EXCERPTS FROM WOMEN BORN WITH FUR: A BIOGRAPHY Def­i­n­i­tions Hyper­tri­chosis: An exces­sive growth of hair on the body, pos­si­bly as a result of endocrine dys­func­tion, as in the hir­sutism accom­pa­ny­ing exces­sive adreno­cor­ti­cal func­tion. Hyper­tri­chosis: specif­i­cal­ly refers to hair den­si­ty or length beyond the accept­ed lim­its of nor­mal for a par­tic­u­lar age, race, or sex, and […]

  THE ATTIC They could sit in the attic win­dowsill for a clear view. Or toss off bits of ined­i­ble food. Some­times they shared two or three cig­a­rettes in a sin­gle sit­ting. Or bore­dom got the bet­ter of them and they kissed. Or it wasn’t clear. Even dur­ing the day. Some­times the giant clouds of dust […]

MAMBO Papa loves mam­bo! Mama loves mam­bo! Havin’ their fling again, Younger than spring again, Feel­in’ that zing again, Wow! Los Ange­les I didn’t know what he did with his after­noons until I was six months preg­nant and he didn’t show up at home after a week or so. I got a call from his friend in L.A., […]

NIGHT TERRORS (Writ­ten for and inspired by Ryan Jet­ten) Deceived By God A phrase uttered by G.R., a female prone to Night Ter­rors. Her com­ment was made dur­ing a tirade against the mas­cu­line sex–in par­tic­u­lar, St. Jerome and his view that “Woman is the gate of the dev­il, the road of evil, the sting of the scorpion.” […]

SKIM THIS! MY LIFE AS A RENEGADE READER (SO FAR) As you may or may not know, the super­in­ten­dent of the Dronx pub­lic schools, Melville Kelle­her, ille­gal­ly divert­ed fed­er­al funds ear­marked for Head Start to a pro­gram called Slow Start designed to halt the progress of pre­co­cious stu­dents and thus spare them an unhap­py life of achievement […]

IS AHAB, AHAB I am Opal Thorndike and I’m not. I’m a sliv­er of self-con­s­cious­­ness that has nev­er metas­ta­sized into her thoughts, if she has any. I’m inside her and inside a nov­el scrib­bled by an unre­li­able, maybe incom­pe­tent, nar­ra­tor. It’s a pro­tean world of typos. Eyes and hair change col­or from one moment to the […]

BOYS WILL BE BOYS boys will be boys, dida used to say, the clichéd refrain ring­ing out every time my “boy” cousin got him­self entan­gled into night­mares of his own mak­ing. like when he broke dadu’s mura­no vase while play­ing crick­et, a gift from one of his well-to-do for­eign returned stu­dents, or when he was caught […]

HEART OF OCCIDENT Pro­logue It was the dry end of a ben­der. The earth was scorched and fis­sured. The mass­es ele­vat­ed the fools into rich heroes. The sky rained mis­siles. Night became per­pet­u­al. The land was ash, the air dust. I raked for pok­er chips in the rub­ble of Harrah’s. A scrawny blonde strum­pet approached me […]

THE EXECUTION OF WATER   Table of Con­tents Book i of John Caden­za Book ii of John Caden­za Book iii of John Caden­za Book iv of John Caden­za Book v of John Caden­za Book vi of John Caden­za Book vii of John Caden­za Book viii of John Caden­za Book ix of John Caden­za Book One of Noah […]

THREE VACATIONS Desirous to spend some time in the neigh­bor­hood where Ner­val hanged him­self, I looked into rent­ing a room in Mont­martre. A friend of mine, a suc­cess­ful pho­tog­ra­ph­er, put me in touch with an acquain­tance of hers, Éti­enne Car­roll, who lived there but who would be vaca­tion­ing dur­ing the month of August. He promptly […]