She’s like a storm cloud drifting my way. The thick, grey coat and bright yellow rain boots are probably a choice she made herself, because the sun’s out and I’m sweating like a pig. I don’t understand why Lenny would let her go out like that, but I don’t have kids and won’t pretend to understand what it’s like. I guess my only comparison to dressing a child is when Roger, my Rottweiler, comes running to me with his lead between his teeth because he wants to go to the park, and he’s got only that one lead. I guess I shouldn’t call a dog my kid, but all he wants is to eat, play, sleep, and shit. Roger’s the closest thing I’ll ever have to a kid—which I’m perfectly fine with.
Continue reading “Liza, Like Lizard by Joy Florentine”Tag: gambling
Lottery by Meredith Rohn
Someone wins the lottery every day.
Lily’s grandfather used to tell her this when he would walk her to the corner dime shop for a candy and a ticket.
Continue reading “Lottery by Meredith Rohn “Strutting Hog by James Hanna
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
-Bob Dylan
You are alive to the moment—nothing more. And the moment is not alive to you. The shrunken path you walk, the fogbanks swirling around you, the overgrown forest that slows your stride offer neither cheer nor condolence. Rather they make you feel perishable, as though you have stumbled here in your sleep.
Continue reading “Strutting Hog by James Hanna”The Luck Sucker by Antaeus
The crowd of people standing around roulette table number fourteen was three deep. Only four people were placing bets, the rest were watching the high roller raking in piles of chips. Every time the ball dropped, a cheer went up, and more people left the other tables to have a look. I knew from experience that the lack of people betting cost the casino about 1-K a minute.
Strays by Annie Moore
On our third date we did some petting. She said she didn’t mind my nose that drooped like burnt wax and was porous with puss. She coiled her hands into my chest hair which was whitening with the withering days. I couldn’t afford to pay her much, hence she only gave half-assed blowies. Out of pity she called this encounter a date. She knew I was dying, and I knew I needed to put that pity where my pennies weren’t.
Stagger Lee by Frederick K Foote
Six-sided cubes, ivory colored, black-eyed dots, tumbling, bouncing, rattling, futures and fates in the balance. The dice rock and roll in the alley, under the streetlights, reflecting neon red and blue and sometimes, once in a while, colored with flecks, hints, sticky drops of arterial or venous blood.