No Orange for Julius
I always told him no one would ride in a black bus. Wouldn’t listen. Threw away his money to redo the fleet. Told him the bus came off like a hearse or some prison transport. Julius blamed the sun. Said he’d tinted the windows amber because people wanted to sleep between transfer points, cities where […]
UltraMicrotome Chekhov
I was arguing in the car with my husband about his best friend. His wife had cried to me over the phone. “Can you believe it? He said that making love to me is like caviar, but sometimes he wants herring.” What a stupid fuck. Taking the side of a friend who’s been sleeping around […]
Transcendentalists
Being that it was sandal weather and time for her feet to reveal themselves to prospective dating partners, Bernice wondered what color to paint her toenails. There were so many choices: reds and pinks were her favorites. Forget those navy blues and blacks those young girls liked; those dark colors were too dense to ride […]
Eddie Palmieri in the Bronx
First-timers expect to see Arthur Murray standing in a striped bow-tie, but all they see is me in my 501s and a black turtleneck, and a lot shorter than Mr. Murray, which is why I started to teach dance in the first place. I didn’t have much going for me except a strong center of […]
Rae-Ann, the Trusted One (2)
Every morning after she had switched on the lights and turned up the thermostat of the Half & Half, she thanked Earl for taking such good care of her. He had been a good man; after his funeral, all the store regulars had mailed her condolence cards in tones of silver and violet that she arranged on the fireplace mantle, and for the first few months, touched each one as she walked in circles from the living room to the kitchen.
The Blood Donor’s Flash of Fiction
In the cigar smoke of an autumn day as pecans dropped to the ground, he drove his SUV to a cream-colored building at the outskirts of a university where students and others in need of fifty dollars toward a bag of groceries lined up for a number.
Houdini’s Cousin in the Storage Unit
…won Flash Fiction Friday at The Portland Review.