When he grabbed my arm, I was halfway across the lot, that girl watching through the windows, like reality television was unfolding in front of her on the graveyard shift. Above the pumps, bugs hit the security lights, the swamp stretching away into darkness, interstate hum.
It wasn’t murder. The Book of Exodus, the same book that says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ also says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’
He came home from school on the rez one day and found his parents dead. There had been a gun battle and there was a blood trail heading back to the oil rigs. He followed the trail and found three men wounded on the side of the road.
So a council was organized. And organizing the council took much time, much arguing and deliberation. So many personalities and ancient slights to consider. But eventually, through mediation and to be honest, a few bribes, the council assembled.
A drunk might go to sleep on a railway track. A gambler might be found floating in the river and rumors spread of unpaid debts to criminals. A man’s gun might accidentally go off while he was cleaning it.
I’d want to say, “Would you do me a favor, dad?” Then as a serious joke, follow with, “Would you shut the mother fuck up?” But whenever I’d ask if he’d do me a favor, he’d seemingly meltdown, then he’d say, “Anyting for you, my bacheh joon!”
Occasionally, as now, she considered strangling Horace, suspecting it’d be easy to do by virtue of his scrawny neck. Truly, he was on the Social Security same as her, and truth be told with her pension she did better than him anyway.
What if they knew about the lie?
What if they were in on the lie? Them. Mr. King. Ms. Shelley. Dr. Deaver. Daddy. The doctor.
And when she thought she couldn't lose another beat:
What if mommy lied to me?
And now for my demands. For beginners, I want a national holiday named after someone whose name begins with Z. And you’re going to build a monument in Washington just like George’s and Abraham’s and Thomas’ for that soon to be infamous Mr. Z.
Magic didn’t take orders. If someone pushed him for a show or a sermon, he’d say, “Lost it.” He sometimes acted like he was bored by the idea, but this was all part of Mag’s technique.
"We were a team of five. We were laying explosives. Around an enemy safe house. At night. In the dark in the middle of the night. We had all finished our tasks. Had retreated back to the edge of the woods. Except your grandfather. He wasn't quite done. Almost done."
Elon ransacked a closet and then reordered it. Elon disassembled a cupboard and then rebuilt it. Elon removed from the floor of his crowded garage every single shiny Jaguar and Lambo he could find, and many de mode fitness contraptions.
Why had we followed it? Instinct, I suppose. It sounded beautiful. There were very few beautiful things around in those days.
Maybe 25 years ago, Georgina escapes Mexico. She hires coyotes, people to smuggle her and a cousin out. The smugglers leave them in a desert. They have no water, no food. They tell them to walk towards the light, but it is entirely dark, with no light.
I know I don’t have to tell you this, but when somebody you love dies, you don’t get new memories of them. You’re stuck with the ones you’ve got, unless somebody comes around and gives you a new one.
“We have to go.” Clinton puts a hand on my shoulder. “We have to remember Peri. We have to remember everyone who’s died because of this godforsaken city.” When I don’t move, he squeezes my shoulder, hard.
There is no such thing in contemporary high art as a slut or whore, no ethnic slurs, no sexual identity or sexual proclivity putdowns, no judgment with respect to your life choices, at least not in public.
It said: DoN’T forgEt TO put ThE SeAt dOWn. I assume it was referring to the toilet seat. But I’m a guy, and I live alone. Why should I put the seat down? Who would leave me such a note?
“These are just in case the End Times come before they’re scheduled.” He made no secret of his intention. “Or in case the November election goes bad and the race war begins. It’s best to be prepared.”
I ran into Jimmy Grant after he got out of prison, about a week before he went over the bank into the river. He seemed kind of shy, you know, ashamed to see me again or something.
I write magical runes on the ice and poetry for humpbacks, which animate my tattoos, and create a restroom for celestial beings trying to get a heat in their bones.
“...and upwards of 10,000 have died in a Goliath attack in Chicago. Exact numbers will be posted soon, as--” The newscaster put her hand to her ear. “This just in! Famous star, Jordan Culler, was recently convicted of peddling drugs across the border, and…”
now that he was crisply re-figured at a bus stop on the same gravel shoulder, now that he had earned the insignia, wore the uniform of red and gold, a gold peaked cap over still tangled hair, now that he was raised
She holds up plastic-wrapped wax lips, like the priest with communion, and places them in your bag. “To make you beautiful,” she says. You race home, fish the lips out from the boxes of Good & Plenty, rolls of Smarties, bags of Kisses, and rush to the bathroom.
These operatives always speak in a complex code of associational lines speaking obliquely and beside the point... it is up to the inspectors to move in and make a definitive arrest...
I had been staring into the spiraling black hole of my drink, thinking about plunging inward, being torn apart by some unfathomable, gravitational blender, scattering my molecules like countless coffee grinds sprinkled into a mid-flush toilet.
On the way to school she took her usual long route to avoid the six girls who called her Fat Flo, Foul Flo and Slow Flo. But inside the classroom there was no avoiding the teacher who called her stupid when she couldn’t answer a question and numbskull when she gave the wrong answer.
His love of animals paradoxically started when he trained the revolver on the body of the dragonfly three or four feet away. His houseparent took him out and identified the target. He lowered the barrel of the weapon and aimed at the dragonfly’s glittery body perched motionless on the dried stalk.
I thought I would accompany my own body to the U.S. But after a couple of days, I found out I wasn’t going back. My family had instructed that I be cremated and disposed of in Australia. What? No big funeral? No family gathered all around.
As an individual with a connection, albeit tenuous, with the recent events in Athens, I have been asked to contribute my thoughts regarding the planning and construction of a parking facility within that city’s august citadel, as well as the subsequent collapse of the citadel itself.
“Karen? What are you doing? It’s 2 AM.” She hadn’t heard Frank come in, but by instinct had switched windows when he spoke. She stared at the spreadsheet on her screen. “Big project at work. I told you.”
Less than a second later the answer swooped down, a giant rust-colored hawk that snatched and carried off the hapless pigeon in a hallucinatory flash. But the moment was real, attested to by a few drifting feathers and talon marks in the crusted snow. You tried not to see it as an omen.
I’ve been ditched by more lovers now from more places than I can possibly remember. That song rings true: Aruba, Jamaica---ooh, why did you leave me---Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama, Key Largo, Montego, and now Costa Rica.
Frank turned on the outside light and he and Jolene stepped out onto their patio and gazed at the crater. Jolene saw a future swimming pool; Frank saw Rusty swimming in the air, and he thought about his flying dream coming true.
Sometimes, her voices take over. Hip-bump her right out of the frame. Sometimes she’s aware of what’s going on when they’re out, and sometimes she’s got no idea it’s even happened until she’s back. There’s no rhyme or reason, really.
“Everybody has to stand up before it’s too late. Before they put a chip in everyone’s head. The CIA is behind Netflix, I guarantee it. Me and some other guys are on our way to the State House. I got something in my truck that will make them listen a little harder.”
Sinking into his sheets for a binge of nostalgia, his favorite drug, he indulges in a vivid montage; closing his eyes and pulling the comforter over his head, he thinks about his most memorable birthdays, back when he had hair and mornings weren’t physically painful.
One sloppy kiss melded into another as they passed me around like holy communion. Finally, Nick’s turn. A sudden freefall in my chest, like I forgot my homework. I pushed back my bangs and put on Dr. Pepper lip gloss.
We decided that this was becoming a problem and went to our local precinct to file a complaint. The sympathetic desk Sergeant informed us that since Donnigan had made no overt threats and we had no evidence that he was making the phone calls, there was nothing the police could do.
"Lizzie your life is too important to waste. I have spoken to John and he agrees that to give meaning to his sacrifice, we must continue the struggle in the Lord's name. Besides, the Queen has agreed to spare you if you stand on the scaffold by Saint Paul's Cross and confess that you did not realize the severity of what you were doing, that you were tricked."
Pages
