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”
When we get our first whiff of mortality, which typically happens in our sixties, we are inclined to take inventory of our lives. For the self-satisfied, this is an easy matter: one simply declares himself free of baggage and on an express track to heaven. But that is only true for God’s favorite children; the rest of us have a harder time of it. The bits of good we might have done fade like yesterday’s news. And sins long forgotten assail us like phantoms, leaving us as wary as thieves.
Continue reading “Cheating the Jail out of Time by James Hanna”
Sighs, echoing laughter, and half-remembered faces that belong to all-forgotten names gather in the pooling shadows of Corson Street; the ghosts gaze at Holly More as he walks alone in search of a hundred-year-old man. No matter how much money Charleston pours into the “revitalization” of the Corson district, its ghosts remain stubborn and continue to luxuriate in the riches of the poverty into which they had been born, thus lived, and brought home from their graves.
It was Christmas the first time they made love; he said it felt like coming home. He bought her a silver bracelet with a chunky heart charm.
I wondered where the wonder went. Another bottle of wine, another moment gone, carelessly misplaced along with the forgotten tomorrows. I picked at the bandage above my eye.
I thought of the millions of self-help books I had read.
“Allow yourself to go to a different place, a better place, in times of difficulties.”
“Embrace your inner child.”
“Breathe.”
“Be kind to yourself.”
“Stay positive.”
literally stories 