Below is a selection of stories I've had published both online and in print. Thanks again to all of the fine magazines that believed enough in these stories to publish them in the first place.
Ten Scenes From a Movie called Mercy (upcoming in No Colony, 2008)
Ken Sent Me: Lost in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (upcoming in Hobart, 2008)
Like a Giant Beacon (published in Juked, March 2008)
The Ferris wheel is on fire, and has been for a while by the time the commotion wakes us and leads us back out onto the midway. No one can tell us how it happened, only that it is happening. Everyone is confused about things and we are no different. We can’t even remember what town we’re in, or what day it is. The monotony of carnival life is a boredom broken only now by the singular event of the Ferris wheel burning.
Stealing Susan (published in Bruiser Review, January 2008)
At first, Susan baited each purse with a twenty dollar bill, only realizing after the first half dozen that no one ever looked inside before they stole one. Now she fills them with objects that would otherwise be impossible to get stolen on their own. She leaves purses stuffed with letters in hotel lobbies and in restaurants and fills others with vacation photos before dropping them in bus stations and train terminals. People steal purses coming and going, before meeting friends and after leaving family behind. Finally, there’s only one left, the purse that was once her favorite. Will bought it for her when he knew it was ending but she did not. He got the guilt, she got a three hundred dollar purse. Something for everyone.
Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken (published in Storyglossia 23, September 2007, finalist for the Storyglossia Fiction Prize, Notable Story in Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2008, Million Writers Award Notable Story of 2007, reprinted February 2008 in the Italian literary magazine Buràn as Alex Trebek non mangia mai pollo fritto (translation by Stefania Rega))
Maureen is working at Kentucky Fried Chicken, where she is an assistant manager. I'll meet her tomorrow, on my first day working there. Her boyfriend Brad is at rehearsal, playing bass in a Christian death metal band, which is so totally ludicrous that I will never quite learn to let it go. There are three girls somewhere nearby as well, girls that I am dating or have dated or should not be dating anymore but still am. None of their names are used here so it doesn't matter what I say about them. Alex Trebek is also in this story. He's hosting "Jeopardy" on the television in my house, and in Maureen's house. Probably in your house too. It doesn't matter. Like I said, he's in this story, but really he plays a very tiny part. None of us will ever even meet him.
A Certain Number of Bedrooms, a Certain Number of Baths (published in Caketrain 04, 2007)
The boy carries the blueprint catalogs everywhere he goes, mostly keeping them in his backpack and occasionally looking inside to spy on their colorful covers. He feels comforted knowing they are nearby. After school, he locks himself in the empty house and sits at the kitchen table, where he fans the catalogs out in front of him as he eats his snack. He compares the artist’s renditions on the left page with the floor plans on the right, then moves to the living room floor where he turns the thin catalog pages and ignores his cartoons. During Transformers or G.I. Joe, he turns the volume all the way down so he can hear himself enunciating the names of the homes he hopes his father will build.
Mario's Three Lives (published in Bound Off, December 2006, and in Barrelhouse #4, 2007)
The plumber has three lives left or else he is already dead. Maybe he leaps across the gorge with ease, flying high through the air to land safely on the other side. The jump is simple because he’s able to check the edge several times, waiting until he is sure of his footing, or else it’s impossible because on this world there’s an invisible hand pushing him forward, speeding him along, forcing him to leap before he’s ready. If that happens then the plumber is going to die.
Anything (published in Greatest Uncommon Denominator, 2007)
Sitting on the toilet, I gently kick her once, twice, three times in the ribs. She doesn’t move. I don’t know what I’ll do if she wakes up, but if she stays unconscious, well, then I’ve got an idea.
Player Piano (published in Juked, 2006)
My wife and I were blessed all right. We had everything. Really, we did. Good jobs and a great home, a loving family, plus all the creature comforts and material possessions a person could want. My wife, she still looked as pretty as the day I met her, and even at my age I was healthy with a full head of hair. On top of all her other fine qualities, my wife was a virtuoso musician. One day, she regretfully reported that our vintage piano needed tuning. In fact, she claimed it had always been the slightest bit out of tune and now she was finally tired of just living with it.
Excerpt From Volume H-Hn: Hair Boxes (published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, August 2006)
Hair boxes were not discovered until late in the twentieth century, when they were developed as a response to the saturation of beauty-based advertising and/or the disappearance of understandable social rituals. The boxes themselves are most often created from scratch, the maker sensing that store-bought containers are inappropriate to his task. This is not to suggest, of course, that the maker realizes what he is going to do with the box nor why he must build one. Despite this uncertainty, the maker still manages to assemble a receptacle roughly the size of a shoe box, most commonly out of wood but sometimes from metal or plastic. It is not until the box is finished that the maker decides to remove his own hair.
The Present (published online in juked, 2006, then reprinted in juked print #4, nominated for the Pushcart Prize)
The morning of our anniversary, Emily handed me a present wrapped in purple and gold. I tore the wrapping away to reveal a gift box filled with thin, crinkly tissue paper. Inside was Emily’s left hand, cut off cleanly at the wrist.
The Diner (published in The Quiet Feather, 2006)
The diner was supposed to be brand new, but after a single look at its dirty counter top and cracked floor tiles I could see that it’d been there forever.
The Raincheck (published in Storyglossia #15, August 2006, Million Writer's Award Notable Story of 2006, reprinted April 2008 as Il Raincheck in the Italian literary magazine Il paradiso degli orchi (translation by Stefania Rega))
It is no longer clear to me which came first, the woman or the Raincheck Lounge. Often I believe that they came into my life at the same time, appearing in such close proximity here in the city, which back then was still a stranger to me. There was a man too, but he came later, too late for me to understand who he was. Not who he really was. I don’t mean that. No one could know that. What I mean is, who he was in relation to me, and to the woman, and to the Raincheck.
An End to Efficient Vehicles (published in Rumble, August 2006)
In the sky, invisible microwaves crisscross like jet trails, undetectable to us but disorienting to migrating birds, rearranging the Vs of geese into characters from new, unknowable alphabets.
CHAINSAW (n.) (published in elimae, 2006)
Used primarily for the removal of foliage, branches, and dead limbs (see also AMPUTATION).
The Plastic Surgeon's Wife (published in Thieves Jargon, July 2006)
The plastic surgeon’s wife strips briskly, revealing herself for the one-armed man, not taking time to seduce him with slow movements or soft words. The woman doesn’t have to try, not with her perky breasts and her tucked stomach, her sculpted thighs and collagen lips.
Instructions For My Twenty-Third Year (published in Edifice Wrecked, June 2006)
Get dressed and know that you look good. Watch the clock. Feel impatient but wait anyway, so that you don’t show up too soon and blow the whole night by getting bored before anything good happens. Don’t act like an amateur. Be better than that.
How the Broken Lead the Blind Until They Both Become Something Else Entirely (published in Smokelong Quarterly #13, June 2006) -- Read the accompanying interview here.
The blind woman cannot help spoiling her seeing eye dog and so one day as they step out of her building and onto the sidewalk she realizes the dog has forgotten its training. She ruined her first set of eyes with night reading and a refusal to get glasses and now she has ruined her second with the indiscriminate dispensation of treats.
White Lines and Headlights (published in Barrelhouse #2, 2006, nominated for the Pushcart Prize)
Weeks later, we are parked outside a drugstore in Omaha, the hundredth such drugstore I’ve visited this summer. I’ve got the Big Book propped up on the steering wheel, reading by the streetlight filtering in the window. I’m shaking because I know what the girls are inside buying and also because I’m starving to death, having refused to eat anything the girls have prepared. They cook all of the team’s meals and therefore mine. Amy takes her meals in conference rooms, meeting with other coaches and tournament organizers. She won’t let me sneak away without the girls or the team because she’s afraid I’ll go get high, go get stoned. I won’t eat for the same reason.
Rest Stop (published in Hobart #5, 2005) -- Listen to me read this story here.
What I wanted to tell her was that I hadn’t left because of what I did to her, or what she did to me. This wasn’t about what we had or hadn’t done, not now that we were three thousand miles apart. Out here, everything was finally going to change. Reality got wax paper thin, and although I couldn’t see the other side, I often knew it was there.
Twenty Fingers (published in FRiGG, 2005, and in Cellar Roots, 2004)
Sorry bout that. So there I was, blooming late into the sexual arena, and it took me a while to get my bearings, to build up some confidence. Eventually though, I realized what a gift I had, and that I should be using these things in bed, with girls. I couldn’t see why not. After all, an extra set of phalanges came in handy enough in those lonely teenage years, let me tell you.
Ground Rules (published in FRiGG, 2005) -- An excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Basic Beautiful Loser
How this works is, I have to cum if I want to heal someone. Just like Christ spitting into the eyes of all those beggars, my miracle’s a wet one. The women I’m expected to heal, they’re the lepers and lame men of the 21st century, cast out of a society increasingly defined by its advertisements, by a corporate idea of what a woman is, that popular delusion I helped create every time I showed up to work.
Five Pop Quizzes (published in FRiGG, 2005)
Separate Checks (published in Me Three, 2005)
There are three men sitting with the blonde girl in the mall-bought jeans. It is two-thirty am, three o clock, four in the morning. It is one of those times.
How to Befriend a Chimera (published in The Beat, 2005)
The man looked down at the golden retriever puppy. The dog returned his gaze, wagging its tail and panting cheerfully as the man tried in vain to smile. He still hadn’t named the dog and wasn’t sure if he should, not if he wanted to feel okay about stealing its liver.
Joseph's Dilemma (published in Monkeybicycle, 2005)
Mary was born with a lead marble in her belly, distending her still umbilical navel. By the time she was fifteen, it was the size of a watermelon, curving her spine with its weight. She moved from town to town, followed by cries of witch and oracle and the constant threat of stoning, with only the carpenter Joseph to protect her.
Rosemary Blooming (published in Cellar Roots, 2005, nominated for the Pushcart Prize)
My dad is waking me up, shaking me from my usual spot on the couch. “Sarah,” he says, just my name over and over. In the kitchen, my mom is cooking a breakfast neither my dad nor I have time to eat. Twenty minutes away, Alex is sitting on his porch, a stinking Camel hanging from his lips. He’s lacing his boots, which are exactly like my dad’s, putting on his Carhart jacket that is also exactly just like my dad’s. He wishes he was my father but he’s just my boyfriend. My brother Toby is sleeping hard because he’s retarded and doesn’t go to school anymore. He’s drooling on his pillow just a little more than Angie, who is also sleeping in, drunk and snoring just enough to keep the boy next to her awake. I don’t know what Helen’s doing because I haven’t met her yet. I haven’t met Rosemary yet either, but I’m sure she is just as busy dying as she will be the first time I see her.
The Birthday Gift (published in The Detroiter, 2005)
Ignoring his other presents, the boy immediately begins working on the first page of the Book of Mazes. He knows that for the first time, he’s received a gift perfectly matching his peculiar skills.
Fireworks (published in Cellar Door, 2004)
The crowd was filled with good will, fueled by alcohol and the anticipation of the fireworks, which were to fired from a barge out in the middle of the river. There were signs all over town announcing fundraising efforts to save the fireworks. According to the locals, this happened every year. Eventually there would be no fireworks here and people would have to drive elsewhere to watch them. Someone later told me that many of the towns no longer had fireworks at all, but laser shows. The lasers could be reused every year, and anyway, the West was drying out. Fireworks were dangerous in the desert, and it seemed to everyone that the desert was spreading. I didn’t know anything about that, about the dryness. Everything about me was still so wet all the time.
Respect (published in Metal Scratches, 2004)
The first time you change your life it’s completely by accident. You’re wearing a dress because you lost a bet, nothing more. The dress doesn’t fit and your makeup was applied by a drunk and laughing friend. Later a fat bald man feeds you lines that make you feel brilliant and precognizant, and you know he is going to tell you that you’re beautiful even before he opens his mouth.
Something Less Than Beautiful (published in The Driftwood Review, 2004)
Jake says the only time his face looks really good, as in fantastic, wall poster good, is when a dozen flashbulbs are lighting it up, but only during a three-quarters shot from the right side. Even then, he has to have the perfect amount of stubble. According to Jake, that means you should shave approximately nine hours before you need to look perfect.
That’s Rule No. 12, if you’re counting.
El Camino Education (published in The Drexel Online Journal, 2004)
When the man stopped the El Camino, I assumed he was letting me out, there on the shoulder of the rain-drenched highway. It had happened that way before, and I knew I’d be stranded there for hours. I started to beg, but he hushed me with a wave of his hand. He got out of the car and walked around the back.
91.67:8.33 (published in Thieves Jargon, 2004)
The building is still dark, uninhabited. It is early and so he works alone, testing a new method for the first time. He inserts the materials one at a time into the terrible new machines. He wonders at their color coding. Purple for plastic, green for glass, blue for aluminum. Blue for aluminum. He does not like this disruption of even the simplest pattern. The machines are here to disrupt a pattern stretching back to the beginning, when he bought his first pair of non-slip shoes, donned his first red smock.
