The Shipping News

The Shipping News

“If he’d gone on with the others he’d likely have gone into a miserable life. You ask me, Canada was built on the slave labor of those poor Home children, worked to the bone, treated like dirt, half starved and crazed with lonesomeness. See, my father kept in touch...
A Walk On The Wild Side

A Walk On The Wild Side

‘Papers’ – the man held out his paper-taking hand without looking up. ‘Aint the newsboy,’ Dove explained. The man glanced up, then wished he hadn’t. Before him stood something in a pitch helmet off a Walgreen counter, share-croppers’ jeans, sunglasses, a dollar watch...
Two Boys and a Girl

Two Boys and a Girl

Mary Ann tells me you’re going to help with the fence. Yes, sir. There’s not that much of it – shouldn’t take too long. They both looked at the fence, about sixty feet of white pickets that ran along the sidewalk. Mary Ann came out on the porch...
Blood not paint

Blood not paint

They held up a stone. I said, ‘Stone.’ Smiling they said, ‘Stone.’ They showed me a tree. I said, ‘Tree.’ Smiling they said, ‘Tree.’ They shed a man’s blood. I said, ‘Blood.’ Smiling they said,...