Earl Jenkins was a security guard at PNC Park where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball. Every time he worked one of the sidelines, right down on the field, and he snagged a foul ball, he

Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. Sugar or Baby, something sweet, something helpless, something you are not and never will be. If they studied your face instead of grabbing your ass

Before the curious series of events that stunned a quiet community, Calvin Flack DDS wondered if he would ever find the perfect dental hygienist. Two weeks prior to opening his practice in

And the earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming 
--Tom Waits 
 

He came from Wal-Mart. Some fellow was loitering by the automatic doors with a stink my wife described as rotten apples

It's August, and it smells like grass and cranberry fruit snacks. I pick my brother up from the post office where he works. When he gets in, he says, "Let me take off these shoes."

We drive and

The pet store was across from Planned Parenthood. Rob and June just sort of wandered over. They were allergic to dogs and cats, and June pointed out that hamsters bite. Beside the hamsters, there

At school, we were allowed to wear costumes but were not allowed to bring treats. So we'd made the most of it -- we wore our costumes, we overcrowded the hallways with streams of sleepy ghosts. And

The cobble gloss contained inchoate images underfoot. Miram broke his stride and knelt to inspect the watery sheen but could not catch the specter. Drunken houseboat dwellers under an open awning

We spread a blanket off to one side of the boat launch, under some trees. Island Lake, in Shelton, Washington, is surrounded by small private homes, and this is the only public access. Since it's

He knew what he was doing. He knows I don't say hello to him, knows that when I see him I see an empty spot, but he walked into the meeting and looked straight at me and said hello. He knew I

The apartment smells of burnt toast when Marcia arrives home from work. Her husband, Gary, having toasted two loaves that afternoon, hovers over the linoleum kitchen counter cutting slices into

I'm functional in the sense that I make it to evening confrontations. At the sushi bar, Gita keeps talking about some girl she works with: "I just think that she's just really into identity.

I rest my head on a pillow, falling in and out of sleep. Outside the windshield, locusts reflect light like shooting stars as they catch in the car's turbulence. I rouse slowly, watching

"You played sports?" he asks over dinner. They're having baked chicken and baked potatoes. Clean food is how she thinks of it, only a little butter on the potato and no salt. He's pouring ketchup

The hair monster checked out the ass of a handicapped woman. She was standing with her back turned when the hair monster noticed her panty line against her white tights and thought, hey hey hey. He

She was what his father, who had a Betty Grable calendar in the garage, used to call a bleached blonde, and she was kind of daffy-taffy in that old Hollywood way. Face all smooth and creamsicle

The earth is deep brown and peppered with crows. Sorry-looking cows nuzzle the frozen refuge. Two mongrel dogs, skinny, tentative, sniff at my backside. Submerged concrete -- cuboid and rectangular

Gerry let out a loud belch and tried unsuccessfully to focus on Albert.

"I've got to get her back. I miss her so much."

There were tears in Gerry's eyes and Albert felt his stomach clench,

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm 43. I'm sure."

"It's a big decision. It's a life."

"Don't you think I know that? I'm Catholic. I know what a life is."

"I should have worn

She had death in her hands, in her heart, in the americ tang of her angry sweat: she was jealous of a piece of bread. It was a dark, trunk-thick loaf of Polish bread, and Agnes could think of

I.

Deirdre doesn't talk to Nicole anymore, but she thinks she does. Last winter, six months went by with neither one of them saying anything. Right around Memorial Day, Deirdre asked if she

1. Ionization

In a city where everything feels a bit belated, where the clever ones agonize over looming hindsight, our advertising company accelerated toward modernity, at last, on February

Kitty peeled dead flies off the screen. She squinted in the direction of the boatyard. "No boats today," she muttered to herself.

A late season heat wave had brought a constant haze that made

Leonard Crank is an ass. He's a beer-in-a-can-drinking, White-Owl-cigar-smoking, wife-beater-wearing, greasy-haired slug. He is also my next-door neighbor. As for me, well, I have always been the

"Rita, I know you've slept with one of your cousins," Mom told me this morning at brunch.

My stomach kicked. I stopped chewing but couldn't swallow.

"Here, drink some juice," she said and