fiction
Room 203
Here’s where we are right now: at two empty rolls of cigarettes, one roll stashed with a three-to-one of ganja to tobacco, a separate portion of unadulterated ganja that will fill all of the third joint (exclusively for her), and some spared seeds gathered inside the sheets of the hotel’s menu card. She is checking emails on her work phone. She is huffing and puffing at an MSNBC expert who is predicting another market crash. The joints she is preparing do not have the slickness she once prided herself in, but she is trying.
Nike Site
Miss Lejewski, our fifth grade teacher, had lopsided tits and a spitting problem. Even if we tilted our heads, her left breast dipped two inches lower than her right. Because of the spitting, none of us willingly sat in the front row except Benny Lanny. He was going to be president someday—everyone said so until he lost his arm—and by fifth grade he already understood the importance of pleasing authority figures.
The Ugly Marriage Counselor
Gerald used a razor to sever the cellophane wrapping around Megan’s body. He rolled her out of the box, then plucked the instructional manual from between her rubber lips. He stuffed the papers into his pocket, dragged her by the ankles to the living room, and deposited her on the floor.
Resurrection, or: The Story Behind the Failure of the 2003 Radio Salsa 98.1 Semi-Annual Cuban and/or Puerto Rican Heritage Festival
Jesenia juts out her lips as she runs her tongue over her teeth. She probably tastes chalk—she wrinkles her face at the tang of it. She does not answer the nun, but stands and walks to the arched entrance of the church. She cups her hand and says, I’m so totally sorry but I’m freaking gonna die if I don’t. She leans down, drinks from the holy water.
Infield
In those Pony League days, just as in the days of American Legion, Skidmore played first because his father played first, and his father, Leonard Skidmore, was our coach. My father was a local doctor, and he played shortstop as a boy. He and Leonard Skidmore were good friends. Now my boy plays shortstop. So there you are. The infield has continuity through the ages.
Vanessa Blakeslee
Vanessa Blakeslee reads "Welcome, Lost Dogs," from her debut story collection, Train Shots.
Basil
A small antique shop built of brown, weathered clapboard. Inside, for sale, an old typewriter. Caught in its dusky roller, a sheet of paper with a poem by James Wright typed onto it. But no: on second glance, no paper at all.
Dumpsters
The bus. Early morning to set the scene. Think about the sun in the morning like that. Like it’s just like barely you know? Like it’s soft. Anyway there were two people on it when I got on, a dude dressed like the Grim Reaper with a six-pack in his lap...
To Florencia
After Florencia’s funeral I walked down Avenida Mérida to Paco’s Cantina to toast the passing of the whore who took my virginity more than forty years before.