The Great American Novel

United States Copyright Registration Number TXu 2-152-977 The day before a great storm he sat behind the wheel of his old pickup truck before his God with his eyes closed and he considered all the necessary preparations. He had made them. Now he wanted to go somewhere, because men like him want a breather before…

And What Have You Done?

It’s Christmas, so what does my neighbor do? He puts a ratty old chair out on the curb. That’s right, a ratty old chair. Now, you might think he’d wait until after Christmas, but no. Right before Christmas he puts a ratty old chair on the curb. It’s blue. It contrasts nicely with the snow…

Pandemic Polemic

The pandemic has done many things. No, that’s not true. It only does one thing to many things. It destroys. It’s a virus. It doesn’t know what the hell its doing, but its doing it to a lot of things and its doing it to a lot of people who thought they knew what they…

Not One Alike

There’s a quilt on the bed. It’s a crazy quilt. It’s what’s called a crazy quilt. You know why it is called by that name? It is called a crazy quilt because it does not follow a pattern. It follows the shape and size of the pieces of cloth of which it is made, the…

Prom Night

“Make it fast,” he said. I tried. “Officer,” I said. “This night is really important for me.” I broke the law. He knew it. I knew it. We both knew it. My girlfriend didn’t know it. I told her to give me a few minutes on the mezzanine level and she didn’t ask why. She…

The Night I Learned to Dance

I had good parents. They bought me dance lessons. Of course, the lessons they bought me never taught me how to dance. Oh, they taught me how to stand in a line with other boys facing a line of girls across the room and approach en masse to the girl directly across the room, bow…

Night Train to Bucharest

It’s been twenty-two years so I suppose I can tell the story. “We are living an important and fruitful moment now,” I said. “What?” she asked. I repeated the comment. “We are living an important and fruitful moment now.” “Is that a line from some play?” she asked me. “No,” I said. “I just made…

Twenty-Five Stars

We have a tradition at our home this time of year. On December First I put a star in our yard and another star in the yard north, south, east and west all around the house every day of the month until Christmas Eve. Then the twenty-fourth star goes up accompanied by the grandest star…

Family Tradition

My uncle Edwin Theodore Hansen, on my mother’s side was a general superintendent of heavy construction and chief of police. He liked to camp, because he was a general superintendent of heavy construction and chief of police. He had a cabin in the north woods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and he often went…

Champion

“I remember,” he said. “Yeah, I remember.” He leaned into the engine compartment of his old pickup. By old we’re talking decades, a 1985 model now well into the twenty first century. That’s old. Trouble started with the misfiring of a couple cylinders. He didn’t know how many. He didn’t know which ones, but he…