Meeting at Night

The year, 1964. The place, a beat up country road that looks the same as every other old stretch of highway in the U.S. The car, a ’56 Chevy, blue paint faded from criss-crossing the east coast every summer since it left the lot. The man in the front seat, Joey Samuels, All Pro linebacker, ten year veteran for the Baltimore Lords, made the game saving tackle to ensure a Big Ten title when he played in college. The suit on his back is the same one he wore yesterday and the day before that, only with a fresh white shirt, of which he carries three. The briefcase in the passenger’s seat is full of paperwork. In the backseat is a vacuum cleaner along with all the attachments a housewife could ever need to keep her cozy, little nest clean for her husband, kids, and the occasional dinner guests. The business cards in Joey’s suit pocket read ‘Joey Samuels: Hoover Representative’.     Despite being one of the best players in pro football, during the hot months of the off-season ...

She found my nickname on a six-pack of cheddar crackers: Whole Grain In jest, she gave me grief for my diet, said I eat too much Great Value Cheerios and too many store bought bagels – is it too much fiber she kidded me about or that I ate ghetto fiber? As a gesture, as a joke, as a token of care she would bring me old jam jars filled with genuine yellow box Cheerios so that I could live it up once in a while. In time, when she asked what I ate for breakfast or lunch or dinner she just answered herself – hell, you only eat three things: cereal, bread, and oatmeal, oh, and noodles, but only if they’re whole grain. These wisecracks, were always just needles that didn’t draw any blood but still found the biggest veins and made way to my heart. The day, the last one we kissed together, on her way out, as part of her farewell to us as we were she said – I love you, whole grain. I still have one of the jam jars, but it’s empty now, no more Cheerios. ...

It's hot, boiling, a standard day in a Texas summer. My Bugle Boy slacks and OshKosh button down feel damp the moment I step out of my grandma's Cadillac, the newest one out: every five years for the rest of her life, my grandma will always buy the newest Cadillac. The tombstones sticking out of the freshest dirt, surrounded by green-yellow grass, look to me like unfamiliar things you might find at a playground, next to the jungle gym, near the curly slide. Just as strange to me, every bit as foreign as the idea of dumping macaroni shells into a bowl of milk and calling it cereal, are all these people. They all know me, or my name at least, 'cause they keep saying it, patting my head as my grandma leads me from one patch of people to another, holding my hand, even though I've been able to walk on my own for quite some time. She says she'll stop holding my hand in public when I'm ten. I always say, Isn't eight old enough? Other boys and girls here, t...

Free Flash Fiction has released their first anthology of flash fiction pieces titled The Flashing Type . One of the stories included is a scribbling of yours truly: "Kind Alice." I am very happy to have had my work selected for this anthology. It is the first time anything of mine has been published in this format. Along with my story, there are 49 other pieces by very talented flash fiction authors. The best part: the whole thing only costs $0.99! It can be downloaded as a Kindle Edition here .

Today is the day I do it. I will say something to Tall Coffee, Black.     I will tell him something. That he's cute. That I like his choice. That he smells like home.     Something to start a dialogue. To show him I exist. To make myself an option for him.     It will happen today.     Okay, he's walking up. Do this, do this, do this, he's only one man, one guy is all he is, one guy with divine brown hair expertly parted to one side and held by just a touch of gel, one male with a voice smoother than vanilla ice cream on your throat in summer, one man with the smile I see every restless night when I can't sleep, he's only that man, the one.     “Morning. Tall coffee, black, please.”     “Yes sir, coming right up.”     I get his coffee, look at his face while he looks somewhere else, hand him the cup, and, again, for the 56th day in a row, I am silent, saying nothing o...

Alice was always very kind to me.     She and granny shared a house together for as long as I can remember. She had been friends with my granny since they were in grade school. They even went to college together in the late '60s. When we learned about bra-burning protests in history class, I thought of them.     Alice didn't come from money, but her husband had made quite a bit before he died. He had invented one of those things that no one knows about, but is used in half of the stuff we buy, some space-age polymer or revolutionary chemical protein.     So Alice did things for me.     She knew what my favorite candy was, Sour Patch Kids, and since I was nine she'd always have a bag for me when I came over. When I was twelve, she bought me a new bike, shiny and red with 18 gears, and she even bought me a new, soft, silicone bike-seat -- “That seat that came with it looks like a pain in the butt.” When I was fifteen, A...

My eyes don’t lie, and they say you’ve never been here before but my vision feels you all around me all the time, like you live inside me everywhere I go these days a passenger I will never drop off my couch. I smell memories of sex that never occurred here or did we, did you come out of my mind while I slept and have your way with me on top? My ears pick up the echo of a scream, an argument we had once, but never really, about me wanting you to leave with me for the other place where we do all things easy every night, where we love without any ties, where we cry only together for sad films. My fingers find you on me when I wake from short naps and your skin presses me down into my sheets of sweat so thick as you do me in waves of slow then fast in stages of love and regret in licks of no then yes and you never stop me when I pull you down with me into the salt water where we can’t drink at all but live forever submerged into one thing found when ...