Fat kids make easy targets, and, at 10 years old, I was a bus-sized bullseye. Imagine the porkbellied two-year-old stuffing his face with deep fried chicken wings backstage at Maury’s Morbid Babies show. Now picture him eight years later, roaming the blacktop in grey sweats like a baby elephant with a butt cut.
The one block left before our turn stretches out before me like a pirate’s plank, and the more I try to convince myself that everything’s okay, the more I feel like I’m going to be fed to the fishes. The food coma has overtaken my girlfriend at this point and she sits in the passenger seat with her eyes closed. I contemplate turning into our complex, but the possibility of us being murdered is too much to bear. As long as we’re in the car, we’re safe.
I glance inside the restaurant. Everyone looks so warm. Couples smile between bites of pasta and sips of wine. I envy how easy dating used to be. Before I had to research every restaurant I took a girl to. Before I had to scrutinize the staff about each of the ingredients they used in making their “signature sauce”. Before I had to escape to the bathroom just as our meal arrived to inject insulin. Before every meal was a dance with death.
There’s a buzz about the packed theater in New York’s Union Square. It feels like an event with a capital E and it’s filling up quick. An elderly couple searches for a pair of empty seats. Only singles left. A curly-headed woman scoots down to make room. It’s a friendly crowd. I tuck my backpack …
If you missed Part 1, read it here. ♦♦♦ If you’re gonna leave, then go, Don’t need you standing at my door, 'Cause I can’t keep pretending, I don’t love you any more. -Kenny Taylor When her face appeared on the screen he felt his heart constrict, packed tight into a snowball. He couldn’t remember …
“You a Sooner?” a woman said. God, why’d I decide to wear this shirt? I thought. Sure, everything else was dirty and smelled like whiskey cologne, but at least I could’ve avoided a conversation with this… this… I struggled to pull the paper thin, red airplane blanket off of my head. Oh, fuck… This sweet …
I’m an addict. I guess I always have been. If you go back and watch videotapes of me as a child at Christmas, you’ll see me in the background hunting for food while my brother and sister open up presents. One time, I started chewing on a wrapper because I couldn’t find anything else to …
You know that scene at the end of the movie Cloverfield where the guy and girl are running away from the monster and they find shelter in a tunnel in Central Park and everything is fine for a moment and then it all goes to shit and the tunnel collapses and the camera shuts off …
She pressed her lips around the rim of his favorite cup. Her lipstick made the faintest imprint and she smiled knowing he’d know she’d been there. She left as quietly as she came, the cup the only indication she’d ever come around. After a 12-hour shift at the mill, all he ever wanted to do …
Miriam Wittmer was the second person that walked into Mom & Pop’s that day. She was twenty years old but appeared much younger. Pinpointing why was difficult at first. It definitely wasn’t the way she looked. She wore a floor-length navy blue dress with sleeves that covered her wrists, the most inconspicuous black flats a …
Stories by Jared Naylor 