fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
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 houses and buildings and…
Their bodies glided across a stage ankle deep in white mist and glittered with streams of tiny lights draped from above. “Newton, isn’t her dress lovely?” his mother said. “Yes, it is,” he answered. However, Newton wasn’t looking at the ballerina or her dress. He was looking at the guy in the tights, which left…
The garage looked as cluttered as the yard. Boxes filled every nook. And stacked on top of them were assorted doodads that the darkness of the space would not reveal. But in the midst of all the clutter, Creepy Man had created a clear pocket for folding chairs that faced what looked like a covered…
Most of the ghost stories centered around 313 Greene Street. It fit the bill as the requisite scary house of the neighborhood. Each generation of neighborhood kids learned the tales about the house and embellished on them. It wasn’t hard to make up stuff about the place. For one, the house itself looked like it…
(Editor’s note: Because this story takes place on Thanksgiving Day, I thought it appropriate to repeat it today. A safe and happy Thanksgiving to all from the gar spot.) Originally published January 30, 2012. Grease splattering, water boiling, pots and pans clanking, bodies moving and shuffling, and layered above it all were the voices of the…
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree. It was stately and it was a dome. Rick and I rode the tram around to the other side of the island, a longer ride than I would have expected. But around one final bluff there it appeared, a translucent, geodesic dome at least six stories…
I stayed up until sunrise. I hadn’t intended to. It just sort of happened. The first part of the night, I spent playing video game. I kept a bunch on my laptop, chiefly for conferences. Whenever I got bored, which happened frequently at conferences, I started playing with the volume turned down while whoever yammered…
For the first ten minutes I sat there listening to all of these colleagues, folks I hadn’t seen for ages, go on about my great achievement. And I first I was pissed off. How did they know about my work? How would they know so much about Lambda when I hadn’t published anything, not even…
“When I woke up in a different room than I remembered falling asleep in, I knew it was going to be one of those days.” That’s a line I normally associate with the morning after I had a few too many. But that wasn’t the case, not this time. I went to bed in my…
Intermediaries arranged a meeting. They selected a neutral location, the house of a mutual friend, which granted privacy and gave neither side an advantage. Lorraine’s mother thought it a waste of time. “Can’t mend a cracked teapot,” she intoned several times. Lorraine had to maintain hope, however, because her very existence hung in the balance. …
