I couldn't believe it: "You were a junkie?"

"'Fraid so," God said, "an, you know that old dopefiend saying, 'If God made anything better, he kept it himself'', an' well, that's the stone truth, and man, I got strung like a dog."

"It was right after me'n this hoochie broke up, an' she still had my nutsack, you know how that goes, an' I'm singin' the blues, an' meanwhile I had this stash an' it's primo an' shit, an' the next thing you know I…

I buried a hooker out in the desert, somewhere quite a few miles northwest of Las Vegas.  Now don't get hating me, I didn't kill her, my brother did.  He's my younger brother and he's always been totally unhinged, a fucking five star psycho ... but he's my brother ... and I've always looked out for him since he got up and took his first few steps.…

Inge Güllensmirtch thinks she's emninently qualified, after 42 years of faithful service putting her nose into drafts of technical manuals spanning everything from Abrams tank weapons systems to Field Sanitation to 'Venereal Diseases: The Soldier's Guide to Prevention & Cure,' "Whilst [I] was wore down upwards of 2,117 blue-leaded editing pencils and saved every stub..." in her duties as the top Mil-Specs Pubs proofreader for the Department of Defense (DoD)…

The words sound like rubber bands bouncing on box springs:  Coom'-low-noom'-low-bong...Tie-yuh-tikimuh-ba'lamah-lamah-la'toe...tir'ty? -- sounds from the spa where Laura has hired me to be her only masseuse.

Kevin shows me around, twists up his face and whispers as he points to a lovely woman named Alice who will eventually tell me about her son who was murdered and how much she wants breast implants, "She from Nauth Vietnam," then a beat to see if…

< the link is the pre-quel>

http://mdjb.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/this-came-for-you/

She used both hands to pick up the box, firmly pushing the door shut with…

As of tonight, I will have lived here for three years, and can now call it home, but he won't remember or mark the day because he takes it for granted that this is home, and special days do not mean anything to him.

Last night I slept hard and long and dreamed deep, dreamed of dividing up a landscape into regions and riding through each region, of a small animal that came to me in despiration so that I could take off the jacket, leash, and too tight t-shirt that some other person had…

For breakfast Stefano ran upstairs because grandma fried brown eggs and potatoes, but of course she let him drink coffee. And before breakfast they recited the rosary aside the big brass bed and a vivid oil painting featuring Mother Mary, Jesus, and a variety of angels.

After the medieval experience he went off to school. Sometimes for lunch he visited the aunt downstairs because she made the best lasagna in the neighborhood and finally, after…

LeRoy, a good friend of ours, is a wing man, well, technically, he’s a breast man, but in terms of chicken, he likes Randy’s Wings and Dreams’ breaded, greasy, Spicy Smokin’ Hot Lava Rockets. 

Tonight, as usual, he systematically broke each traditional wing in…

Fiend sneaks down the lane, hauling his lawn chair

past the  marshy yard full of  oompah-ing bullfrogs

 and  buzzing insects sawing away

at their own carapaces.

Fiend is on the prowl, sharkish smile not fooling

anyone (and neither do his humble plaid shirt…

The Apocalypse rode into town on four horses, but dammit, the light wasn't right, so we had 'em back up and ride in again.

We're SCAM, S-C-A-M, and we bring you your world, and your world's what we sell every night at 11, after the kiddies are tucked in their beds. 

Kiddies ask questions...

And see, we kind of fudge with the backdrops and stuff, give you wars without reason, crime in black colors, financial tsunamis sans villains, and so forth--high…

Mr. Kitchens spent the better part of an hour, in the applications line, staring at a mole on the neck of the woman in front of him; so it was all he could do to remain calm enough to completed the darn thing. He really needed a break, so he tucked the standard sawed-off pencil into his shirt, then neatly folded the application and slipped it into his pants pocket before going to find a restroom. On his way out, Mr. Kitchens…

Francois had always believed that he was a prince transformed into a frog, and that a kiss from a beautiful princess would change him back.  However, when the Princess Angelica kissed him fully, warmly and intensely on his froggy lips, and nothing happened (except that the Princess spit repeatedly and rubbed her lips nearly rare with a cloth afterwards), he was very confused and downhearted.  Francois had no idea what to do; he certainly wasn’t going to go live in the swamp with his frog…

His very first day Joey walked in the lunch hall, and there in the middle of the floor was this dude who had on a Stetson, a stiffy, and nothing, and was putting on a show, an air-guitar special, caterwauls extra, long stabs at Parchman Farm Blues...or maybe it's just, he was gargling with Drano...

They'd emptied the nuthouse and some of those guys wound up here

Joey's first day in this place, an auspicious kick-off to three-to-five years...

He got his chow and he saw a…

“If I see an ending, I can work backward.” -- Arthur Miller

Mathematical systems cannot prove themselves to be true.  Of course, this adds to the argument that the universe created itself from nothing.  From here to there, it’s not that long a fall—not really.  I’m almost there.  The lingering question: was I pushed or did I jump?   The final seconds so ecstatically terrible, they could be a Hollywood action movie—if run…

The artist asked Caroline which year of her life was most perfect - when did she feel most free - so Caroline rolled the years back in her mind, remembering how relieved she felt in her forties to have her children grown and her career well established.

She thought forty-two might be the year, and then remembered how her husband’s drinking began to spiral out of hand that year, so slowly that she did not even notice, as busy as she was with work; she was her most productive at…

A sign in this airport used to say "Watch Your Valuables" until someone crossed out the a-b-l and now it faces the Homeland Security checkpoint, warning, "Watch Your Valu es." 

That strikes me as good advice to the men wearing latex gloves and shiny badges below their humorless chins who keep alert for foreigners in turbans or longhaired feckless boys with dotcom eyes.

A man hums by on a…

No longer would I be in a position to pity those stuck in sedate and sensible sedans and minivans.

"It's just a truck," I tell myself, running a hand along the A-pillar onto the deep blue pearl of the hood and off the rugged plastic fenders.  I'm lost remembering frequent trips to nowhere only to feel the comforting night air swirl and tunnel its way through the cabin.  Memories of carefree times and her chestnut brown hair swimming in the breeze as we cruised along with the…

While reading an NFP manual (Natural Family Planning, aka, Catholic birth control) I read about inexplicable cases of pregnancy despite strict adherence to the rules, cases the book referred to as "miracles"; no thanks, I don't want one.

I want to ask people like this who confidently pronounce all things as either "God's will" or "Devil's work" - what about the chilling gray area stuff?  Like debilitating sciatica, devastating hurricanes, or a midlife pregnancy (miracle) that…

He's an univited houseguest, a duty, one that goes along with working for someone else but living in this amazing place, so I've grilled steaks, baked potatoes, picked a salad, heated some beans, grated some cheese, unwrapped my polite smile and poured a rather stiff drink, but the evening mellows, and my heart settles into benevolence, and the plates are shoved aside and he pours his second glass of wine.

The talk turns to stories of the old west, Teddy Blue Abbott, the…