Miss Etta handed me the tiny coffin, no bigger than a shoebox. It was made of pine and painted blue. She had bought it to hold her recipe cards in the kitchen.
NOVEL EXCERPTfrom Walk With MeJamie MooreWriter of the Month
After they took the body of my friend away, I lost my ability to move. They'd left the twisted sheet he hung himself with, still tied to the curtain rod. The noose taunted me, its wide mouth ready to claim another black body.
Everyone’s heads turned as Opal Shane made her way down the auditorium’s aisle.
Today, she was dressed in high-waisted denim shorts, a red-and-black plaid shirt, stacks and stacks of long silver necklaces, and a sheer white cardigan. White chucks and black shades topped it off.
It didn’t make sense, yet it looked good.
On a bitter January morning, exactly two months and a day after he arrived in the city, a young actor from Broken Bow, Oklahoma (just a good ol’ boy made good, he would eventually claim in interviews, to the delight of the press) woke up in a fourth-floor studio walk up at the edge of Harlem and Washington Heights. A calico cat, purring like a tiny engine, nuzzled against his chest.
On his way to Calvary, Jesus stopped for a smoke.
The Roman guard said it was okay for a break and helped lay
down the cross. The guard took off his helmet, wiped the sweat
away, told the crowd to take fifteen and then watched as Jesus
pulled a smushed pack of unfiltered Camels from the pocket of
his bloody robe.