The ol’ boy downstairs humps his walker a few inches b’fore ever’ step he takes down the driveway. Had a stroke his wife tol’ me but she says he’s stubborn as a cocklebur and won’t let nobody else git his mail.
The last time Dave showed up clean, he brought bagels and a joke.
“I had to use the car key to spread the cream cheese,” he said, holding it up like evidence. “Don’t worry. I wiped it on my pants first.”
It was early—gray morning light, barely six—and we sat on the hood of his rusting Civic in the driveway, steam rising from coffee in mismatched mugs. He wore a collared shirt that still had fold creases in it. His hair was damp. He looked awake in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
The two men sat in the dim kitchen. Drinking. Dark clouds hung low in the gray sky like they wanted to open their bellies. Cigarette smoke curled from a glass ashtray. Larry Miller got up from the yellow Formica table and pointed at a steak bone on a plate in the sink. The white plate was smeared dark with A-1 Steak Sauce. Larry said, “That was Jenny’s last supper. A T-bone steak, a baked potato, bread n’ butter, and a Coke.” He seemed proud to Thurman like he wanted Thurman to appreciate it.
The port had the kind of heat that clung. It didn’t shine so much as settle — in the pavement cracks, the seams of café terraces, the folds of collars, behind the knees.
The air quivered above the cobbles like it was trying to rise but couldn’t find the strength.
From inside the arcade, David watched the light outside bleach everything to the same soft-edged white. Sunhats. Pigeons. The bone-pale wall of the farmacia.
The smell was a mix of sugar, oil, and the sea — sweet one second, briny the next. Somewhere nearby, a slushie machine whirred like it was dying slowly.
When you ask me to take off my pants I agree and drop them to the floor, white undies shining brighter than the clouds, which I hope will blind you to my shyness. Then I see the mantis on the doorjamb leading to the treehouse deck and say we need to stop. I’d seen one on grandma’s body right before she died. Seconds before. She saw it too, said adios, and was gone. I know a sign when I see one.
Leon drank a coffee with crinkly eyed, cookie eating car salesman Bob, Saturday afternoon at Desliles,
“Service is great at this altar of consumption,” Leon thought.
It was a few months ago he’d last met with Bob, and they’d discussed hats and bears as well as tales from the past and the quirky nature of circumstance. Bob never forgot anything, but this time, they didn’t mention clothes.
The funeral had been over for hours. The condolences had been murmured, hands shaken, and hollow nods exchanged. Tyler sat alone in the quiet living room, staring at the floor like the right combination of thoughts might finally break him open. However, he could only think about one thing: the clock on the wall ticked too loud. Each second landed sharp and mechanically like a hammer in the silence. The steady, unshaken rhythm, indifferent to the weight of grief pressing against Tyler’s ribs, was too precise for this raw moment. He tried to focus on each tick, breathing in and out on every other one. Time was moving forward, unaware that his best friend, Patrick Andrews, would never move with it again.
The meme had been replaying again and again in Booger’s mind.
“They are eating the cats, eating the dogs, eating the pets in Springfield.”
It was about 50 days away from a quite consequential presidential election.
Bugowski was pushing 60 and he was just as big a mess as he always was.
“Have you read the secret life of plants?” Rooster asked Booger as they unloaded the cooler full of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Poland Spring with lime (the most carbonated of all seltzers) and all the other boxes, bags and items for another guy’s weekend. “The plants communicate through chemical emissions, I read an excerpt…not surprising given their predominant place on the planet and the way they all live together harmoniously…beautifully, really.”
literally stories 