In the middle of a long, hot summer, Malcolm Watkins attended the funeral of his friend Guillermo Rivas, who had overdosed on OxyContin. Malcolm didn’t know the Rivas family. Other than the priest, Guillermo’s father was the only one who spoke. He kept begging his dead son for forgiveness. He wept so much throughout the funeral that it was hard to understand his words. He kept saying he knew Guillermo would surely forgive
Charlie approached the steam table, held his steel tray out above the sneeze guard, and waited to be served. Sylvia, the blue-aproned lunch attendant, held her spoon poised and waited for his order. Charlie, though, was silent. “Meatloaf?” she offered at last. Charlie shook his head. “Soy burger?” Sylvia asked. Charlie shook his head. Behind him, queued students fidgeted. “Beans?” A shake of the head. “Fruit cup?” “No,” Charlie said.
Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don’t know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of
Moose rose from his stool in Mother’s Saloon at last call and tossed four twenties on the bar, not knowing how much he owed and not caring. He strolled out the front door and onto Ocean Beach. He peeled off his t-shirt and tossed it in the sand, then lumbered toward the water in his shorts and sandals. Thirty feet from the shoreline, he laid down, inhaled the salty night
Karen was down to 100 pounds. She wore long sleeve shirts to work to hide the marks on her arms. It had gotten so bad that one day, her boss pulled her aside and said, “Karen, do we need to talk?” ”Don’t, Ben. Life just sucks right now, you know? I’ll handle it.” And life did suck. She was working a dead-end job with no real prospects. She had lost patience
I It was nearly dark when 10-year-old Tommy Tucker zipped around the corner of the old train station on his bike to witness the cougar atop its prey. Startled by the squeaking brakes and the bike’s headlight, the huge cat retracted its claws and fled across the tracks, disappearing behind an abandoned warehouse. There on the side of the tracks was the limp body of a small girl, face down
