SUMMER READING 2020 Archives

IN-BETWEEN SIRENS by Davon Loeb

June 25, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

The in-betweens are like waiting for something to happen, like flashes of red and blue sirens pulsing through my car, while searching for the police officer about to step to my window. And I watched from the rearview mirror, and would say and act exactly how my mother told me—to call him or her sir or ma’am, to be polite, to keep my hands on the steering wheel, to have my paperwork ready. And that my stomach was buoyant, and that my eyes blurred from tracking the sirens, and that I felt the spotlight sizzle on the back of my…

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WHEELS by D. T. Robbins

June 22, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

Fat-boy Brad, the same Brad who went, Hey, Cheese Factory!, to me on the bus because my teeth are a little yellow, stood in the middle of the street with Chris, the same Chris who almost drowned me in his pool last summer showing me what a washing machine was (you flip someone over and over and over and over until they can’t catch their breath and they start to cry and someone’s mom comes out and yells, What the hell are you doing to that boy?), looking at my bike, telling me how fucking gay it is because it’s…

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EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST EXPOSITION by Gauraa Shekhar

June 14, 2020 · Fiction

Carefully coded a fake Myspace account for Joel Madden—copied the URL from his skull-and-crossbones profile, pasted it into a Layout Stealer, added Steve Aoki and Junior Sanchez to my Top 8 Sent myself love letters from the account Showed off love letters from “Joel Madden” at band practice Threw some antihistamine pills from the medicine cabinet into a zip-lock bag. Kept the pills in the back of my school locker to feel beautiful and bad like Winona Ryder and the disaster girls on TV Once, during a middle school lunchbreak, made an elaborate display of secretly spooning a home-cooked meal…

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THE PAIN WE DON’T TALK ABOUT by Amina Frances

June 13, 2020 · Fiction

I was six years old when my mother strapped me into the buggy of her bicycle and steered us both into oncoming traffic on the stretch of road behind the Mulberry Street house. A teen driver swerved and clipped us at fifteen miles an hour. I’ve had a raging pain at the center of my back ever since. My father wrote off the accident as another one of my mother’s spells—silly little things—as if they were nothing more than temporary lapses in judgement. Maybe they were. Then again, maybe they weren’t. My Aunt May always said the woman had a…

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THE CORRECT HANGING OF GAME BIRDS by Rosie Garland

June 10, 2020 · Fiction

Rostrum Select old, wild birds. Beware harsh beaks, horned spurs, claws toughened by years of defiance. Pierce the beak. Hang by the neck, the feet. Each man has his taste. Hook and hang them long enough to conquer disobedience. Pectoral girdle Keep them in the dark. Convert the cellar into a hanging room: a stamped dirt floor to absorb the moisture they shrug off, dense walls to absorb sound. Keep your birds separate. Even when dead, their warmth communicates from breast to breast, stirring discord. Syrinx Permit yourself the luxury of appreciation. This bird is yours, now. Dawdle on the…

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BABY DINGO by Emily Harrison

June 7, 2020 · Fiction

Boy finds Baby Dingo in the swell of the high noon heat. He waits for any signs of Adult Dingo, adjusting the too-big-for-his-head trucker cap. At home, Grandad is snoring heavy on the sofa. Boy likes to wander off on weekends. He wants to be a great adventurer. Maybe today he is. He checks his watch, surveys the dust bowl surroundings. The nowhere town below. Baby Dingo clambers across Boy’s lap and pushes its nose into the sweaty creases of his knees and armpits, licking the salt. There is no sign of Adult Dingo. Boy pulls Baby Dingo up and…

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DISPATCHES…FROM THE NALTREX-ZONE by James McAdams

May 30, 2020 · Fiction

Sadonna was always my last visit that summer before she died. At Derek Jeter Rehab Center-Delray, we dispensed meds between 1900 and 2100. I’d start with the early sleepers at the sober house on 999 Swinton, then swoosh on Freaky Fred’s moped through the back alleys and garbage docks behind the strip mall to the sober houses on 9th and 10th streets, between the head shops and the Amscot. I dispensed Suboxone, SSRIs, SNRIs, B-Vitamins, and retrovirals for the former needle users. On a PRN basis, I distributed: hemorrhoid cream, Midol, hydrocortisone, aloe vera for suntan relief, dimethicone for chapped…

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SING TO ME THE ONE ABOUT THE RIGHTEOUS EMBRACE OF THE INEFFABLE by Pat Foran

May 19, 2020 · Fiction

Something My name is Phineas and if I can get the pose right, a photograph of me will appear in the 1979-80 Ridgid Tools Two-Year wall calendar. In a two-piece and six-inch heels, I am holding a No. 930 1/2-inch D-Handle Reversing Drill like it’s a semi-automatic weapon. “I need a little more…something, Phineas,” the photographer said. “A little more serendipity, a little more world-weariness. Show me a righteous embrace of the ineffable. And a little more gam.” *** Level We were fixing up a place that needed fixing up. We were going to live there. Her parents were helping,…

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IRENE by Sarah MW

May 15, 2020 · Fiction

“Fancy a bite of my banana, Miss?” Teenage faces have a soft bluntness to them, a button-like quality as they wait to be chiseled out to their full adult contour. Joe’s face was the same, though unlike the others it sported a uniquely impressive beard, far from usual in a fifteen-year-old. He was grisly and monstrous; I heard he’d fucked his way through most of the pretty girls in year ten and eleven. Simpering, gum-chewing girls with clotted mascara and deep-set insecurities. He swung back, all too pleased with himself in his plastic chair, forcibly recumbent, legs wide like a…

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ANOTHER ROAD TRIP STORY by DS Levy

May 11, 2020 · Fiction

Two months ago, after flirting with a handsome Ojibwa who poured stiff Margaritinas, Fonda tottered over to the slots and maxed out her credit card, setting her back two grand. Which is why, heading south on I-31 after an afternoon wine-tasting in Traverse City, I’m surprised when she tells us from the back seat that her inner voice just whispered: Twenty bucks will move your spirit toward prosperity. Since her heart bypass last year, Fonda’s been on speaking terms with her gut. “You know that ‘feeling?’” she says. “Well, I’m finally listening.” “Did your gut mention how long you’ll have…

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