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It Must Be the Season of the Witch

Yeah, I get invited to the occasional Halloween party, but I typically RSVP “no,” or I’m just a no-show because of something that happened to me a few years back. This event wasn’t exactly on Halloween, but maybe a few days before—I can’t remember that detail. When I went to my car whatever morning it was for work, there was a weird little voodoo doll made mostly out of burlap stuck under the windshield wiper. It had a little slip of paper pinned to it inviting me to a Halloween party that night at an address I didn’t recognize. Continue reading “It Must Be the Season of the Witch”

Eight Glass Eyes

It raised its claw from the deck, turned the doorknob, and let itself into the rot-wood house.

Back in basic, they would pass out cigarettes, five to a pack. The front was stamped with the manufacturer’s logo, and on the back, there were cartoon drawings of the enemy, along with their names, weaknesses, and way too many goddamn strengths. I would crush the packages flat, fist to palm, so I could carry them around in an elastic band. Me and the other grunts would exchange them. If you got a pack and it was one you already had, someone else would trade with you as long as yours wasn’t opened.

Mitch’s Fine Stew

Some of you don’t know that I was a cop for twenty-two years and then I got out. I didn’t love the job, but there’s a couple or three things I miss. I’d be on a call, for example, and there’d be too many of us officers hanging about to really do much good for anyone, and then I’d see this one old cop called Mitch, who kind of resembled a potbelly stove in his uniform—all black—bodied and round, hanging back and just taking the whole scene in. Then he’d get this wry expression around his eyes and mouth, and he’d just shuffle back away from the crowd, get in his car, and beat it the nearest way out of there. Continue reading “Mitch’s Fine Stew”

Music for a Revolution

My forefathers saturated what were once pristine fields of this great nation with the blood of British regulars. It’s a fine proud history for the birth of any republic. The French did it differently. The French stormed a fortress guarded by old soldiers who had been permanently disfigured in combat. The French rounded up every fop with a patch and powdered wig and made them kneel under a blade. Continue reading “Music for a Revolution”