My father is morbidly obese and diabetic. At 380 pounds, with ruined knees, the ex-athlete has traded cheers and adulation for gawks and whispers. He’s a carnival attraction, given wide berth, even in the…
Date Archives August 2011
I Confess by Clifton Bates
OK I confess I’m a mess I live alone but I digress. Really I’m a timber cruiser marking old growth. I’m a scout, a surveyor a little bit of both. Nahh, I’m just this guy…
Missed Cues by Brian Fanelli
She drags her fork across the plate, pokes at peas until he asks, What’s wrong now? He pounds a basketball on blacktop, curses bricked free throws and missed 3s, until she stands on the…
The Summer of Our Fall by Brian Fanelli
We had bands named the Cut-ups, Dead Idols, the Flesh Easters— guitarists named Johnny Smack, Frank Spike, Wailing Steve-O, who all burned up the fretboard as fast as Johnny Ramone. We praised them all in…
DEPENDENCE DAY by Michael Meyerhofer
On this, the two hundred forty-third birthday of our nation, I woke from a dream of Nikola Tesla, that immigrant who invented half of everything and probably could have improved the rest had we given…