Spider ran inside and slammed the door. “I Got ‘em! I followed her and got ‘em as soon as she put ’em in the mailbox out front. She never even knew I was there!” He reached in the front of his jacket and pulled out a handful of oversized colored envelopes. Mickey scratched his head. […]
“What the hell happened, Evan?” my wife Sally says, writing another worry line across her prematurely aging forehead. “I…” I show my palms, because I don’t know where the fuck to begin. I think I do. I had just picked my girl Marie up from daycare, her happy babble in the backseat calming me from […]
Oh the stories they tell, when you allow people the chance to open their souls. We asked for stories of naughty childhoods which we would choose three (3) of the naughtiest or funniest responses. Chris, I and Mr. Hat got to choose the winners. Bill Baber I usually toed the line around Christmas. I wasn’t […]
This is the time of the season where old Kris Kringle assesses who’s been naughty or nice, and if we know our readers like we think, you’ve been kind of naughty. Right? We don’t like to judge. Really, who are we to do such things? We’d rather just give out gifts or free books. As […]
There ain’t no sun today; hell, there ain’t ever much of a sun, not the way my eyes have rotted out their sockets. I sit my bones out on the porch most days, stare into the cold Colorado wind, and wait on the Lord as I have been forty something years. Some days I head […]
Looking at her face, you could tell she was no stranger to a tumbler of booze. Moving down to her ratty, salmon-colored robe, you knew it was from the cheapest bottle money could buy. She was peering out around the door, cock-eyed, and reeking of gin. One shriveled, chalky foot with pink-painted claws peeked out […]
He swung out of the saddle of his big Appaloosa with a smooth, cat-like ripple in muscle and sinews, reaching for the long barreled Sharps 44-40 caliber rifle at the same time. In the dry dust of the open prairie heavy Spanish spurs jingled as he gripped the rifle in one hand and used the […]
Curtis always thought that a criminal wearing a ski mask to commit a crime wasn’t being creative, or original. So when he decided to gather supplies for the robbery his friend and now so called partner in crime Dennis were going to attempt, he purchased two paint ball masks. “Which of these places is it […]
Henri Arceneaux said, “Member what I teach you, you.” He straddled the body in the bottom of the pirogue, making the small, green boat bob like a cork, “We want dem to stay down, so we gots to tickle dem diaphragm.” He was seventy years old and shirtless, his chest and stomach marked with old […]
“Today’s Salton Sea was formed in 1905-07 when the Colorado River broke through irrigation floodgates near Yuma. Since then, Hoover Dam and other dams have supposedly tamed the rampages of the Southwest’s mightiest river. However, the ghosts of Lake Cahuilla and its ancestors born of the river still brood over the valley.” —Lowell and Diana […]
Billy was the runt of the litter. There was no denying it. He was the kid they shoved around. The guy they picked a fight with. He longed to be popular. He just didn’t have the face for it. He knew that. But it never stopped him from dreaming. Somewhere deep, a voice told him […]
