Spirit meets me in an ancient red Chevy pickup. She steps out and slams the door. She has to do it twice. A lovely long-haired chick in a tie-dyed T-shirt with her yellow Labrador Retriever, Buck, riding shotgun. Fine gray hair to the base of her spine. Love senior girls who resist those ear show cuts. We hug, of course. A good one, not of the vanilla variety. “Toss your shit in back, brother.” The handsome Lab, with sad eyes, hops in the truck-bed.

The current receptionist, an older woman seasoned with gossip, related this to you. She was there, yes, when her boss wore foundation and blush—one day he’d forgotten it, and she caught him with a red face smeared with tears and snot. That’s how she knows. You don’t question her; there’s more knowledge in her crow’s feet than in your whole wrinkly brain.

Jack had proudly waved his paper cut-out of a ship, painted purple and glued to a double popsicle stick, when she picked him up at 2:00 that afternoon. “It’s the Pinta!” Jack wriggled, patting Lena’s arm and gazing up at her, thrilled to display his preschool creation. 

"You should take Karate!" Julian said, kicking the air. “That's what I do. Then you can beat him up!" He went on to demonstrate a flurry of jabs and impossible blocks, battling an invisible enemy, until we got to the intersection of Highland Avenue and Spring Street, where he had to turn off to go home. 

In French, voyant means clairvoyant, a seer. It also may mean dramatic or tasteless. Both of these connotations sometimes fit me like a glove. I tend to say the wrong thing at the worst time. I can become addicted to negative feelings. It never bodes well to be seen as cranky, and as I grow older, I learn I must shift into better behavior. 

 “Well, aren’t you going to say something about the car? The transmission in this thing was like nothing I’d ever seen. Any other shop woulda told you to sell it for scrap, but not me.” He pats the hood. “Runs like a top, now.”  

Detective Murphy: I’m Detective Thomas Murphy. Do you understand why you’re here, Mr. Browne?

Jonathan Browne: I suppose.

Detective Murphy: It’s not really an “I suppose” kind of question. Do you or do you not?

Jonathan Browne: I brought myself down here, didn’t I?

During the lunch hour, we used the husk of this pen to smoke weed somebody managed to squeeze somewhere out of Missouri. Now, it holds a spitball, saturated brown with resin and dripping chew spit.

When I was a teenager, I got robbed a lot. This was the mid-1970s, and starting at age 16 I lived alone on East Second Street and Avenue A in New York City. I was short and scrawny. I wore glasses with thick frames and lenses. I bought my clothes from a man who sold rags from a pushcart. I was an easy, if not an affluent, target.

I spend my days watching the same show over and over again. The setting is the Rutherford Funeral Home and Crematorium across the street from my house, and the cast consists of characters suffering the greatest loss anyone can know. I sit behind double-paned glass and wait for a new family to ring the bell, then watch as the funeral director welcomes them in.

Adversity finally arrived and in a swarm. For hours Gemmer had hidden in the brush; his horse now dead from a single shot. Having learned over the past months to move with great stealth, he had been able to slither here and there until he came to a dense spot in the woods where he could hide for a time—perhaps deep into the night. But that was past. The enemy troops were onto him.

The day I was introduced to Miss Peggy Lee was defining. When we met, I cordially took her hand and said "hello." She responded, "thank you very much."

Halfway to the supermarket, my mother wants to know if I’m in the mood for some R&B music because I still haven’t said a word. The next thing I know, she offers me her right hand. I take it, but I’m still unsure why she did it. Maybe it’s all part of her plan to force a big smile onto my face. She takes my silence as a no. “A cigarette, then?” she asks. “Beer? How about a beer?” 

“It doesn’t look much different from the one I have. Come and look,” Brian said as he carried it to the car. He laid the dried-out jacket on the roof and found his folded up on the backseat. He laid it on the roof beside the one from the mill. “What if this was his jacket?”

“The ghost’s jacket?”

“Yeah, why not?”

The ancient green taxi reappeared in my peripheral vision, vanishing once again before I could be certain it had ever been there. Was the filmy web between the past and present dissolving? Would she be gone in an instant? Or would we both be suddenly transported to the streets of a New York where certain death awaited her? And possibly even me?

I picked up an Ataenius beetle from the fifth green and dropped it into his palm. He just stared at it. I explained, tiny as it was, the damage their root-feeding larvae could do. I showed him where the tips of the bentgrass had already yellowed. Soon the plants would die, leaving a bare spot, bad for play and an invitation for weeds. 

It can be assumed that you, the reader, have likely not traversed a catacomb by candlelight, but you likely are aware that catacombs tend to wind and are likely to leave you incredibly lost. This is even more true when you don’t know where you are going.

Three papasans to my left, my rival, Warren, is squirming behind an oversized picture book about dinosaurs. Warren plays on the travel soccer team and acts as if this makes him part of the Holy Family. Yesterday, he told Miss Viki she had beautiful eyes. She blushed and thanked him, but inside was probably thinking: what a nothing boy.  

First, he set the table. White porcelain plates, sterling silver flatware, fresh white cloth napkins, and a glass at each setting. One by one, he gingerly carried each family member to the oval wooden dining room table, ignoring their pungent odor, and engaging them all in light conversation.

It’s been a difficult few years since the arrival of the dishes. Her longtime boyfriend left her, followed by a smattering of men she met online who wouldn’t even stick around to help her start the soaking process. She missed out on a round of promotions at her law firm, then missed out on another round of promotions.