Miriam with the curly blonde hair that when you looked closer was full of white and gray. Her point being that everyone knew she had two college-age offspring from a previous marriage. Who would she be fooling with a dye job? Robert didn’t want to seem timid or dull in Miriam Wallace’s eyes. Robert had first met Miriam during the Christmas season after his twenty-second birthday, the Christmas he flew back to Philly from Minneapolis to tell his parents he wouldn’t be going to graduate school. Turbulence on the flight had strengthened his resolve. Turbulence and his rotten stomach. His … Continue reading THE GRADUATE (a short story from DIFFICULT TEXTS)

Goss slithered out of the hotel bed, careful not to wake her. This was not easy because she was the lightest sleeper ever. He hadn’t been able to shift a millimeter without getting an interrogative grunt from her and his escape from the bed had taken what seemed like hours of excruciating control. When he finally slipped into the bathroom he realized it must be suppertime back home. Sat on the toilet, seat down, lights off, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands but he was smiling. Not quite laughing. Actually maybe he felt slightly … Continue reading OEDIPUS Rx (a short story from NOT REALLY DIFFICULT TEXTS)

Ruby-June  stood shivering in a cloud-shaped queue at what appeared to be a bus stop on the sidewalk outside the Frisbee-shaped terminal. Awake for endless hours already she sang  a song under her peppermint breath and every frosted word she crooned exploded like kisses on a Crossmaus wind.  And there and there around her other dim lanterns of human breath rose and blurred into the evening. Singing under her breath was always a sure sign that Ruby was nervous,  thought Ruby, nervously, but  what was there to be nervous about? Ruby sang  doot-da-doot-da-doot…  Remembering when floatels were silver puddings. Puddings … Continue reading RUBY’S LOOPS: A SHORT STORY

Wednesday evening at 19:00, Simon’s event at the North Coast Gallery, in association with Absolut Vodka and Virgin Records, is scheduled to open with a wine-and-cheese reception, followed by a learned discussion between Kahn-Meyers and five panellists, followed by the event itself. Simon is in competition for the lucrative and prestigious Stein Prize. The North Coast gallery is a handsome space on Sophienstrasse in Berlin’s gallery ghetto, where there’s an opening every night of the week in the last warm period before the soggy beast of winter’s stomping return. Openings which feature munching crowds on the sidewalks in commingled clouds … Continue reading CAREER MOVE (a short story from CITY of AMATEURS and GERMANTOWN)

  for Comrade EC, who’s happy in Heaven with Francoise Sagan now PROLOGUE: I am Born, Elvis Reports to Nixon, Primates and Bladder Infections, Fatidic Frank, a Schwinn is Taken, How Dietary Habits affect the Flavor and Bouquet of Mexican emissions, A Glimpse of the Primordial One in Pedal-Pushers, Hippie-Do’s Aflame PROLOGUE This isn’t one of those unreliable narrator jokes where the character talking thinks he’s god but really he’s some tragic sack in a coma. Really I am god and I am not in a coma. Really. I was a kid in a coma once, true. Well that was the … Continue reading HOMO ZERO