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Fiction
Renee
This was it — the cool, very weird thing I had been hoping for. I was about to go to a strip joint with a Pentecostal Christian mentally ill recovering alcoholic young lady. These are the moments I live for.
January 1991The Acts Of Father Mark
Father Mark replaced the chapel’s crucifix with a dead pigeon he had found on the highway. Many of his parish were outraged.
December 1990Red Sky At Night
But as it happened, the first pitch, Red’s special, laden with spit and tobacco juice, zigzagged its way home. Just as it reached the pink-flowered flour sack, it curved like a martin changing directions. Any real ballplayer would have known it was outside by a mile. But Sammy Dan reached for it — a slow, easy stroke with the air of a man taking a leisurely stretch upon rising the day after the crops are in — and sent the ball heavenward.
December 1990The Apple
Late at night I heard a scream. Ivan was shaking me violently. “Father’s dying!” he shrieked. It was pitch-black in the room. I sprang out of bed, and both of us ran to our parents’ bedroom. “Where’s Mother?”
December 1990He Wears Black
I am a German man. That is clear. But I am born in the year 1955. Ten years after the war is over and so, I am having nothing to do with that war. I am part of the new people in Germany.
November 1990Driving Home
Leaving one son; going toward the other. Ted and I take turns driving, three hours each. My break comes at lunchtime. Then I can sit in the car and count the hawks in the sky.
November 1990The Rehearsal
Her lips, loose and larger without dentures, move up and down in a pace that suggests more words are coming, but then, they stop. She has, I think, forgotten what she wanted to say. I don’t know what to do in these silent spaces between now and never again.
November 1990Occupied Territories
My anticipation was high. Life picks up when she’s around. I remember what I went to college for. With her, my brain gets buzzing again. I had been saving up all the garbage of my life for her to hear so I could get it sorted out.
November 1990The Dancing Master Of Kung Fu
Everything was suddenly vibrant with rich hues of singing color. The faces of the monks were radiantly beautiful. It was as if his eyes had been washed clean for the first time.
November 1990Punctilio
The white-haired man sat alone at a table in the crowded airport cafeteria, eating a doughnut and taking an occasional drink from a small carton of milk.
November 1990
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