Tell me Story

Waiting at the DMV yesterday, I watched a middle-aged man who I guessed to be a Native American, a middle-aged American white woman of indeterminate ethnic extraction, and a middle-aged American black man who looked to be a veteran, bonding over their love of chocolate. The American Indian man’s face split wide with laughter as they all shared their struggles with the same weight-loss program. Apparently, it limited their chocolate intake. The conversation began when the American black man spun...

A car should never sound like a World War II bomber. I’m no mechanic but even I know that. This was my first thought after I turned the key in the ignition and a terrible rumbling noise erupted from underneath me. Violently rattling, shuttering at the concussive rhythm of tiny explosions, my parked car felt like I was piloting the Memphis Belle over hostile Nazi Germany. That wasn’t a good sign. I find that anytime you need to imagine Nazi Germany to make sense of your life this is a clear indication something is terribly wrong...

It’s raining on a Friday night in San Francisco and you’re partying in a plush five-story townhouse on Market Street, up there in the swank homes at the top of the Castro district. You snort a couple rails of crystal because it’s Friday and these are your friends; twenty minutes later, you chase the crystal with a few rails of coke and you’re flying now, you can feel your brain sizzling like the fried egg in that ancient anti-drug commercial, fully aware that this is your brain on drugs. You hop...

I thought about the progress of American men while I was standing in the Grove in Los Angeles. It’s a mall that serves as a playground for tourists, rich Angelenos, and celebrities who want to be spotted by the paparazzi and prove in the fan mags that “they’re just like us.” None of those people are why I was thinking about the cycles of American men. It was my nephew. We were walking to see Guardians of the Galaxy at the Grove theater. He and I would do “boy’s night out,” as he liked to call them...

My sister and I have an annual tradition—every year we go shopping on Christmas Eve. I love the swarming madness and sharp elbows of holiday shoppers. The irony delights me. One of my sister’s gifts, each year, is to go with me. She’s always done with her shopping. After long anxious hours pushing through a packed mall, we were now alone, rolling along southern Jersey streets, warm in her family-sized SUV. She was driving us to Target, to enjoy the last bits of our harried Christmas shopping ritual...

Money was tight. I’d eaten through my savings and now, when I wasn’t fantasizing about robbing pimps, I spent the rest of my time questioning my move to Los Angeles. Up in NorCal, I made a good living as a house painter. I hadn’t cooked or bought groceries for a year and a half. I ate three meals a day in restaurants, never checked prices. I traveled every winter when the work slowed around the holidays. But down in SoCal, things were different. Everyone asked if I spoke Spanish, since most of the crews I’d be working with didn’t really speak English...

Growing up, I was the touchy-feely one in my family, which was odd because I was the only boy in a house of women. You might expect that women would be more physical with their love. But nope, it was me. To make matters worse, I am very warm to the touch. With veins that sit close to the skin, I radiate heat. This makes it unpleasant to sit next to me on a couch in the summer. Just ask my sister or mother. One of the things I remember hearing often from them in those sun-cooked months between May...

The double doors of the veterinarian’s office split wide open and a shaft of sunlight rushed into the waiting room like blood coloring a freshly slapped cheek. The room flushed with blinding light. Silhouetted in the doorway, a young woman stood in the darkness of her own shadow. Her head was low, fallen slightly forward, like she’d just run the whole way there, and now, after yanking the doors open, she’d used the last of her energy. It hadn’t been the best morning for Blue. She started the day...

The last of the rain hits the pavement in waves of soft violence. The drops gather into puddles or merge into streams, rushing headlong for the gutter. Meanwhile, I flip pages in my window seat, enjoying the storm-sweetened night. I love a good thunderstorm. They’re rare in Los Angeles. The smell of positive ions and wet dirt mix. It refreshes the air. The night feels kinda electric. Or maybe I just feel that way after reading Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist. The chapter “What We Hunger For” just gutted me, left me split open to the world, desperate to understand our propensity for ugly...

The moon fell fast towards the western horizon like it had been shot dead. There was a smattering of stars left in its wake that decorated the mostly empty night sky. We sat below a giant eucalyptus tree, close together, sipping on wine, relaxing on a wooden bench that wrapped around a stone fire pit that held no fire. The raccoon came out of the bush like some ancient reminder of Nature. She trundled out, not expecting us to be there. Startled, she reared up in a defensive pose. The raccoon was three feet from me...

“So a few weeks back, I saw a guy sleeping on the train.” “I see that all the time.” “Yeah, but this guy was sleeping on a girl’s shoulder.” I’d seen this, too. “And she was looking at her phone,” he said, “probably playing Puzzle & Dragons or something, while the guy slept. Gentle breaths, in and out. That awkward posture of a person sleeping in a cramped space.” He took a swig of his beer. Watched memories swirl near the bottom of the mug. Continued. “I looked at her, and I looked at him, and I figured they were together...

Henry and I met at a writers’ workshop in Daikanyama. He laughed when I told him I usually avoided them because I hated to read poor writing. ‘You pretentious prick,’ he said. ‘I think I love you.’ It was my first — and only — writers’ workshop. . . . Henry wrote a blog. He called it stream of consciousness. He said that was his style. This was intentional — it meant he never had to edit anything. Sometimes he wrote what he thought. Other times, he wrote what he wanted people to think he thought...