It was a long time before slavery went away. The town kept their own slaves well into the Carnegie Administration, trading... more

How To Play Shit

My brothers Kimi and Mike left with their friend Carmen to steal some watermelon Now & Laters from the... more

The sun wasn't even fully up yet and there I was, on some stranger's roof, about to begin work for the day, when this girl, maybe four... more

All his life the boy threw knives. In his youth he threw knives only in his mind, pretended himself the central... more

Take it from inside you and draw it out. Do it before it decides you are not what you seem to be and, as a result, holds you up... more

In high school, dating Randall "Big Randy" Barton was a rite of passage for the small population of black girls at our... more

Carol Gipson had acne and was the slightest bit pudgy but she seemed like someone who would turn beautiful... more

I put on my suit. It's a business suit. I'm a businessman and I mean business. I mean 'business' with a big 'B' and an ampersand.... more

With apologies to Jorge Luis Borges' "Borges and I"

The other one, the one called Melcher, is the fuckup.

I travel a lot... more

Doug's house looks the same as Bob's house. Bob lives next to Doug. On the ground surrounding their houses they have planted blades of... more

Lucky

All these people. How did they do it? Well, many did not. Broke as eggs on sidewalks, sister. They were walking... more

penguins

For the penguins it is cold and sometimes it is cold like that in my bedroom, where I sleep, and the covers that... more

Slut Whore has every Barbie on the market, lined up sitting on her windowsill along her bedroom wall, and all the best clothes and... more

Near a mound of fresh dirt under a sprawling oak tree. Cannons rumble in the distance. Lounging next to... more

My friend Brandon has packed his friend's Jeep with provisions of snowballs, dried turkey, Finlandia. Observing the heaped... more

Before the blue was sailed by Columbus and his greedy, maritime ilk, before... more

Early Morning

Debra Jims dreams of Kool-Aid. The juice leaves a red mustache above her lip. Men around her have mustaches too, real... more

"...as soon as a member of the family has breathed his or her last a younger member of the household... is told to visit the hives,... more

The Piano Thief

It'll take him all of a month, longer if he's in love. But always at least those thirty days.... more

Georgia Ambler used to jog on Thursdays while Jake and I shot baskets in the drive. "You're outta shape, old man," Jake... more

When Larry hit the cow on the two-lane highway in Virginia, the face of the cow, its open mouth hurtling past the driver's-side window,... more

When they told us that the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, had been destroyed by a crude but powerful bomb — TERRORIST,... more

There was a sparkle in my smile so I went to my friend Derrick's to get it looked at. I didn't want cancer.

Derrick asked questions... more

Do you really spend 80% of your free time knitting?

Yes. I've knit during a blackout and a brownout, on the back seat... more

The man and the woman he plans to marry are almost playing croquet in Jamaica. They don't know the rules. There are heavy mallets and dusty... more