Death of the Crocodile by Charles J. Beacham

Grandfather served in World War II on the islands of Okinawa, and was damn proud of it. He talked on-and-on about “those rascally slants” and “those French faggots” and how they owed their very existence to the pride and endurance of the Great Country. Grandfather...

The Salon in 32 B by Alison Stine

When I was nineteen, someone knocked on the door of my basement dorm room, and I opened it, ducking under the exposed water pipe on the ceiling, to find Bob. Blond, smiling Bob in a bow tie, a junior boy I didn’t talk to. He cleared his throat, then extended me an...

The Carpet Layers by Brian Patrick Heston

The rich customers always looked at my brother with scared-shitless-eyes. Nothing in their pristine lives could have prepared them for what they were seeing. I mean my brother was huge, about 6’4, with wild auburn hair and a thick unkempt beard filling his pale face....

A Nonfiction Essay by John Duncan Talbird

I wore a red satin dress with yellow flowers in my hair. I wanted to look good, but not like I was trying too hard. Social events—parties, art openings, baby showers—are a minefield of potential humiliation. The function was a book release party in Soho, a wine and...

Super by Brian Patrick Heston

Robert Thomas walks through the shiny glass doors of DiBartolo’s Costumes Inc, the fifteenth company he will have worked for in the last two years. All of these companies have become more symbols than places now to him, representations of one all-encompassing...