My son Jamie brought me to all my treatments at the hospital in Danvers, a 7-minute drive for him as he says for more than three years (I am loaded with many ailments of various kinds) and I always noticed a lady who brought her father for his appointments, but dressed as though she was going to a ball, a fancy dress, and a marvelous pair of legs that could dance her across Broadway in her day, being the knockout she was, and carried yet a boatload of her beauty into a few years of time.
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.”
As the hot afternoon ticked by, Lizzie thought they wouldn’t show. Then, far off, a vehicle coming down that dusty road. A car, not a truck.
It got closer and the passenger door was opening even before it stopped. Then Charlene was out and running to Lizzie, and Lizzie, she was jumping straight into her big cousin’s smile. Both of Charlene’s hands were on either side of Lizzie’s face.
‘Oh, I’ve missed you!’ said Charlene. ‘You been all right, baby? Have you?’
I moved the boiling eggs to the cold burner. Hopefully Edward wasn’t lactose intolerant. I was making my famous potato salad. The newscaster sounded solemn—something about a landslide—Indonesia or somewhere. Then almost musically, “Onto the local murders.”
I was looking out the front window, watching the snow fall, waiting for the mailman to come with my disability check. Jesus, the snow is sticking now, and my tires are bald. I needed to deposit that check today. I was out of food, running low on whiskey, and I still owed Mrs. Schmidt half the rent for this little shithole of a duplex. Fuck my life. Then, I got the call.
A large, clay and plaster likeness of Saint Patrick, holding a crook and pointing at writhing snakes on the statue’s base, dominated the right side of our church. He was wheeled in face up on a donkey-cart, wenched upright by strong men when St. Patrick’s Church on Ninety-Fifth Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was built in 1847. “Black Forty-Seven” my dad called it.
Ginny was raised on violin lessons and minimal parental supervision. The combination very nearly landed her in a windowless room in the detention center in Brooklyn, and if Callum hadn’t gotten away with the dogs just when he did, even his street smarts might not have saved her.
The day Didi realised her husband had curated a nice little world of half-naked digital women for himself, it was almost time for her to attend her weekly lunch with her girlfriends. She was unable to progress towards the front gate. Instead, she stared at her reflection on the surface of their garden pond, built by him and for ten years, her delusional confirmation he was happy. She looked at her liquid face and wondered what she’d done wrong.
literally stories 