Fiction

Gracie turned on her side to look at the clock. She could tell by the way the sun struck the window and glowed through the frozen gauze around the bottom of the pane that a hard frost had come at last, that fall was beginning to be what it should be. All night the wind…

Every day did not start with Vince awake that early, dressing in the dark, moving with whispery sounds down the stairs and through the kitchen, out into the autumn morning while ground-fog lay on the milkweed burst open and the stumps of harvested corn. But enough of them did. I went to the bedroom window…

The things it never does any good to protest. With our only son, Billy Frank, Jr., in a Mexican jail for having been intercepted with something illegal strapped to his leg. With daughter Mary Jo making daily visits to the shot-doctor for “vitamins,” leaving her probably autistic child in a playpen fitted with baubles and…

The air at the bottom of the garden was damp, but when Cecilia Lofton opened the gate, a gust of the chergui, loaded with needles of hot sand, struck her in the face. Raising her hand defensively, she squinted down the dusty road that meandered among scrubby palms and shacks of tin and cardboard until…

She is sitting in the car and I do my number. Looking down the sight I see an auriole fly to the right and left, all around in haloed flutters. Then it wavers like underwater noons, I have to split, my Uncle doesn’t wait. He says be back, be quick, be reverant. We pray for…

It is late afternoon, the Sunday before Labor Day. Paul looks over the classroom assigned to him and then goes outside, down the steps into summer heat and sun. In the middle of the dusty street, a girl with long legs leans into a car, talking with the driver. She balances on tiptoe and her…

for S.H. Not once in forty years have I gone without a meal or slept without a roof over my head. I’ve known less deprivation than anyone I know. My father died two months before I was born, it is true, and my daughter passed away before she ever spoke a word. But it’s hard…

I was old enough to know I wouldn't want to hear. But I didn't know what I would find out. So, I went along for the ride. The first colored person I knew was my maid, Marion. She had baggy eyes, baggy breasts, and a bad complexion. My mother made Marion tunafish sandwiches every day…

Poor Bernie, Ted thought, as rain thudded against the car like rotten fruit. Watching it stream and bubble on the windshield he promised himself not to complain about it lest Bernie's feelings be hurt. He was anxious to impress this on his wife. Poor Bernie, he said aloud. Things never work out the way he…