Diving

Diving

I keep coming back to the night we found out about the twins. Michael and I had been married for ten years at the time. Clare would have just been turning five. Michael had been called in before, but never for anything like this. Our community hadn’t faced this kind...
White Texans

White Texans

Louis Offer, formerly Ortega, crossed the border near the rattlesnake hills outside of Rio Grande City. Within a year he’d set himself up as a customizer in a body shop on Spaulding Avenue, his specialty the crafting of hearses from platforms that normally did not...
Heirlooms

Heirlooms

  My mother has a box. One day she will pass it down to me because mothers are supposed to give things to their daughters. But I don’t want it.   Inside my mother has eggshells, small bones, carved sticks.   My mother has told me the story so many times...
Yolanda

Yolanda

    Yolanda, the security guard, sat in a tiny chair behind a school desk at the entrance of the rundown building on West 181st Street that served as headquarters for The District offices. An enormous woman with breasts the size of throw pillows straining...
Realpolitik

Realpolitik

I thought talking politics with the manager at the Salt Cavern would be safe—I mean, salt therapy much? But, turns out, Gary had been held up when he worked as a liquor store cashier and had been backing gun rights legislation by way of NRA donations and bumper...
Airdra

Airdra

  After Airdra divorced me, I gained forty pounds and killed our parakeet. I should have let Airdra take her beloved bird but inflicting pain was my top priority. The parakeet was collateral damage. I did not slice its throat, only watched it die of neglect. His...