Nine Parties from Before Rent Was Too High
by Phoebe Oathout Issue 78 Do You Know Her was a party at permanent risk of devolving into group therapy, a freak show fat with winos and gorgeous transvestites. Every Tuesday, nine to midnight, the regulars came to play their part. Mork worked the door. Sweet Bee played host. Roy covered the bar, and Delilah […]
Follow the Leader
by Zilla Jones issue 77 Leader came home on a cloudy day during the wet season, when the noon sky was as dark as midnight and the rain rattled down like pebbles, tearing the palm leaves from the trees. It puddled in the trenches lining the island’s main roadway that ran between the airport and […]
The Marvelous Curve
by Andrew David MacDonald issue 76 I. Uritz was shelving some tattered hard covers when the gunshots went off. He didn’t bother stopping. Whenever someone tried to escape, they were shot. Uritz liked the smell of the old books and focused on that instead of the noise. An alarm bell ringing followed the gunshots, and […]
The Negative Cutter
by Sarah Kobrinsky issue 59 I DON’T REMEMBER WHEN I STOPPED looking for her name. It was a game we played in high school. We stayed until the end of every film to see the name of the negative cutter up on the big screen. We waited patiently in the dark as the credits rolled […]
Stay a Stand-Up Bassist Forever
by Jillian Weise issue 60 DEAR NYLES- I’M WRITING TO YOU on a beige and brown typewriter with a resistant return so I have to push when I get to the end of the line. I’m writing to you from an A-frame in the middle of some woods, near a pond in South Carolina. I’m […]
The Saw Is Family
by Tyler Dennis issue 62 WE WATCHED THE ORIGINAL AND WERE TOO SCARED to sleep. Roaches hastened up the shadowy walls, and we counted them to get our minds off that repugnant movie. But still, we heard apparitions and hulking assassins that weren’t there. My aunt Brittany is four years my senior. Back then, at […]
Shades of Nude
issue 64 IN MY GYM’S LOCKER ROOM, I WATCH A WOMAN. She’s there every Tuesday at the same time. I’ll be straightening my hair in the mirror, crafting myself for work, and suddenly she’ll be bent over between the lockers slathering lotion between her toes. The first time I saw her […]
In this Place and Nowhere Else
by Brad Cobb issue 66 AFTER HIS FATHER DIED of a bad liver and meanness, the boy scraped together enough money for a bus ticket out west where he planned to get a job as a ranch hand, though he had no experience and had never ridden a horse. […]
Untitled Prose Poem (#1)
Lineage
by Layla Al-Bedawi issue 67 On Monday I don’t even go inside. I circle the house twice, looking for clues about what is expected of me, how I might help. Finally the only thing I can think to do is drive down to the nursery, buy a bag of tulip bulbs and a shovel, and […]