Stories
Short stories, fiction, book excerpts and memoirs.
Writing
Carmen Miranda on East 5th Street
Coree Spencer
Most of the kitchen staff and busboys at Mary Ann's Mexican restaurant on Fifth Street and Second Avenue in the East Village are from the Dominican Republic, like Luis, a cook in his early twenties. Despite being just a few...
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Writing
Ghosts
Ryan Leone
Back in the days when relationships weren't digitized and couldn't just be deleted, you had to rip down pictures until there were only taped corners left on the wall that would taunt for a lifetime as torn and tiny ghosts.
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Story
A Christmas Miracle, Sort Of…
Ron Kolm
It’s a cold morning, two weeks before Christmas, and I’m walking across 57th street on my way to work when I noticed him up ahead, shuffling along the curb -- silver hair, blue jacket and white sneakers – not dressed f...
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Story
Once Upon a Time in the East Village
Jim Feast
Clarissa felt as if she had gone from starving on a diet of bread and water to gorging on a bountiful smorgasbord. In Oblong, where she grew up, any glimmerings of culture were hard to discern. Her one friend in school, a f...
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Writing
Killing the Dogs of Kathmandu
Jason DeBoer
Killing the Dogs of Kathmandu, by Jason DeBoer
An excerpt from Annihilation Songs: Three Shakespeare Reintegrations, available now from Stalking Horse Press
Editor's Note: This is one of the more interesting pieces that...
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Story
The Swimmer
Liza Béar
New York, July 1 2016. We’d arranged to meet in the lobby of her hotel, a newfangled glass & steel construction with river views and sports facilities. Seated with chin propped on fist, almost in a Rodin Le Penseur pose, w...
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Story
Dr. B. Said
Larissa Shmailo
As I contemplate my treatment by the psychiatrist J. B. M.D. over a span of twenty years, I recall some of the things the good doctor said and did.
Dr. B. of Connecticut, of the upper classes.
Who carried bedpans as an...
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Story
The End of The World
Vincent Zangrillo
New York City—8/8/84—Day to Night
Mark wanted to see how fast he could burn through the 10,000 dollar inheritance from Grandpa Dave, who sold schmatta to Hendrix on St Marks, and who despite his gnomic wisd...
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Story
SLEET
D. James Smith
Sleet, the first he’d seen in California, and not much of it at that. At five thousand feet in February, it made sense, though. Nosing along in his pickup, he’d traced the lake created by Pacific Gas and Electric, part...
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The Sex Pistols: The Dance Band at the End of the World
Drew Hubner
The Sex Pistols: The Dance Band at the End of the World
A tall girl in a yellow ostrich feather top and red Bettie Page bangs, simulates oral sex with Sid, who says, Now that's the kind of girl I like and the band starts ...
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Story
Mink Stole
Vincent Zangrillo
Gregory loved Cookie Mueller. Cookie loved John Waters. John Waters loved Mink Stole.
I was in a pub called Beggars Bush in Ubud, Bali, in 1989, when the guy sitting next to me told me Cookie died. I finished my beer ...
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Writing
New Jersey Me
Rich Ferguson
Jimmy and I drifted through the circus crowd on a magic carpet combo of weed, brews, Jimmy’s mom’s codeine cough medicine, and the downers I’d swiped from my mom’s medicine cabinet. All around us laughter and merry-g...
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