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The Feral

December 20, 2018
During adolescence, it’s innocent enough, a method for curing loneliness or boredom: a boy sinks his teeth into his finger and watches a small self, a petite and perfect miracle, emerge from the wound. The copy, red and raw like a newborn, no taller than a pencil eraser, is yet proportioned like the original boy....

Somewhere South of Wichita

April 18, 2018
The online chat room forums warned against hugs. Too much too soon can be overwhelming, ruthann67 wrote, reminding readers that in federal prisons inmates, especially male inmates, generally had no positive physical contact for years and that adjusting to fond family interactions might prove difficult. This note was followed by a slew of grotesque comments...

Foreign Exchange

April 18, 2018
Franz was a special case, April’s mother said, not like other kids. April asked, “Different how? And from kids in America or ones in Germany?” Her mother reminded her it was West Germany. And, also, that they shouldn’t ask Franz too many questions. April wanted to know why. Wasn’t West Germany the good Germany? What,...

Jackbeetle

December 12, 2017
One of the first things I did, when I moved my family to this old town that’s new to us, was to find a new primary care doctor and schedule a physical. I don’t like taking chances, health chances least of all, what with cancer rates spiking all over and the atomic fringe growing nearer...

Quantum Convention

December 12, 2017
In the Marriott ballroom a hundred of me have gathered. I thought it was going to feel like a funhouse—you know, with the mirrors—but it’s nothing like a funhouse. It’s more like a family reunion, except you don’t know anyone and it’s all cousins. Fat Me is in the corner with a plate of kale...

Better Not Tell You Now

November 30, 2017
Daisy picking daisies, is how it all started. We were sitting outside the cafeteria, early spring and wildflowers sprinting out of the overgrown soccer fields. Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace and daisies, white with soft-boiled yellow centers. We finished our sandwiches and fidgeted in the grass. Daisy dismantled a flower, playing He Loves Me, He...

The Baby Cage

November 30, 2017
We lived among poor people, and my mother was interested in them. “Two men sleep in that haymow,” she’d say as we took the gravel road to town. “Not gay, just retarded.”  Or, “That’s where the pedophile lives, the one who uses our creek—remember that catfish I fried on Sunday?”  She once drove me to...

Animals

November 30, 2017
It’s nearly lunchtime and the woman on the phone is getting snippy, so I intentionally flub a word. “I know this must be fistering for you.” “I beg your pardon?” she says. “Fistering. Fisterating?” “Do you mean ‘frustrating’?” “Yes—I mean that. I use the wrong word sometimes,” I tell her, just as I’ve been taught...

The Snow Queen

November 30, 2017
The car is a Gremlin, a metallic green gone hazy with age, pitted with road salt. At Simone’s look around its interior, the driver—Jeremy, he introduces himself formally as she settles herself on the passenger seat—explains he’s the third, maybe fourth person to own it. He reaches out with his free hand to punch in...

Good Neighbor

November 28, 2017
Di proposed to me the night they brought her mother out of the ravine. Her mother lived two houses down in a double with stapled-on gutters. Run-down, the kind that used to be nice in the streetcar days. The landlord threw out all her stuff because she wasn’t paying rent, so after the EMTs dragged...

Jester

November 28, 2017
The most important part of Caleb’s job is making sure the customers are angry, which comes naturally to him. He’s always had a big mouth and a gift for pissing people off, his teachers, social workers, and old Stobbs, the principal who kicked him out of tenth grade, just last year. And then there’s Pop....

Perhaps One Day This Will All Make Sense

November 7, 2017
In the meantime, nothing of any significance happens along the way, nothing worth mentioning, at least in proportion to expectation. Just the same house on the same block. Same kitchen, same countertops, appliances, utensils, same way of harnessing fire to make the meal. Same plumbing, same pipes set at slight angles, leaning the liquid in...