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The Casual Car Pool

He had jumped a radio tower and a cliff in Norway, but never a bridge. He chose a Wednesday morning when the fog was expected to burn off early and called in sick to work. At dawn, he climbed the tower. The riskiest part, he thought, would be landing in the water, where his friends…

Sutures

I had torn the quads in both legs and had to be poured into the back seat so when we parked at Home Depot, I was being slid out on a plastic sheet when a red sports car pulled in next to us, the door swung open and a hand cast out a folded wheelchair…

The Avalanche

He braked the old green Chevy     on the side of a mountain         somewhere out West and bet my mother he could     start a serious avalanche         by kicking a single rock into another no she said no please don’t Dan     please don’t start an avalanche         please and in the back…

Inkneck

The crusade had been brewed up over empty stomachs and ulcer bomb margaritas made from reconstituted lime juice and ice cubes older than the tequila. Bob’s tequila-idea plan was simple: He—we—would become minor anecdotes by driving to El Paso, Texas, finding Cormac McCarthy at the pool table, challenging him to a game of eight-ball, beating…

Bat

You’d think he was nervous the way he fits and starts. His skittery dodges, dipping below the visible, make us wait           for a scratch on our eye which comes to show he’s gone again elsewhere. How does he find his way? you said, and I saw night close in           like a room with…

Fuses

The last spike hammered into the last day meant not one more Chinese laborer would be lowered in a basket down the side of a mountain to separate the mountain from itself with a brand of dynamite that knew its own mind, never hesitating to render asunder whatever the Whiteman’s God had assembled on that…

The Bottom of the Glass

The cousins made a rough crossing, they’d have said, if they had thought to complain. They mentioned but didn’t lament the time in the air, the late arrival at De Gaulle, the bus ride to catch the train at the Gare Montparnasse, or the long wait for the Très Grand Vitesse to Bordeaux. They did…