Ed
Summer reminds me, God knows why, of my friend Ed, who is a whole species of man unto himself, the only one of his kind, the very archetype and all possible subsequent permutations of Edness in his own singular person. He is sensible, brilliant, unusually accomplished – he’s a neurosurgeon of great skill, a self-taught...
Sam at the Gun Show
The kid I stand next to at the gun show and ask about pistols—which ones he likes, what he’d buy if he could, if he were eighteen—starts telling me about firecrackers. I’ve been watching him buzz all around the place, table to table, picking up guns, putting them down, visibly annoying some of the vendors. He’s maybe...
Loving Bald Men
Months since my nephew slid otter-slick into the doctor’s hands, I anoint his head with baby oil, brailling his fate: Is baldness in his future? The first time I touched a bald man’s head I was a grown woman, and I read in the elegant bones of his skull my future for the next few hours at...
The Fist
My mother was leaning against the stove, my father at the table looking through the classifieds. I never saw him buy anything that wasn’t a tool. “My father is welcome in this house, forever! If he wants to come for the weekend, get out of the city and sit in the backyard, he’s coming!” My...
Marco Millions
In this stupid town I occasionally get invited to this thing or that because I’m Asian-American, so it happened one time I was invited to the gala opening night of an Eugene O’Neill revival called Marco Millions, which is about Marco Polo. You see the connection. Big Chinese cast. Real Chinese, with one or two other...
Emergency Room, 1978
Sacked out in the on-call room, I awaken to a strident ring. “You’re the resident on call for ob, right?” a tired voice says through the receiver. “I got a real gusher. Think she’s aborting, but that’s technically still pregnant, so she’s yours.” A bit of the meanness that comes with chronic sleep deprivation remains...
Jimmy Milikan
Mrs. Neese once called him an “ornery cuss” because he always got into trouble. I stayed away from him for the most part, but sometimes he’d draw these Jeeps during silent reading like the kind he said his brother Gary had. I didn’t care much about Jeeps, but I thought his drawings were cool, so...
Mask
Danny’s Camaro was primer-gray and had a broken window crank on the passenger side that I cut my leg on when he took a turn too fast. I still have the scar. It had sun-bleached burgundy seats, and the air inside smelled of too-sweet cherry licorice — a pot of air freshener under the seat...
Day of Reckoning
A bell splits the silence before dawn, shattering the last fragments of a restless sleep. Dah-dong, Dah-dong, Dah-dong, Dah-dong! A merciful pause—then four more clangs vibrate through a labyrinth of halls. The window is still dark. I cover my head with the pillow and lie still. A whisper of fear runs through me. The day...
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