Peel held his arm out to me like a piece of meat, like it wasn’t his, like it was something he found. He looked to me for a reaction at what I saw: the spots along his veins, scarred over,… Read More ›
Memoir
Before there was a name for it
I didn’t know the name for it: 14 years old, spring, going out with a girl on a date, getting a ride to the movies. Innocent love, before it gets complicated with sex. Crawling all over each other with our… Read More ›
Man-kissing in Spain
We drove several hours down the east coast of Spain to a three-day music festival in Benicàssim. I didn’t plan well, and realized once we got there they didn’t have cash machines. I assumed I could get some using my debit… Read More ›
The Waiting Room
Peel died of a heroin overdose in a cheap New York hotel, probably exactly what he wanted. I saved a letter he wrote in 1992, with his careful, shaky verse: instead of my name in the address line on the… Read More ›
Shiftwork
I had rug pattern on my face from sleeping under my boss’s desk while she was out of town. I did it to have the experience, thinking it would yield something meaningful (now, a blog post 16 years later). I… Read More ›
Where have all the good times gone?
Dad and I go for a beer in a small Pennsylvania Dutch town called Leather Corner Post. We cut through Claussville, Kernsville, Orefield, and there it is finally: the Leather Corner Post Hotel. They are known for their boom-ba playing,… Read More ›
It happens in the eyes
Country roads back East, clouds threatening to meet. I can’t tell you how to get there, but I know each turn. Jim explains the meaning of objects in his garage: the cheap, red bow hung on the wall is the… Read More ›
Time’s a Thief
Jim is drinking Vodka with his orange juice. I can tell because he’s using small goblets and sipping, and why would a grown man drink juice at night? Dad adds whatever wine is nearby and open to whatever wine is… Read More ›
The Stack
Unfinished table by IKEA, manual typewriter, one-bedroom apartment, the stack of pages sitting there as evidence, the same place I eat and drink. The answering machine, pictures of heroes on the wall. Rapping the keys until the bell goes off,… Read More ›
Sure
Seven years old, in the bathroom at the Jersey shore, I had to use the one in my grandparent’s room and there was my grand-dad’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, through a crack in the door. He was napping with… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 