Fiction

The Way Of All Flesh

Early in November, only a few days before his son was to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test, Friedenthal learned that a list of the correct answers could, for a price, be had. He learned this from his business associate, Max Arkin. Arkin knew everything. A stout, darting man, whose freckled scalp winked with sweat through…

The Palace

After the wedding, I rode to the reception in a shiny black car. I sat in the back seat between two other bridesmaids. I was sixteen and lightheaded with excitement. I had come up to Chicago on the train to be in my aunt's wedding. I wore a long satin dress, with an overskirt of…

Tall Woman Love

Beal comes in the night. "Auntie!" he says softly with his lips against the glass. The door is latched. Just a thin latch, not meant to keep out something big. Beal taps the glass with his knuckles. "Auntie! It's me!" Among the hairs of a young boy's beard, pimple scars have been carved, concave as…

Fire Ants

She had kept the bottle stuck down inside a basket of clothes that needed ironing, and throughout the course of the day whenever she had a chance to walk through the back room where the basket was kept, she would stop for the odd sip or two. By the middle of the afternoon, she had…

Lord of Autumn

Gordon He pressed the side of his face to the pillow and waited for the sound of birds. The room was black, the window open; when a breeze came the curtains billowed out against a lighter sky. He heard the clock. He heard the dry sound of Helen breathing; there was a sigh and a…

The Quality of Life

Fenton plugged in the coffee maker, primed and loaded the night before, then went to the front door to get the paper. The sun was up above the Patterson's garage, and the newspaper had landed on the top step, neatly folded and tucked. Fenton stood and smelled the air. Through the bathroom window on the…

Still Life

The woman standing at the right is Alice Fitzsimons Coffey. Those in the portrait with her knew her as Allie, but I think of her as Mama. Her black hair is pulled away from her face and secured at the crown of her head. Her mouth is straight, and her cheeks, even in this old…

Pitch Memory

The day after Thanksgiving my mother was arrested outside the front doors of the J.C. Penney's, Los Angeles, and when I went to get her I considered leaving her at the security desk. I thought I wanted her in jail. I wasn't surprised – I'd known all along she was a thief. Small things: a…