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SuperApartment 1A has never given me so much as a McDonald’s gift certificate at Christmas time, even though she has thousands of dollars under her mattress. 1B is a filthy pig. Clean your bathroom, man! I once showed up to replace the window unit in 1C and found Mrs. S. still in her nightie at 4:30 in the afternoon. I thought I heard a noise from the hall closet. At 5:30, Mr. S. said hello to me while I was washing the sidewalk. He looked like he was …more Breakfast at Sunrise “I can’t set foot in the place,” Milla said. “I don’t think I ever will again.” I was only trying to make small talk when I had asked her about the Sunrise Cafe, the tawdry-looking diner across the street from where we sat sipping lattes at the Golden Spoon. I was waiting for the waitress to bring me a cheese danish. Milla was avoiding carbs today, so she hadn’t ordered anything but the coffee. “Everything in my entire life since that moment has been colored by what happened there,” she told me. She shifted in her seat and stared into …more It’s the same dream, but it’s always different. I am back in the old house, the one where we lived before the war came and my father lost his job and we had to move north. I know, as I always know, that HE is here. He is here in the house with me. I can’t hear him, I never see him, I don’t want to see him, because I know what will happen if he finds me. I wake up in my bed in the room we shared. I look around me in the darkness. I can see the three windows, filled with starlight and street lights. There is more light out there, on the shingles of the roof outside the windows, more light on the lawn that slopes away toward the valley. It is most dark inside the house, but this room isn’t the darkest. Everything is there as we left it. The huge old radio …more Mel was my best friend during the summer we spent at Lake Barron. When people asked what “Mel” was short for, she liked to say “Melvin.” Sometimes she’d wait for a reaction, but sometimes she’d just say it and walk away. There was nothing about her that made “Melody” seem like a good fit. Mel and I were horsing around in shallow water in her father’s leaky rowboat the first time I saw the Payton boys race by in their aluminum canoe. I stood staring. Mel waved a greeting, but neither of the boys acknowledged us. They glided past us in a matter of moments. I watched until they disappeared from sight around the point where the campground ended. “Who was that?” I asked Mel. Her family had spent summers on the lake for four years, …more “We went to the Half Moon after we got off work. Lorraine wanted a drink ’cause she says it’s all over with Bobby, there’s no way she’s gonna take him back again. I said no, I’m due back here at 7:30, and she said, oh come on, just come with me for one. “So we took her car, and I left mine behind the diner where I always park it. ’Cause you know I’d always rather ride with somebody else, especially if I’m gonna be drinking. And it was Lo who invited me to this party, so I figured she could make sure I got home. “That guy with the arms was working the back bar …more I wouldn’t be in this mess if I knew all the rules of invisibility. Okay, that’s not strictly true. I’m here waiting for my dad to post bail because I pinched a video game from Radio Shack. I think with another lesson, I probably wouldn’t have gotten busted. Let me back up. I didn’t even know that there were rules of invisibility until last week, when I met Jerry. Jerry was the first guy I’ve known who can make himself invisible, like me. When I figured that out about him, he told me that if I kept his secret, he’d tell me about the rules. “Rules?” I asked. …more By the time I got to Angie’s neighborhood, I didn’t see any ambulance or highway patrol cars. I looked for signs of an accident, a mark on the pavement or something out of place. But what she’d said on the phone had been real sketchy on details, so I wasn’t even sure I was searching in the right spot. There, in front of the Diamond Shamrock, where the road makes a lazy s—were those skid marks on the wet asphalt? Had that light pole always tilted a little to the right? Maybe it had. I’d driven to Angie’s house a thousand times, but not usually in the early hours of the morning, and not after being woken up from a hangover sleep by a hysterical phone call. And I hadn’t made this trip very often in the rain …more By the time I got to Angie’s neighborhood, the ambulance and the highway patrol cars were gone. I tried to find any sign of an accident, a mark on the pavement or something out of place. But what she’d said on the phone hadn’t been too clear on details, so I wasn’t even sure if I was searching in the right spot. There, in front of the Diamond Shamrock, where the road makes a lazy s—were those skid marks on the wet asphalt? Had that light pole always tilted a little to the right? I think maybe it had. I’d driven to her house a thousand times, but not usually in the early hours of the morning, not usually after being woken up from a hangover sleep by a hysterical phone call. And not very often in the dark, in the rain, …more |
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