Fiction
My Writing Sounds Like This
NonFiction
from THE PEARL
Daddy took me to Felix’s Oyster Bar in the Quarter “You were born and raised in New Orleans, you have to try raw oysters”. He didn’t demand much from me so I agreed to try . The minute the slime hit my mouth I spit it out and watched it slide all the way down the polished bar and land in front of a fat man wearing a hat and tie. He looked over at us. Daddy gave up on the oyster thing.
from LITTLE WINIFRED
The last time I saw little Winifred, she was trotting down the path to the infirmary, her stuffed monkey’s arm disturbing the
top layer of pebbles. She didn’t notice. This had been her first
stop every morning since discovering a dark path that led to a shabby building on the property. She’d teeter on the smooth
round rock under the window and look in at the thin men
in their narrow beds.
from LITTLE WOMEN
Her self confidence got a little shaky when her husband, for the third night in a row, wanted to see them perform the Balinese Water Dance. This same husband who would not dance or go to the ballet in London, and who she had dragged to see the Golden Women three nights earlier, the same husband who hated doing the same thing twice, often hated to do anything once unless it involved a couch, a TV, and a Cognac.
from DAVID LETTERMAN AND MOM
Later I learned that by breaking the tower up into retail, public, and living space, and buying the airspace above Tiffany’s, its neighbor, Trump had circumvented building regulations (what a surprise) that would have prohibited him from going so high on such a crumb of land, always a tricky dick. Couple that with his schoolgirl vanity and you have a Cyclops missing an eye for introspection. A common brown sparrow, majestically fluffing its feathers oblivious to the fact that it’s not a brilliant blue bird. A hat of hair in all its dandy glory.
from NITROGLYCERIN
That same morning, as I’d slipped into my brother’s souped up 1955 red/white/black/and chromed Chevy to speed towards Isidore Newman School, he’d said, “Hold this”. It was a little vial with liquid in it and he hadn’t bothered to say to be careful. Marshall lived, and died, on the edge. One day he’d cut off the gorgeous red ponytail of the girl who sat in front of him in school
from UNCLE POO IN THE BIG EASY
New Orleans isn’t big and it’s not all that easy to live here what with the wipeout hurricanes, bad schools, uneducated populace, and potholes the size of a plastic swimming pool, but it is easygoing. I went into Walgreens the other day to get a prescription filled. A talkative man walked in and became incensed when neither the pharmacist nor the cute girls behind the counter would acknowledge him. He kept talking, working himself up into a lather at being ignored.