Ry thought his heart was shattered beyond repair. Five weeks before he was leaving for college his girlfriend of fourteen months broke up with him to date some creep she met at an under ages show. Ry’s uncle, Lee was visiting from Meridian, Louisiana. Ry never understood why, but the family never went to visit him.
Jake drove his convertible Mustang up Highway 1, the Pacific Ocean stretching into oblivion on his left, his girlfriend Samantha sitting far to his right, as if she planned to throw the door open and roll onto the blacktop at any moment. They were on their way to a little B&B that Sam had discovered online (one Yelp reviewer called it ‘kitschy but tolerable’), and although neither of them said so out loud, they both knew that if this weekend was a disaster, their relationship would never recover.
We were all friends once. The three of us. Till she caught the two of us together. And when I mean to say together, I mean together not just in the biblical sense, which was true enough, but together as in in love. That was our big secret of course, and when Rose found out, understandably she wasn’t having any of it. I suspect she’d always known Tommy and I were jerking around together behind her back, which I don’t think she minded as Tom says she never was one for sex too much anyway and she probably figured us doing what we did took some of the pressure off her. Maybe. But the look she got when I finally had it out with her that day over at the park, on that little wooden bridge that crossed the little creek that more than half the year was dry, and I told her outright, and she pushed me off that bridge and said she’d see about that. That day, the creek wasn’t dry.
He limps home from the war with a lopsided gait. A cripple with a dark green uniform hanging on his gaunt frame. They stare at the colorful ribbons and shiny dangling medals on his chest as they avoid his vacant, hollow eyes hidden in bony valleys of dark flesh.
McLeary was a New York City legend.
He was from an era that was long ago. Hard-drinking newsman. He covered the celebrity beat. His favorite film was Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.
McLeary had sold his soul for a glass of whiskey, Chanel #5 and a great pair of legs.
He had no regrets.
He knew the city and where the biggest names went to fuck each other when nobody was looking.
The distance between the house and the cliff isn’t long, nor is it short. The distance is the distance. Years ago flowers bloomed here in ever increasing numbers, filling the landscape. Their lithe youthful necks stretched upwards basking in the warmth of the sun’s rays. But no more. Time’s passage stole the flowers beauty and they began a slow, steady decline.
It was windy, it was cold and it was pissing down with rain. Craig Spark and Carl ‘Robbo’ Robinson sat illuminated by a flickering streetlamp on a graffiti-stained park bench sharing a litre bottle of White Lightning cider. A church bell chimed midnight and a cat screeched. A siren wailed in the distance.
“Dog? Cat? Bus? Worm? Yes. Melba, did you pick up the waste can? No. No, it was a dog on the corner? I see. What did the bus do? Lose its license? Why? I thought it was a cat. Okay. No, you go ahead, I’ll stop by the hardware store. Really. The entire sidewalk is covered with them. You walk out and you have to jump around like you have ants in your pants so you don’t squish them. Okay. See you then.” Continue reading “Chapter One: Sid by Wylie Strout”
I can whip Tommy Bryce’s ass, no problem. Everyone knows it, including Tommy. You can tell looking at him with those spaghetti arms sticking out from the sleeves of his chocolate ice-cream stained t-shirt. And that blonde crewcut. What’s he think? He’s in the Marines?
So I’m walking home from baseball practice, punching in my Rawlings glove when out of nowhere Tommy rushes past me, grabs the glove, and keeps running. He has a five-foot lead on me minimum when I start after him. But I’m faster, any day.
The kitchen was still except for the ticking of the Westinghouse range clock and a faint whirring sound coming from the back of the refrigerator. It was becoming light outside, but the birds were still quiet in the thick fog.
Continue reading “South of Oromocto Depths by Mitchell Toews”
