for Helen Lampkin 1. Cat What does one do with her hair for a date of catfishing in the Untethered Lagoon? These were the days before the proper ponytail and permanent, and pomade would sweat and drip. What Jo-Alice did was take her hair, straightened by a hot iron comb with thinly-spaced teeny teeth, and…

“Sonny,” she says. “What was I thinking?” she says. “Thinking you don’t know until you know,” she says. “That’s what I was thinking,” she says. “It’s here now, Sonny,” she says. She points to the box and packing material on the floor. “See for yourself,” she says. I step in. “Maybe not for everyone, if…

The last time I was near a volcano it was in Hawaii and this guy was trying to get me to go on a helicopter ride over Mauna Loa on the Big Island and look at the lava. No thanks, I said, and told him how a few months back one of those helicopters had…

It was hard to sleep in Glen Grove because the nurses kept our room doors open all the time and one of them walked in every fifteen minutes to make sure you hadn’t killed yourself. On my sixth night there, they brought in a new roommate around 4 but I wasn’t really sleeping too well…

My heart races against the tomato in my shirt. The game: what can I fit without anyone taking notice? What can I add to myself and make it look like there’s less? A cucumber can fit almost anywhere if you’re determined enough to take it so I make to look like I’m tying my shoe…

Upset? Of course I was upset. You loan a guy your snow shovel. Small favor, common courtesy, it’s January, he’s your neighbor, no big deal. But then the snowstorms come, three feet overnight, and his sidewalk stays un-shoveled, and you’re stuck with a regular dirt spade. And then, next day, it’s another two feet of…

Translated by John H. McGlynn We drank our coffee on the back terrace of the house. Tante Surti now seemed to be ready to give her testimony. She positioned herself on a chair facing the camera, a sign that we could begin. Before starting, I told Tante Surti that if at any point she began…

It began in the aftermath of the hurricane, when the air smelled like wet earth and D felt like he was drowning in it. For two days, the wind had uprooted the rainforests and levitated the mangrove trees. Crabs ended up where birds lived, and jellyfish lay pulsating on the highways, humming with purple electricity.…

Translated by Roland Glasser In praise of a night of transgression, followed by Lucien and the Diva’s reading. Not all nights had the same chronology of beer, music, dancing, single-mamas in the first flush of youth, dog kebabs, and madness. Those who went out at night knew the plot, the prosody of events, the convulsion…

This story is a fictional account of real events. “Today we enjoy the beauty of our Florida wading birds largely because of these men.” — reads the free standing historical marker, 26 degrees, 54.615 minutes north, by 82 degrees, 05.740 minutes west. + Can’t find any relations,the deputy says, standing on this side of the…

My grandfather, Conrad Espy, owned Espy Enterprises, which in its heyday was one of the most successful black-owned companies in the Carolinas, something unheard of at the time. His company owned grocery stores, restaurants, barbershops and rental properties, making his net worth greater than that of most of his white counterparts. Decades after his death,…

Moose lets her calf practice swimming in the wide river. He is a funny boy. He is older now and used to his legs, but in the water he resembles a cotton-wisp collapsing in rain. All of his hair slicks to his bones and his eyes become large bulbs. He scares the fish. + To…