-Oh, c’mon. What is that? -This thing? Went to a Blue Claws game up in Lakewood back in June. Took my nephews for bat promo night. Dirty water dogs, some suds for me and birch beers for the kids…they were giving theses shit beaters away. Of course, I’m not one for baseball, but it was […]
We tried to tell the Boss it was a bad idea to have the picnic on the same weekend every year, but he liked his things where and when he liked his things. Every year, we expected trouble. Every year, we thought some hot shit new guy on the other side of town would try […]
My daughter had booked a cheap flight landing at City Airport rather than Detroit Metro and her departure from O’Hare had been delayed by snow. No E.T.A had appeared on the monitor for over an hour and my pacing was beginning to wear on the security force, a tired-looking man. In fact, the only high-tech […]
He made eggs the way he made love, she realized: overheated, with an unnecessary amount of cackle and spatter, and a definite preference for the sunny-side up. She was just glad that after today he’d never again go back for seconds. “AC man comes at nine. I want the kitchen clean before then. That doesn’t […]
The Zamboni driver started collecting fire ants when the snow began to thaw–and although the inspiration for the endeavor was not the weather but the removal of bandages from the third-degree burns on his left arm–this hobby was better than picking up a hunting rifle and blasting a bullet through his head like his father […]
Hello, you’ve reached Maria Calmer, please leave a message. Hey, Maria, this is Carolyn… you know…the evil cunt… uh… well… the reason why I’m calling is that I have your Romeo here, for the rest of our fucking life and you don’t even know anything about this baby faced prick, do you, did you know […]
Deddy always said “If I ever get off this mountain, I promise you boys I’m gonna carve us out a new life. One that don’t involve all this killin’. He talked about building us a little house on a flat patch of land, where’s each of us would get our own room. He talked about […]
The crunch of car tyres on gravel signals Wheeler’s arrival home. Headlights flash through the chiffon curtains as his huge four-wheel drive pulls into the carport. The luminous beads on my watch say it’s after seven. I’ve been sitting in the darkness in Wheeler’s bedroom for an hour. His house has given me a different […]
“Go fuck yerself,” croaked Tony De Luca, an exertion that led directly to a three minute spell of coughing, before the old man hacked up and spat out a cocktail of blood and mucus — a parting gift for the kind staff of South Woods State Penitentiary, New Jersey. “Hope you enjoyed your stay, Mr […]
Lanton put the kerosene jug down on the oak table. The table was off. He’d drawn, cut, and measured it, in that order, himself, as a wedding gift he knew Jo would like. Never sanded it though. Splinters with morning coffee wake you up right, she joked. Twenty years they had breakfast every morning, at […]
I sat Raymond down behind the Bywater hospital dumpsters, out of sight of the street, and asked him about the black eye. He looked at the grease stains on them, not at my badge or scowl. He gave me the dirt. Dirty 30 had rolled up on his auto body shop. Told him it was […]
When you think about “Things I’d rather be doing?,” generally it’s a more personal thought. For me that’s how I was introduced to John Kenyon, whose website Things I’d Rather Be Doing acted as a gateway to all things that interest John. Part blog, part magazine, it is an introduction to John’s thinking, manner and […]
