Meeting at Night

A cake-faced woman named Jeanette with a chain smoker’s snarl didn’t actually walk Allan over to the folder containing prayer card samples, but just waved in the general direction, muttering “thatta way.” Allan did not, by any stretch, consider himself a writer, or even much of a reader. He had briefly minored in English during college, until Dr. Liebowitz taught one Hemingway story for an entire semester, each week from a different theoretical perspective. After feminizing, deconstructing, psychoanalyzing, structuralizing, post-structuralizing, ecocriticizing, reconstructing, queering, and killing Hemingway, Allan opted for a minor with real theories. Quantum physics. Despite his change of minor and heart, Allan still graduated college caring about grammar. If quantum physics taught him one thing it’s that the little stuff matters. Such as where the period is placed on a prayer card. You’ll arrive at the gates and hear angels call to you, “Welcome home” . This wasn’t the f...

You snort #3 off a glass picture frame and stare at the final 2, beneath which you see good old Zanbo. You loved that damn dog. You wonder about doggy heaven. Do they have his favorite treats, and who scratches that mole behind his left ear? He always brought the Frisbee back, no matter how far you flung it. Thing could catch a thermal wind and glide clear into the next county, but you bet bottom dollar Zanbo'd bring it back, next day if need be. Your new dog, fucking mutt trots over to the Frisbee and just stands there. Sniffs it. Wanders off to piss or shit. No Zanbo at all. Sometimes you want to pick up that new mutt and chuck it over the fence, out into the woods, aim for that big pine with the woodpecker; maybe the mutt'll crack its empty skull and die on the spot, give them skinny night deer something to gnaw on. You can barely hear it trying to bark from the cage. Yeah, that's right. Trying. You found yourself some black duct tape to match that snout fur and clamped ...

You may be wondering why Nathaniel is presently tweezing legs and antennae off a freshly dead cockroach discovered twitching near the dryer. You wouldn't be wondering at all if you knew Nathaniel's younger sister: Geraldine. Countless trips to the community pool when (at his mother’s behest) he's been ashamed to carry Geraldine's pink floaties and shirtless man dolls while she struts in front of him, hands free and baby-fat arms swaying. Nathaniel won't know the definition of emasculation until fifteen, but understands the feeling all too well at seven. He scoops up legs and antennae before flicking the limbless carcass under the dryer. And how can he forgive those nine days after his mom listened to an old record and Geraldine forced him to call her “Geralda” because it almost rhymed with Esmeralda? Back in his room and sitting at his desk, Nathaniel carefully spreads out the verminous haul before reaching into a Buzz Lightyear pencil cup for his favorite p...

“He's a smoke machine. Puts out the appropriate amount of gray to make things sexy and mysterious, but at the end of the day no one buys a smoke machine—you rent.” In this moment, Shirley could tell me that Jaxton Cliffstone is a serial rapist wanted in thirteen states or that he has two giant hairy moles just above his junk or that he’d never do anything more than just hit-and-quit a girl like me. Seventeen thousand venomous words would wither in defeat at his glow. I’d suck him off right here if he asked. Even better, if he demanded. Down on my knees—no pillow—right next to the table with the punch bowl, chocolate crème cake, and the homemade pumpkin-bran cookies no one is eating, except Harriet. (Guess who made the cookies?) Another farewell party, number three this quarter. Just lemme get my mitts on Jaxton and I’ll give Fenwick Haberknackle a show more memorable than the boss’s monotonous speech or the gold-plated retirement watch tucked inside that goody bag. Hell, I’ll...