We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Independent, Reader-Supported Publishing
Browse Topics
Alcoholism
Fiction
Our Impending Reconciliation
Sheila won custody. I get alternate weekends and a month in the summer, plus special events if I give notice in advance. It’s working out, mostly. Mark is eight and such a crackerjack, playing soccer and reading Sherlock Holmes.
May 2004
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Drunkard’s Gait
Sometimes I tell them my husband is dead. More often I say he’s working out of town. Or that he’s ill and in a hospital receiving treatment. None of these things is true. Or maybe one of them is. They all could be.
April 2004
Readers Write
Excuses
A leaf floating and swirling in a breeze, the Reading Club, a chipmunk
October 2003
Fiction
Playing Ping-Pong With Pontius Pilate
In the YMCA sauna, Bill Drucker, a pharmacist, was holding forth on the subject of mutual funds, pros and cons, when the door banged open and an icy blast of air slapped everybody’s cheeks. Pontius Pilate strode in, his wool robes shushing against his naked, hairy ankles. “Hello, boys!” he said.
August 2003
Fiction
Nixon’s Funeral
When Wendy murdered her father in her dreams, she used a coat hanger or a wood-handled kitchen knife. She always stabbed him right in the heart. She dreamed of killing him so many times that when he finally died for real, her whole life felt like a dream for a few days.
June 2003
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Do You Know Calvin Jones?
I had seen Calvin beaten, scorned, humiliated by our father. I had been spared; Katie had been spared; Tema had been spared — all because of Calvin. He was the better target, the only son, born with one testicle, his head misshapen by the doctor’s forceps. He’d been our shield. In our daily reconnaissance, he was point.
December 2002
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Ancient History
I stayed in bed, letting the news sink in. My father, whom I both loved and hated: gone. His death was a blessing. It was. I stared out the window at the gray Vermont sky. The house was quiet with the presence of death.
November 2002
Readers Write
The Phone Call
Matzo for Passover, extenuating circumstances, a bundle of dope
September 2002
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Remodeling The Hovel
I dig another nailhead out of the old siding with the cat’s-paw, slip a crowbar around it, and then draw the 16d sinker out. The squawk of the nail letting go jangles my nerves. If an unwelcome memory wanted to announce itself with a noise, the cry of a rusty nail would do the job.
August 2002
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
A Day In The Life Of A Nonrecovering Alcoholic
If you want to spot an alcoholic, look for someone who is always chewing breath mints. This is worth ten points. Strong perfume counts for another ten. You get twenty for slightly over-the-top jocularity; twenty-five for an inadvertent slur.
June 2002
Subscribe & SaveSAVE 52%
Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today