How could a grown man with any self-respect sit in the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory at eleven o’clock in the morning and eat a hot fudge sundae with mint chip ice cream, hold the nuts? It was Charlie’s own question; his answer was that he wasn’t a grown man, he was a grown boy, or maybe…
Rhonda felt Cy’s ribs through his T-shirt that proclaimed rock-and-roll in thunderbolt letters. The leather jacket he wore today magnified him: his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the glimmer of fear he struck in her. Suddenly she was afraid that this was all they had, a striking look that turned heads, a few sexy…
A man in the south of France flaps his elbows and dances with a female crane, who is the last of the Black-tails. He hoots and coos, and she lowers her long delicate neck. Yesterday the man had sunned and swum amid a swarm of nude swimmers in the Riviera’s cloudy waters, so that now…
Right away, I started meeting people who knew my brother. A bank teller cashing a traveler’s check for me was one. At first, she gave me a half-glance when I passed the check through the window towards her, more interested in the amount than my identity. Then she noticed my last name and slowly lifted…
When the giant panda views another of her species through a window, in a mirror, does she feel a little less lonely? I smile when I see another couple like us, though of course they aren’t like us, except for the contrast between white skin, and black. The year I turned twelve the way we…
Somebody almost walked off with all my stuff —Ntozake Shange at best you can say your judgment was tainted by movies and old expectations Paris equals passion n’est pas? so why not ride the subway just this one night despite all the echoes of caution dancin :…
She made some big changes that spring. The first one was moving out of David’s house in Beachwood Canyon and into a one-bedroom apartment in Park La Brea. “Old ladies live there,” was David’s comment. “I like old ladies,” she said. “Old ladies are quiet and considerate. They don’t have car phones, either.” “I’m at…
So much for the solid- gold musical taste of the age, upbeat, down and out, love- sick groans bawling from the suitcase-sized boom box riding the shoulder of a cholo in shades, webbed hairnet, flannel shirt buttoned to the neck in midsummer, pimp- strut rocking by on tip- toe past pairs of squat, unisex…
When the air is thin with frost I blow rings of ice smoke as I did when I was young and imagined myself grown and never answering to anyone. From smoke rings to pots that became helmets and tanks, I play-acted a world where color held no name and eyes were tears holding light. Without…
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