Graham Robert Scott

Graham Robert Scott, though a product of California, resides now in north Texas. A born scofflaw, he owns neither surfboard nor cowboy hat. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Nature, Barrelhouse Online, Blink-Ink, Buckshot, and others. In addition to tweeting semi-regularly at @graythebruce, he maintains a website, hemicyon.wordpress.com, which is named for the prehistoric bear-dog, a toothy hunter that (like the platypus) couldn’t make up its mind what it was. Graham, professor by day, identifies.

MISAPPREHENSION DUET by Graham Robert Scott

Even by nine a.m., the heat’s settled in like a blanket, calories by the zillions, welling out from laboring bodies and machines under the desert sun, trapped under layers of atmosphere and cloud and smog. Damp handkerchief in one clenched fist, Dale Brenner mops brow and crown. He aims his lips at the reporter—Gina? Tina?—and bellows against a cacophony of straddle carriers and trucks, of containers crashing into place: This freight’s all dead tires. Once it makes port, it’s on its way to ’Nam. A sideloader grinds by. As G(T)ina checks her phone, its driver gives Dale the bird. It’s…

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