January 1, 2014
An Excerpt from “The Boy Detective: A New York Childhood”
“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker-street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of […]
January 1, 2014
Ghosts
Three weeks before we pull the body from the river, I find Kofi waiting for me behind our camp. I spot him as I hike through the palms toward the […]
January 1, 2014
Summer with Anna
From the Greek. So beautiful it hurt, she thought to herself as she walked along. Birds were twittering, clouds moving south. The spikes of wheat were gold in the […]
January 1, 2014
The Home at Craigmillnar
Early shift is 6:30 a.m., which was when I arrived at the elder care facility at Eau Claire where I have been an orderly for two years. Maybe thirty minutes […]
January 1, 2014
Chastity
Years later, waiting at the bus stop with his son in a stroller, Benny would take out his pen and write a few phrases in a pocket notebook: How’s the […]
January 1, 2014
The Favored Son
How did I get this hole through my hand? It’s a bullet hole. Bullet went straight through the back of the hand and out of the palm. In and out. […]
October 1, 2013
Teetering
We are sitting at a table by the window. The street is deserted except for a group of black men standing at the entrance to the park, as if they […]
October 1, 2013
The Authoress
The autumn Bess and Maureen returned to the local high school, the Penwood rapist was released from prison. His crimes had been committed thirty-five years before, and now he was […]
October 1, 2013
Today Is the Day
The fourth house on the Meals on Wheels route was in a complex Kalpana had not previously visited. The complex was called Myrtle Tree Gardens, which was a misnomer because […]
October 1, 2013
Blood Rules
O, Marvel! A garden amidst the flames. My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks. A temple for […]
October 1, 2013
Building Cities in the Desert
Yasmin’s house rose out of a jungle of green-growing things, about half a mile from the eastern entrance to the old Navy base, though her backyard was still a blackened […]
October 1, 2013
The Dance of the Annunciation
from The Brunist Day of Wrath The Presbyterian manse lights are off and the curtains are open on this first night of April, and Prissy Tindle, who should perhaps at […]