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Fiction
The GirlsClub
I’m depressed. My girlfriend left me. Then I got cancer of the colon, so I had to have my large intestine removed, cut out, the whole thing, gone.
September 1993Rituals
Every night Lynn cooks onions for supper: liver and onions, onion soup, onion rings, hot sausage grinders. Every night, amidst the smell of onions, Jerry removes pieces of the kitchen’s blue-flowered wallpaper, exposing patches of green paint and gray paste.
September 1993Storm
It was too hot to do anything except wait for the heat to end, wait for rain. Wait on the red brick porch, down at the end of our street where the road made a wide, looping turn, disappearing into a tangled mess of kudzu vines.
September 1993Uncle Ruff
I was not hallucinating. Here was time incarnate, bareheaded, wrapped in heavy bib overalls and flannel, and moving in a lithe, short-stepping dance about the concrete ramp.
August 1993Sister Of Kane
Allie stepped onto the slanted porch, and the wind swept into her shirt. The chill broke her out in goose bumps, but it felt better than the heat inside the frame house. Kane sat on the steps at her feet.
July 1993Progress
The first time we had Joe over, one spring evening some years ago, he lay on his gurney with his face positioned toward us.
July 1993The Room Where Sex Began
Bobby and I were tired. His family was visiting for a week, and we’d been up late every night since they arrived. I realize now Bobby’s parents hated him. I don’t know why.
July 1993This Summer
My husband has told me that this summer he will retire. Right now he is in the library holding X-rays up to the light and dictating. I do not know how his secretary understands the things he mumbles.
July 1993Fidelity
She stood up. “Excuse me for interrupting,” she said to the minister, “but he can’t do that. He’s married to me already. We never really got divorced. I never gave him a divorce. Those are our children sitting there in front of you.” She addressed the bride. “It’s better for you to know now than to find out later.”
June 1993
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