The crowd parted as we slowly and carefully pulled out of the driveway. A guy who looked like a Hell’s Angel banged his fist against the hood of the car, and a woman spat on it as we drove by them.
Ire Land
Dead Guy – Editors Pick
I was twenty-four when this all happened. In my late forties, I’d have friends who’d watch their parents die, put kids in ICU, euthanise their cat; you get the last gift of adulthood then, when it, or something like it, happens. You start thinking about people differently.
Not With My Life, You Don’t
He works late into the evening, restoring the shotgun inherited forty-eight years ago from his Uncle Ian. It must be finished before Miles arrives “sometime Saturday, maybe Sunday.” It is typical of Miles’ self-importance that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, specify a day, the unsubtle implication that his time is precious, Oren’s not.
The Man in the Rain
Finding no-one in the backyard, the officers asked to search the inside of the house. Eneas followed them as they looked through every room, even the bathroom. On a glass shelf in the bathroom stood the little frosted crystal bottle with the round cap—his father’s lemony cologne. His father called it “Ger-lane” and had often said that no true Cuban man would ever wear any other scent.
Breaking Even
Right away he started waving the gun around and hollering about his wife, how she was no good, he never should have trusted her, he loved her, his best friend Ronnie was a no good bastard, the cops are probably looking for him, it was all over, he was gonna kill Ronnie and anybody who got in his way.
Frankenstein’s Monster
She first saw him three months ago at the tail-end of the horrible summer. The manager and the stocker used to stand in the walk-in freezer on their off-time while she stood behind the register in the faint breeze of the window-unit, sweating through her red polo shirt that had once belonged to her father. The stranger was nearly seven-feet tall and had to crouch beneath the threshold as he entered the store. He bought standard poor-people things, staples: cans of beans, single pounds of only the discount ground beef, butter, milk, hot sauce, brown sugar, steel-cut oatmeal, eggs, and chocolate.