“Aren’t you nervous about meeting Chuck’s mother?” everyone kept asking me. “Not at all,” I’d reply. Chuck and I had been seeing each other almost a year, and although I haven’t met a special someone’s mother in almost two decades, I’ve got my mom- pleasing moves down. It’s basic stuff, really, moms just want you to be on time and look presentable. They want you to listen more than you talk; they want you to nod knowingly and agree with […]
During the first week of December, in 2007, I told my three teenage sons that in three weeks I would be having surgery. I didn’t say what for. Not one of them asked any questions. Not one. You would think they would be a teensy bit curious. I think I know why they didn’t ask. The year before I had been diagnosed with breast cancer–caught early, stage one–followed by a lumpectomy and a week of internal radiation. My sons, Weldon, […]
It’s 10:30 in the morning. We’re on the sixth hole of the golf course, and I’m on my fourth beer. It’s a thick 95 degrees. My cargo shorts are wet and sticking to my inner thighs. My father turns to me. “So, have you turned to Jesus?” “What?” “Have you found some kind of religion? That seems to be what all the women in your family are doing.” I’m an atheist. I’m a non-golf-playing atheist who doesn’t function well in […]
They say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. And you always see bad made-for-TV movies about these unsuspecting doppelgangers, where one is some movie star, CEO, or just plain rich person and the other is a real loser and ends up impersonating the other twin and totally screwing up the poor schmuck’s life. I actually thought I was safe. That no one in the universe could possibly look like me. Wrong. I met the bitch at a […]
I had fallen out of love with my roomy one-bedroom Ravenswood apartment. Though nestled on a quiet street, the surrounding area was a wasteland whose epicenter of culture was a 24-hour Dunkin Donuts. Also, my kitchen had become a haven for fruit flies. There were literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them. Despite my attempts to commit genocide, they managed to reproduce and avenge their dead by flying into my nostrils. Tired of subsisting off of donut holes and flies, I […]
One day you wake up, and you’re a little old man. You think it’s worse than waking up a cockroach because it’s ordinary. It means you’re ordinary. You didn’t believe it would happen, and you aren’t ready for it. Demoralized by your decrepitude, you decide to go on a road trip with your best friend Ed. You want a freeway cleanse, an interstate detox. Ed lives in Portland, Oregon. He’s driving to Portland, Maine and back again. 7000 miles in […]
After two and a half years of dating Charlotte, it was becoming difficult to give a shit about the things she found important. We had been living together for about eighteen months. We kept different hours. I worked a nine-to-five job. She might roll out of bed at noon and do some freelance writing over a late breakfast. Then, she’d smoke some bud and watch the Oprah channel for the rest of the afternoon. I’d often find her loafing around […]
Editor’s Note: “Ghost Writer” was first showcased at No Name @ Word Up – Super Storytellers Edition Her name was Emily (not her real name). We met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the end of my university studies, the end of my art school days. Four years of conceptual art classes, intense writing projects, filmmaking projects… Four years of being surrounded by competitive, creative people determined to make a name for themselves. College is that time where you are trying to […]
For Tom and John Gill, and Henry Hopkins. A bit over ten years ago, I bought my first record, the English Beat’s “I Just Can’t Stop It,” at Street Light Records, Pacific Avenue and Elm, Santa Cruz, because ska never dies in California. Fresh to Two-Tone sounds, without racial or political contexts, having no idea who they were talking about when they asked Margaret to stand down, please, stand down Margaret. I almost squealed with joy when the cashier said […]
