The Big Click

“They’re coming for you,” says Housni, but the line cuts off before Abder can open his mouth. You get what you pay for, right, and five euros a month for a burner with unlimited calls to North Africa nets you zero reliability in the Parisian hood. Abder hops on his scooter and guns it out […]

1991. Last chance living. Where the forgotten slum it. When you’ve got nowhere left to go. That’s the gist of my article for the Daily News – “New York’s Picture Paper.” Bet you’ve seen them hanging around soup kitchens and blood banks and derelict missions. Dead beats socializing on discarded sofas on street corners. Has‐beens […]

Harsh lights hurt his eyes. Too much noise, the rising buzz of indignation from a swarm of different voices. He braced himself, ready to swipe it all away, his top lip curling. “Whoa, easy.” A hand gripped the crook of his elbow. “There’s a way of doing things, eh.” Tension ached like a bruise; the […]

Caleb turned to face the lighthouse. The long white beam wandered the island’s shoreline, swung its wide sweep away and vanished—for only a second—into the horizon. The light repeated its slow arc, swung away again, and Caleb sighed. It was a dark night, well, weren’t they all? Some seemed darker than others. Tonight the sky […]

The high-striker—you know, that game with the sledgehammer and the bell?—was gaffed. But the belly gaff was out of whack, so when the carny running the game pressed his stomach against the gaff button, it got stuck, and nobody even came close to winning. Every able‐bodied man in Scranton, PA was thereby an official Sissy, […]

Sometimes in life, you can’t see what’s coming. You might think you have it all figured out, but, truth is, you don’t. As my feet left the top rope of the ring that day, I thought I knew right where I was going. But, I had no idea. “Stop!” my mama hollered from the sagging […]

Aaron lay on the mat, looking up at the arena lights, waiting for Jim to take hold of his feet. The small crowd, a few hundred people, booed and hissed, for Jim was the heel, six‐foot‐three and just shy of three‐hundred pounds, a former All‐State football player, and was about to execute his finishing maneuver, […]

Interrogation Anyone looking down into that cold little room from the ceiling camera, say, will see two people sitting across from one another in folding chairs at a metal table bolted to the floor—the Meat and the Police Officer, but things are not quite that simple. The Meat is seven people, and the cop is […]

“I need to borrow your car.” “What for?” Gregory did the thing with his head. That little shuffle and tilt she knew well. A bit to the left, avoiding her eyes for a moment, then reaching for the cigarettes in the back pocket of his jeans. It was only five o’clock but already dark and […]

For some people, riots are a place for settling scores. Nominally, we were all committed to non‐violence in our protest against the wars and the bailouts, pollution, and the police state. Property destruction is something else all together, but try telling the cops that. We hit suddenly, without warning, without social media, but somehow the […]