I went back to Forks, the small logging town on the Washington coast, back to the gas station with the sandwich shop and the formica booth out front beneath the mossy overhang, the old sign with 1960s font that says… Read More ›
Memoir
The drugs don’t work
At first there is not much to remember. Our phone number, which mom makes me memorize. Our address, which is where we live. Both have a rhythm that helps me retain the pattern and I can hear the numbers in… Read More ›
Tipping up and touching down
You could think that way if you wanted to, it was a funny way to think. Like you could go back for a redo. I’d been thinking that way for a while leading up to February. It was right when… Read More ›
You can never quarantine the past
In fact Greek life mimics the same behaviors we knew before college, namely the idea of an exclusive club, same as the cliques we formed in high school or on the elementary school playground, the key difference being we added drugs and alcohol and girls.
From a distance
At first the day had no discernible features to it, nothing to hold onto. A smooth rock face stretching up. I made my way through the dark to the coffee pot and back to the den with a blanket where… Read More ›
All the days
They went in a pile beside the bed: the socks, the shirt, the pants and underwear. And in the morning, they came on in the opposite direction. The days were like that too, they got taken off at night and… Read More ›
Letter never sent to my professor, ‘DHG’
What planet were you from? You wrote that on one of my papers. We were all trying to be different, to find our voice. You helped us find ourselves.
How to drink Scotch
The layering of these behaviors was something to unravel when it came time to quit. Because the neural networks in his head, whatever wiring existed there, were largely drawn and defined by alcohol. The pathways to pleasure were like motorways on a map. Either he had to stop visiting those towns or find a new route.
First viewing of Star Wars, 1977
It’s almost summer and we are downtown at the Eric 5 movie theatre standing outside waiting to get in. I am six years old, first grade going on second. We see a girl from school I’ve got a crush on,… Read More ›
Listening to the song Dead Souls while waiting at the park and ride
The end of the season is sloppy, everything dead, on its side or overgrown. It is the in between, one season squeezed out by another, neither in their rightful place. I’ve pulled out the foxglove stalks and laid them on… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 