I Was Running the Lights at Prom When the Doors Blew Open
I got ninety dollars to run the follow spot at Telfair High's junior-senior prom. That's the only reason I was in the booth of the old railroad depot
Jade Told Me to Choose in Three Days. My Wife Gave Me Thirty-Nine Years.
The sock under the gas pedal was what got me. A pink sock. Tiny, with a grey dinosaur on the cuff. It had been there three weeks, ever
I Signed the Store Over to My Son for One Dollar
The envelope on the passenger seat of my Silverado was heavier than it looked. Inside was a bill of sale: Hart's Hardware & Feed, 214 South Main Street,
# Half My Social Security
I was the one who brought them in. Let me start there. The shelter in Asheville has a side door with a buzzer. I stood outside for forty
She Asked for $30,000. He Put a Different Number on the Table.
The number was thirty thousand. Blue ballpoint pen on a folded piece of notebook paper, under a quote from Keeney Heating and Air out of Elkhorn City. New
The $110 Goodbye
I’ve worked the front desk at Bayside Pet Spa on Hawthorne for six years. I’ve seen owners weep into their wallets, I’ve seen them tip the groomers in
Buck Waited
Trav was through the door at ten to nine on a Thursday, hauling a shepherd cross by a frayed nylon lead. I had just sent Mr. Honeycutt and
They Sent Me to a Dead Dry Cleaner on Prom Night
I sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s Buick in front of a boarded-up dry cleaner, my dress bunched around my knees, listening to the GPS announce
Ten Days in July
I should have told my daughter before I paid the three hundred dollars. But I didn’t. The deposit slip from the credit union lay on my kitchen table
One Life at a Time
The evening I understood the shape of my life, I was sitting in my kitchen in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, with a glass of flat ginger ale