bin at the back of a liquor store near skid row, off Maxwell Street, downtown Chicago. You may remember me bringing these bottles home with their screw-off caps. We drank tons

Wherever and Whenever

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It’s good to get fucked in the rain. It’s good to get fucked in the back seat of a power boat on a river in the hot summer air with the mosquitos sucking the life out of you. It’s good to get fucked with your bare back rubbing up against the

Small Talk

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Popping in to buy a tire gauge. Stumbling, drunk, on your way to buy cigarettes with two cops coming in behind you. You hold the door.

One-Nighter without a Stand, Even

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She lay down sideways on the couch with her large breasts spilled out toward my face, as I sat cross-legged on the floor, so that they were more or less right there in my face, and well, you pay attention when tits are hanging out in the open like that. S

Water, Not Fire

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I'll still want the blinds open and the lights on, to see the papier-mache of our flesh fighting death away to the century mark, even if you only want to live until a ripe eighty-two.

The Parade Route

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There will be no more internal birds like singing clocks, not like the lovely ones I know and still look forward to hearing, ringing like little bells in the church y belfry of the newly sprouting mornings to come, not unless the birds…

am I still alive, yes

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She read her briefs as she sat at the café table in her smart dark blue suit, and she altered the wording on the briefs in front of her, and she would check the watch at her wrist as if there were a pulse there: Am I still alive, yes. Am I still alive,

Silly Soliloquy

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If I had alcohol in me right now I'd be singing out loud. I'd turn this boat around & turn it into a karaoke bar. Why is it even worth mentioning? This is why people gaze abstractedly at the ground. Ambition is thirty gallons of gas & a red Silverado. Wishing, on…

The Pearl

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“An attractive woman is at a ritzy brunch. She’s drinking a really outstanding Bloody Mary and decides to try a raw oyster on the half shell.

Affairs of the Heart

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The next morning, I was shaved, skinned and stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey for its untimely demise.

Going Commando

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I have the fear of comedy I have the laughter of war I have the need of a commando To come sack and ransack us Over and over again, O I am a pillow, a rock, an ant A soft Southern deer in the headlights I have the mask of Anonymity Lyi

One Night Stand Before Finals

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There was one girl from Ireland, with her thick Irish brogue, who came into my bedroom early on the morning before my final exam for my Master’s degree in the writing program at U.C Irvine. She knew I was so nervous about taking the exam that I hadn’t sle

The Monster

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I wanted daddy to stop for ice cream, but I didn't want to say so. I wanted him to stop by himself, or because somebody else asked him. If I asked him Delia would make fun of me.

Breaking Up, Chicago Style, On Hardwood Floors

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We shut the door of her new apartment while Andy went back down to the car for one last load. Terry went into the bathroom and pissed blue. Blue, for God’s sake! Some pills she was taking. But she came back into the living room completely naked and pulled

Right Here on Our Stage...Tonight

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When Madeline became beset with a malady diagnosed as Harlequin's Syndrome she had to learn to overlook the muffled, but audible, guffaws about her excessive perspiration and slightly stooped posture on stage. She was a trooper and said she knew they came from those who…

Woman Outside Funeral Home Lighting Up

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If you ever find yourself outside a funeral home lighting up contemplating the future of the unknown, contemplate this Maybe the cigarette’s wet on your lip and you are wondering why Or in the middle of the night you are lying awake and try sa

Excerpt: Reykjavik: A Novel

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2. Reykjavík - 1986 …

You're Never Going to Break My Heart

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Like any lovable lump of hidden rocks, these hills she breathes life into, blinking existence, are all well worth jumping up and over again and again. Just ask the little kids. Their endless landscape of discovery…

and they are really living!

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These people, what is it with them? Is this who we’ve become? They left their great need behind when they were taken out of the country. They seem to live without thought of that blood. They do not respond to anything that calls to it. They seem sha

The Way It Crumbles

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“Got your Nine?” Cheese asked. Twist nodded. “Keep it tucked inside…

almost

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The only time Terry and I came close to fucking, when she was still underage, I mean, was once when I went to see her at somebody’s apartment where she was baby-sitting. She invited me over to have pizza, I think. Of course, I brought beer. And we start

How to Save a Shell from a Mountain

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"Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said"...--J.T.That thing that is empty now is me. I never thought I'd disappear, so crazily far from being myself. The love key has been thrown away, dropped without much fanfare. I carried…

Words are Words are Words

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On My Honor

No Surprise Parties, Please

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“Many years of co-dependency,” he said.

Schadenfreude

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It's 50/50 that you'll ever pad your knee enough to ever kneel on it. Your back hurts, the Orthapedist labels it arthritis. I think that means we're getting old, so I crawl up the tower of your body as I'm a little younger, more sprightly. You're a

Arcana Magi Bolt

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Sofia looked around and found herself at a boulevard. She could see the town exit ahead of her. The bike still lied on the ground.

WHAT IS PAID FOR

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The lock came off easy—they only screwed a hinged hasp on the outside—it took a hard shove to get past a chair barricading the door. As I pushed my way in I heard a screeching crash. Lucky nobody was around. It was my first time bidding on a sheriff's sale…

Conference of the Birds

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If in the course of a discussion of improvements someone says: “I have no idea” in a particular way at a particular moment, “I have no idea” will migrate and soon lots of people will find themselves saying “I have no idea” again and again without knowing

Hospital, or Depression III

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Yes sir, I confess there have been timeswhen I did not care how young the earth isor take pride in how she sprang back to greenregardless of how hard the snow fought.There have been times, yes, when I lacked the willto notice such things and knew that belowthe water's…

Jump-start

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"I don’t know what to do. I need to catch the 11:30 train, but what is the difference between doing it today or tomorrow?"