fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
My sister Betsy and her partner Sue got married today. They had been together for 14 years, but the wedding was a spontaneous thing. They were getting ready for work, getting the kids ready for summer day camp, the usual routine. Then they heard that the court struck down the gay marriage ban. Betsy said…
Tuesday, February 15, 2157 I rarely left the mansion much and when I did it was to take walks up in the hills. Trees crop up on the lower edges of north-facing slopes. There aren’t that many trees, just a few, the hardy ones. The survivors. I am a tree, a moving, walking tree. I…
Sunday, February 13, 2157 I’m still here in my palace. This really is a nice place. At one point, some well-to-do lot probably owned it. At least until the rationing started. They probably had money to go to the north. You see, they charge for the wet in Grade A and B zones. So only…
Friday, February 11, 2157 Sorry, I know it’s been a few days. Haven’t been keeping up. I’ve been watching Mad Max, the first time in a while. I guess I’ve watched it, I don’t know, four or five times a day. From the time I wake up to when the sun goes down and I…
[Originally published January 2013] When he opened his eyes, a bright light hit him, though despite its brilliance, it did not make him flinch. He felt warmth from it, but it did not make him perspire. He turned around and saw behind him unfocussed blobs, like muted watercolor brush strokes. Their shapes looked familiar, like…
Of course, J hadn’t been gone a full week before I started to pursue the possibility of a trip to Pyongyang. The idea of going there had always intrigued me, but now I had a purpose. I still felt very skeptical, though, that J would end up as one of my tour guides. First, I…
He liked to be called J, so even his name remained a mystery. We had dinner together a few times. We saw a movie together. I asked teasingly if these things were outside the bounds of tolerance from his government. He only smiled. I actually referenced his peculiar homeland very infrequently. It sat in the…
His uniform and the strong sense of purpose with which he came at me caused an instinctual reaction. I no longer roamed freely around an open market in small-town Malaysia. I was back home in South Central, a frightened nappy-headed kid who knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but felt a need to flee anyway….
[Originally published in February 2012.] When I was about 13 I had to endure a week at Reverend Schlep’s Summer Camp for Men and Boys. It’s a right of passage in my family. My grandfather took my father. My father took my older brothers Mark and Karl, Jr., when they reached the right age. Now…
[Dedicated to Barry. RIP.] Hollywood, some time in 1976 I left the theater alone. He never showed up. It was a shitty movie and I almost left early. I didn’t because I kept hoping that maybe he would show up. Also, too, he cowed me into waiting. The last time he was late, and I…
