Fat of Life #1: Firms, every time obese employees eat doughnuts, you lose cash. Send the message that you want portly workers to pony up more insurance bucks. —from Macon Lute, Comptroller, Federal Alliance To Surcharge Obesity / F.A.T.S.O. At eight a.m. Candace...
Luther stared through the windowpane, looking for the thing that hadn’t happened yet. Pauline ignored her brother, and focused on her cross-stitch of a rooster. “I know they talkin’ about me,” Luther said, voice rising and arms crossed. “Uh-huh,” responded Pauline. He...
“I’ll see you soon,” I said. A heartbeat. “Let’s hope not,” said Doctor Omera Sharpe. He smiled even though my throat had closed up and my eyes were filling with tears. “I mean, we don’t want any more accidents, do we? We don’t want you...
At dusk I liked to sit out on the front stoop of my building and watch the people coming and going. Betty Amurrio’s cousins hung out in front, too, in the parking lot, listening to salsa blaring from their lowrider. I liked the graceful way they gestured at each...
As the family neared the compound, they caught their first glimpse of The Bakers. A dozen girls in long floral dresses with golden hair in elaborate braids walked along the side of the road. Each carried a woven basket covered with checked cloth, like the one Little...
By Roberto Loiederman (Editor’s note: This is the third and final installment of this serialized story. Read parts one and two.) April, 1968 – At sea, approaching San Francisco Bay We’d been at sea for more than three weeks and I had a bad case of channel...
