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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Skinning The Rabbit
My father and brother constructed the trap in the basement workshop. I followed them to the forest behind the barn, where they would set it. We lived on a thirteen-acre farm called Merryview, where we raised horses — hunters, jumpers, and Shetland ponies — along with other animals.
July 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Willie
No one in prison is ever coming back. Once we’ve served our time, everything is finally going to work out. We’re all going to stay in touch, so we can share our good news — except I’ve been giving out a fake phone number this entire time. I’m embarrassed to know these men, eyewitnesses to a shameful period of my life I can’t wait to live down: two years in prison for a nonviolent offense.
July 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
When I Was Invincible
So many times I would take risks that should have scared me but didn’t. When you grow up in a big city with hands-off parents, you become accustomed to harrowing situations. You may even come to feel that the wet plum of fear living permanently in your gut is essential to your being.
June 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Missed Call
It’s 7 AM, and I’ve finally come back to my car. I force myself to check my phone and assess the damage: four missed calls — three from Rebecca, my girlfriend, and one from my father. I’m parked at a Pavilions grocery store on Melrose in Hollywood, a few blocks from the gay bathhouse where I’ve been since yesterday evening.
June 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Lost
People have started offering you desserts in a way they think is casual, saying, “It’s just one bite. It won’t make a difference!” But it does. You can eat certain foods and you cannot eat others, and this is the only way you can feel OK. Losing weight is not the point.
June 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Peanut
The goat became my charge during my third week in rehab. My counselor, Victoria, suggested I browse the stuffed-animal collection at the clinic gift shop and select one to represent my inner child. “Care for it,” she told me. “Keep it safe. Treat your inner child as you would a baby bird that’s fallen out of its nest.” She cupped her hands, as if to cradle a tiny chick.
June 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
That Night, That Morning
That night the parents tell their children they can stay up until nine, an hour past bedtime, but no more. It is a school night, after all, and the children must get up at six tomorrow morning. But this is no ordinary Tuesday night, the parents know, and the children have been begging to stay up later.
May 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Dirty Work
After I stoppped having concerns over a Row Five assignment, there was only one thing I actively feared: the tap. Once every week or so the Narc would tap an attendant on the shoulder and send him or her to the backroom to thin out the population.
May 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Anne
How could so much intelligence and substance so quickly become lost? A powerful presence was gone from our lives. I carefully laid her head back down on the cool earth beside a big bouquet of dandelion flowers that Leslye must have left earlier in the day. Dandelions were always Anne’s favorite.
May 2017
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Foreign Coasts
It’s already sweltering at sunrise on this August Sunday morning in Norfolk, Virginia. My Lebanese grandfather is taking my brother and me fishing for blue crabs on the Elizabeth River. He stands on the dock and drops the oars into the flat-bottomed rowboat.
April 2017
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