Kathy was wearing a peach colored blouse, tan slacks and heels. She sat in a smallish booth, the kind with cheap leather seats and a dim pendant light overhead. She was waiting for her next suitor to arrive. She noticed...
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I am cold. I’m not wearing a hat. I forgot my gloves at home. When I left the house, I didn’t think it was that cold, so I just stuck my hands in my jacket pocket and kept walking. By the time I got to the avenue...
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“About time you got here Frankie,” my father said. “Your mother’s been driving me crazy. ‘He’s gonna miss dinner. I made all this food. Where is he?’”
“Yeah where were you, Francis?” my younger brother Tony asked. He introduced me to his new girlfriend, Brenda, a Jewish girl from West Orange. “It’s her first Easter dinner.”
I was 26, living in the Bronx and working as a staff accountant for the New York Yankees. Every Easter Sunday...
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Marci sat staring out at the crowd through the window. She was cute, adorable even, but she didn’t know that. She could see people, middle aged men and woman and young people just starting a family, their little children pointing at her and smiling. Sounds came from their voices but...
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“You ever been on jury duty before?” Stanley, a heavyset middle aged man, was interested in everyone.
“Me? No,” Barry said.
“I’ve been a juror twice. I hope I get picked again.” He bit on his prince shaped pipe for a moment. “One time it was an embezzlement scheme and the last time it was...
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It was a scorching summer morning, the kind of day when most of the kids on my block didn’t bother to come out of their apartments, even if their mothers yelled at them. Easier to...
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She sat at the kitchen table, trying to think where she might find the fifteen cents she needed to get a loaf of bread to go with dinner. It was Friday. The machine shop her husband worked in paid their workers on Fridays. He would come home with money, but the bakery around the corner would be closed by then. She had made a hardy...
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“How can I help you today?”
“I need a marker.” His mouth dry, he couldn’t believe he said those words again when just yesterday, he swore he was done...
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Zach lay quietly on the stretcher bed in the pre-op area, staring up at the ceiling lights. In a few minutes the anesthesiologist would stop by to put him under. His shaved head was covered by a skull cap to keep him warm while he waited. He had been a nervous wreck the night before...
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When Kathy suggested we visit a tarot card reader, I thought she was joking. I was wrong. Our marriage had been under a good deal of stress for months, mostly due to our...
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Look at me! My hands are dirty, I need a shave; my clothes need washing. I am a pig." Rodger and I sat opposite this late middle-aged man as he ranted on about his life. We were sitting in a bar across the street from the law school where we...
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Why was he late? This was the fifth trolley car that stopped on the corner of fourth street and the avenue. Each time a yellow trolley stopped, five or six people got off. One time...
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The radiator in the living room was hot. It made occasional banging and hissing sounds which the boys thought got louder and more frequent whenever they were alone in their second floor apartment. Not that...
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We walk into this dark, beer stained bar in The City and right away I know I should of left, but I wait. Po, the guy I’m lookin’ for, he ain’t here. But another guy, some big dude, all muscle, I only met one time, name’s Lucas, comes up and says...
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They met on line through neverbedumped, one of the popular dating Web sites. After about two weeks emailing each other, they finally agreed they should meet. Following the guidelines...
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“Listen to me Mark, please. We have to get out of here. The Governor has declared a state of emergency.”...
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It was the same day that Don Larsen pitched the perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. Monday, October 8, 1956. So many years ago. That was a big day to a baseball fan, especially...
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Just to be clear, what happened was an accident. I ran over my neighbor’s cat with a lawnmower. I know, sounds...
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The box was sitting in the basement of the house I bought, sight unseen. It was a large, rectangular, cherry wood box with a bright aluminum lid secured by brass hinges. For some reason the wood was...
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“I saw where we were voted the most unfriendly city in the world. Can you believe that man?”
“Where’d you see that, Darius? Who says we’re unfriendly?”
“Saw it in some magazine in the library. Something called Conde Nast Traveler, a supposedly...
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