Author
Fiction: How To Survive in New York
The following stories are part of a whole and can be read in sequence. The numbers before the titles are chapter numbers
1.How to Run Away from Home with One Simple Trick
The vagrants joked that the hostel was one stop away from the shelter—and when the college kids weren’t around—they would get real mean; “Jo’s headed to the shelter. Next stop: A cot downtown, then a cold park bench!”
2. How to Make Friends with Interesting People
A scurrying dot next to my shoes caught my eye, and to my horror I watched a giant roach from Bobby Lee’s apartment emerge from my bag. The stowaway ran free under the desk. Before I could kill the insect, a handsome man with blonde, slicked-back hair walked in.
“This city, this goddamn city, it’s just ruined it all for me,” Jocelyn said.
It was too late for Jocelyn, and too late for our friendship. I felt it back when we first met her, even as we loved her and put on a brave face, even when we were in the cab, we couldn’t be her friends because she was shrinking away from all connections. Contemporary Queer
Redbeard jerked the doorknob so hard that I believed he could pull it off the door frame. To my relief, he stopped moving the knob, but the blade of his butcher knife made its terrifying appearance in the crack of the door and I fell backwards into a dirty pile of clothing strewn on the floor. The blade looked like it was trying to smell for me, moving left and right, up and down, until it failed to jimmy the door open and broke itself in two.
6. How To Spend Christmas With Friends On A Budget
I caught sight of the vision of a snow-covered Manhattan gleaming bright lights like jewels and completely abandoned. My legs were on the seat, my shoes dangling from my fingers, my head tilted to the side against the glass, half-asleep and half-dreaming. The bruise in my head, the wetness on the right side of my body, and my gnarled toes, all of these sensations kept me awake.
7. How To Be Respectful of Other Cultures (Latin Night)
Luis giggled coyly and held Bobby Lee’s arm. It was a beautiful interplay between a lion and his meat. I was disgusted and entranced. Luis asked me what brought me to New York, and I told him it was my uncle, my uncle who didn’t give two shits about me after my mother, sister, and grandma died in a car accident. Bobby Lee’s eyes widened in shock. It occurred to me then that I had never told Bobby Lee about my family because he’d never asked.
The man gathered speed and followed me as I moved around, looking for my clothes. I caught a flash of the man’s red eye and balled fist. Why was it so red? We both kept moving, faster and faster around the room, around each other. I grabbed at the walls, nearly tipping over in the circling darkness.
“She’s just a little dirty.” Jason, exasperated, stooped down and under his mattress, reached both arms in, clucked his throat, and slowly pulled out the cat. I gasped at the sight of it The creature that Jason pulled out in no way shape or form resembled a normal house cat; it was a very large pile of orange fur with a hard spiky shell on its back, like a furry ankylosaur.
Fiction: Miscellaneous
Standalone-ish stories
The White Walkers
“I hold a door open for a woman who bolts past me and I notice, for the very first time, that they almost never say thank you.”
Last Shift at the Johnstown Mall
I lift the machine again. My grip slips. The i-Line Makeline doesn’t land, it glides, speeds off like a hungry shark, straight into the darkness of the black basement. It sounds like machine gun fire. Ezra disappears behind it. The machine falls for an eternity. It finally lands at the bottom of the stairs with a loud bang.
Taco Bell Quarterly - Volume 3
Essays:
CATAPULT.CO
Learning to Hate Yourself in Los Angeles
Podcast:
Illustrations:
