In the Shadow of the Belt, Chapter 13: Did I Hit My Children?

Yes. But, by and large, I do not think this counts as flogging. Daughter I hit my daughter four times. The first time was when she was six years old.…


6 to 6: The Rest of It

It’s a hot mid-afternoon and I stop my cab at Fry’s to buy a chocolate bar for my wife. She always asks me to buy her a chocolate bar and I usually…


In the Shadow of the Belt, Chapter 12: Why Did I Join the Military?

She Beats You Because She Loves You People around us knew that my mother regularly, almost every day, beat me or my brother, and more often both of…


6 to 6: Arivaca

Debora Hunter, 389 W. Rillito Drive, is seven feet tall; her head eclipses the sun. She doubles over to get in my cab, her face a sad skull with…


In the Shadow of the Belt, Chapter 11: Basketball

I have always loved sports. As a preschooler, I ran with my small friends in hole-hole, in the ninth grade I began to seriously engage in basketball,…


1-800-Suicide-Hotline, Ext. ATM

One of the absolute best reasons to not commit suicide is the fact that there’s a good chance you’ll get to fuck again before you die of whatever…


6 to 6: Somebody Say the Magic Word

I get out of the cab and step into the oven of a normal Arizona summer day. I can’t find her, I can’t find her. My passenger is supposed to be at the…


About Politics

I am standing before a cute mirror, therethrough looking, and I see there Prometheus, his torches with fires, a weird-like ash, a poetical comet as…


In the Shadow of the Belt, Chapter 10: Drama Studio

Young Voices I got into the literary circle “Young Voices” thanks to Genka Pantyukhov, my classmate and the son of a physics teacher. We were fond of…


6 to 6: And Deliver Us from the Vikings, Amen

A flashlight comes on in the dark. The light defines the motions of a man’s hand as he rises to his feet. The light lands here and there on empty…