The Old Woman Tries to Make Herself Useful. The old joke about Tommy was she was a social scientist without the social. Now she’s gone feral. She watches herself with detached interest, as though she were a subject in one of the studies she used to quantify. In her mind, she is simply an extreme […]
Kettle of One Igor was a smart bastard. That’s what Pete the trapper said. But Igor was also an only bastard, the last free-flying California condor on earth. Condors are sociable birds; they roost and preen and feed in groups called kettles, and by the spring of 1987, Igor was a kettle of one. No […]
Her children were dead, her husband in critical condition. But Joy had not joined them that July evening for the little family outing, was not there when they were hit by a drunk in a speeding pick-up; Joy was unscathed. Which is to say, she was destroyed. It turns out death is not the problem. […]
Wait. Where was that at? Sheeeeeeee, wasn’t no ball one, that was my sickest, most filthiest Lord Charles, man, completely unhittable pitch, kisses the corner then drops to the dirt—come on, Har-vold. Okay okay, just ball one, suck it up, suck it up, like Head Doctor says, demeanor on the mound, no flouncin’ around flinging […]
A Christmas Story. In the north end of the parking lot, men in parkas and fat pants cluster around a black Yukon, joking, gesticulating, chumming to sub-woofers. The pulsing SUV sparks red, green and blue, and stories float and knock, though no one’s listening. Loose shadows, long limbs, everything moving—Honest John’s lets them be. Men […]
Near Joshua Tree National Monument, a woman lounges with her son on a small concrete patio outside the yellow bungalow at the end of Wagon Wheel Road. Their aluminum chairs face the arroyo, where boulders like the backs of elephants—august, copious, renowned—cast cartoonishly large shadows. A beat-up card table bears the remains of the woman’s […]
I’d just started sun salutations when I spotted it under the wax myrtle. A slumped rubbery thing, flat tire. Except it was three slumped rubbery things painted like a giraffe, all stacked up, glistening—a giant snake is what it was. Ever stuck a fork in the toaster? I kicked over my tea and bolted up […]
WHERE LUCY WENT Pinckney Wildlife Refuge. The thick dark enveloped Lucy as though welcoming her home, and her mind quieted. Without light, she could smell: pluff mud’s salty sparks, shell road’s chalky cornstarch. At Ibis Pond: grassy tang, earthy algae, something ammoniac; fresh water’s clean scent, and, barely discernible beneath piney loblollies and eggy […]