Dizzying Downward Spiral | Bill Drew
When the tactical squad raided my basement apartment on 32nd and May in February of 1985, they discovered a baseball-sized rock of cocaine.
Category Archives: Shows
On the American Side | Dana Jerman
In mid-fall of the year 2003, my then-boyfriend, Kent, and I go to Niagara Falls to try, for closure’s sake, to pinpoint the place where his father jumped in. September of the year before, his dad got into the family mini-van, starting it with a key attached to a “Jesus Loves Me” keychain, and drove away from his home in Buffalo, New York. Putting down the garage door so his wife wouldn’t know right away that he had left, and […]
Telephony Data and Other Intelligence Failures| Michael Maiello
Your iPhone always knows where it is, but you don’t always. Your cellular service provider always knows where your iPhone is. But you don’t always. The National Security Agency and various other government agencies operating under the rubric of the Directorate of National Intelligence always know where your iPhone is. But you don’t always. IPhones have a way of slipping from my grasp, often in the presence of alcohol or other drugs. They are just so fun to play with […]
Free Fall | Nathalie Lagerfeld
I wasn’t supposed to be in California that summer. I’m the kind of person who immediately forgets all plans I don’t write down. By my junior year of college I had come to rely on a day planner to keep track of every important date. Birthdays, travel plans, summer program application deadlines—the little blue booklet organized them all. The scribbles inside it were especially important to me during my spring semester abroad in Paris. I was thousands of miles away […]
Is This You? | Amy Salloway
One night, about ten months ago, I got an email from a friend in Vermont, with the subject line “Is this you!?”
The Climb | Katie Prout
Over the last year, the men I’ve dated with anything resembling seriousness have all been twice my age, which makes them older than my father. They are all smart, complicated, and notable in their field. Shortly after this year’s New Years, when I began seeing the most recent man, a woman I hardly knew told him to beware of my vagina. She called me a “climber,” and said I was trying to fuck my way up the artistic and social […]
Rinse Meth Repeat | Steven Strafford
Chicago is a big city with 2,836,658 people and among them a big gay population, but there are ways to winnow down to smaller subsets, whether it be neighborhood or gym membership, favorite bar or a book club. Well, if you are a crystal methamphetamine addict, like I was, your world gets much smaller.
Corporate Witchcraft | Kelsie Huff
My office consists of glass paneling, two computer screens, a tiny plastic Yoda figurine, and a thin blanket of self-defeat. I’ve been in this office for eight years, six years too many. My name is stenciled in the glass door: Kelsie Huff, Director of Marketing. I never thought of myself as a stencil.
We’re Smarter than That | Lily Be
Lily Be is the producer of Stoop Style Stories and a spoken word artist. She lives in Chicago.
