Inside the quarry building, Lester found an office housing only two desks and a row of filing cabinets. A pad of blotter paper sat on each desk, along with a pen set and blank name plates. A thick layer of dust covered everything, as if all the workers had simultaneously quit or just disappeared. He […]
Close the door behind me. Remove suit jacket. Loosen collar. Roll up shirt sleeves. Hands on the bathroom counter. Head down. Wipe sweat. Okay. Okay. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Rinse my hands in the sink. The water runs crimson then clear. My knuckles, his blood. Sounds echo in my ears. Thud of fists against flesh. Crack […]
The midnight desert always held a special holiness for Lester. In the time after Jacob had left home, he’d tiptoe around his father’s drunken mass and out to the porch to watch the stars poke holes in the darkness, sky that same color as the onyx pieces he’d find when digging in the fields. He’d […]
When Lester returned to his land after the twelve-hour ride back from re-burying his daddy, he found his house vibrating with emptiness. His voice echoed off the wood floors, off the tin dishes sitting in soapy water in the ceramic sinks, off the bare wood walls adorned with only two photographs. He stood in the […]
Emma stood by the window of the caravan looking over the dry field at the distance. There was a chime as the text sent and she swore, jammed her thumb over the speaker and looked to the open door. Curtis laughed. She flipped her phone shut, slid it into her jeans pocket and breathed out […]
Eddy Vasquez quit counting. More than fifty cars lined the dormant highway that cut the desert wastes outside Phoenix in half. He parked his jet black Grand National in the queue. Around the cars were crowded mostly kids sporting the latest hip-hop fashions. They popped their hoods to show off their engines. They bragged how […]
This week we sit down with Terrence McCauley, a New Yorker with a passion for the past. His ex-heavyweight boxer turned enforcer, Terry Quinn, has appeared in joints like THUGLIT and ATOMIC NOIR, as well as recently released novels FIGHT CARD: AGAINST THE ROPES and PROHIBITION, and most recently in our own flashzine with “The […]
Twas hotter than a Tennessee showgirl underneath six buffalo blankets, but the idgits in Blind Gulch came out anyways, eager to get a glimpse at the strangers. Their half-dozen wagons were drawn up single file in the center of town. Each wagon was caked in dust, dimming the bright stars, moons, and flowers that had […]
Quinn had been sitting alone in the quiet darkness of the apartment for hours when he heard what he’d been waiting for. The sound of a cab door slamming outside. The springs of the old chair creaked as he leaned over to slowly inch the blinds away from the window. Three stories below, Richie Sharpe […]
Bruno the fence stared at Gladys Wilson. “I know you have our stuff, Mr. Blatt,” Ms. Wilson said. “I demand you give it to me right now.” “I have no idea what you are talking about,” he replied. “Don’t give me that,” she said. “My grandson told me he sold it all to you, that […]
Cooking fires smoldered, bull frogs croaked and the occasional dog barked as me and Green Johnny stumbled through the poorly lit center lane of the sleepy Stetson River RV- Park at three in the morning on a Tuesday night. Connor Dawkins’s rig was three units on the right and we could already hear the muffled […]
Claude Wooley lost Theodora in a saloon fight. The fight was of a common variety – one cowboy got mad at another cowboy, punches were thrown, tables and bottles were smashed and, before you knew it, just about everyone in the establishment was involved. The saloon was also of a common variety – Smilin’ Jack’s […]
