Bret Anthony Johnston, “Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses” “His daughter’s first horse came from a traveling carnival where children rode him in miserable clockwise circles. He was swaybacked with a patchy coat and split hooves, but Tammy fell for him on the spot, and Atlee made a cash deal with the carnie. A lifetime ago, just outside Robstown, Texas. Atlee managed the stables west of town; Laurel, his wife, taught lessons there. He hadn’t brought the trailer—buying a pony hadn’t … [Read more...] about ISSUE 63 – Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue
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ISSUE 62
Porochista Khakpour, “Kingdoms” “Years after it happened, her rapist was trying to get in contact with her. In the same week her dog arrived. Lucy called the local Greyhound Rescue chapter months before. She had filled out an application promising that she would be able to walk it at least three times a day, that she would never let it off a leash, that she would feed it regularly, that she would return it immediately should she no longer be able to act as a capable owner. She had had a … [Read more...] about ISSUE 62
ISSUE 66
Jamel Brinkley, “Wolf and Rhonda” “The reunion happened in the party room of the Tavern on Bruckner. Balloons floated to the low ceiling above the heads of St. Paul's Class of 1991. The elderly priest sat in a corner, nodding helplessly at his lap. Old rap songs from twenty years ago, when they were in high school, played from the wall-mounted speakers. The frosted white cake would have stripes of pineapple filling between its layers. It was always this way at their reunions. Maritza Lopez … [Read more...] about ISSUE 66
ISSUE 67
Mark Mayer, “The Clown” “Cruelty and pain were easy quantities, but murder used to express something in him. Take the kings of Greece and Persia who entertained guests with hollow bronze bulls that seemed to bay when wheeled over a fire, when in fact it was condemned queens screaming from inside. It was cruel, it was painful—but it was so kingly too. The court clapping and marveling, pretending they didn’t know, while the king spat seeds from his grapes. The Aztecs murdered like Aztecs, the … [Read more...] about ISSUE 67
ISSUE 68
Rebecca Makkai, “Webster’s Last Stand” “Aubrey tried looking up edible cacti online, only to discover that ‘edible’ had been added to the list of restricted search terms, God only knew why. The computer still let her type the word, but then that blasted red-screen error message popped up, the eagle in one corner, the flag in the other, Bigly’s motto stretched across the bottom, and she read the message aloud to Scott, as if he hadn’t seen it before: An excess of false information exists … [Read more...] about ISSUE 68
ISSUE 69
Karl Taro Greenfeld, “Tragic Flaw” “She had decided, early in tenth grade, that she would not be found wanting academically, and so goodbye DKNY slacks and Calvin Klein tops, Stella McCartney blouses and Balenciaga shoes, and from that point on, it was sweats and flip-flops, her body perpetually banished beneath layers of soft cotton, her outfits interchangeable, her style indistinguishable from any of six dozen other girls all striving in Pacific Point High School AP classes and desperately … [Read more...] about ISSUE 69