Shrimp ‘n’ Grits

“Oh darling, you’re so wonderfully crude,” the senator’s wife exclaimed. “But shh, he’s coming.” She tilted her head to indicate the approaching waiter.

“You folks know what you’d like?” the waiter asked. He crossed his hands politely.

“How do you like the shrimp and grits?” the senator’s wife asked with only a hint of a smile. The waiter smiled broadly.

“Just about my favorite dish on the menu!” he said. “Real nice; like what I had growin’ up.”

“You grow up around here, son?” the senator asked, solemn as a sermon. The waiter nodded.

“’Bout five miles down the road, yessir,” he said.

One of the senator’s party leaned across the table. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mechanic

The door of the station wagon let out a pitiful metallic wail as my wife pulled it shut; the Aries had always been a piece of shit, I thought. My son stared blankly from the passenger seat, watching me in the doorway—watching as his mother backed down the long driveway and into the icy street.

“You’re like a goddam robot,” she had said. “Christ, Andrew, can’t you show even a little emotion about this?”

I couldn’t, so I shrugged blithely, like I was watching someone else’s life fall apart on TV. That’s when she’d started packing her bags.

Honestly, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Marriages end all the time—the statistics are staggering—and I wasn’t about to break down just because we’d failed like so many others. I even felt freed by it; I watched the sun scrape through a dull orange sky and dip below the horizon, then stayed up into the night working on my coupe and watching black-and-white reruns on the flat screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Echoes

I watched my brother’s face as the cocktail of drugs took effect. His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled, and beads of sweat began to appear on his waxy skin. I made sure the contacts were secure against his scalp.

“Turn it on,” I said. Meher’s hand went to the switch, but he hesitated.

“You would do this to your own brother? Your own blood?”

“Of course,” I snapped, “as I have with thousands of patients before. I would not make myself a hypocrite. Besides, it’s perfectly safe—and if there’s any chance of finding out what happened to him, I must try.”

I composed myself in the silence that followed, and repeated calmly:

“Turn it on.”

Meher complied; the machine snapped to life and the faint crackle of current filled the room. Read the rest of this entry »