Before his father ruins everything and they no longer have car trips, Daniel thinks about the future of family radio. When the whole family is in the car, his father rules a classic rock kingdom where everyone but his sister and her headphones resides. When his father is not in the car, the radio belongs…

On Telling This Story The epidemics were relentless, like the epidemic of laziness—during that one I couldn’t have even told this story, not that I am sure I wanted to tell it, not that I am sure I want to tell it now. The telling is relentless, too. + The Man in the Hills We…

First of all, don’t complicate things. You only need one card. If you’re a Persian-Jew, be Persian. If you’re a poor Arab, that’s great, that’s quite sad, but also a bit redundant. Just say which country, which village you’re from. If you’re mixed, pick the one with the most syllables or better, the one currently…

You found out one day that the man you loved was a duck. This bothered you at first; how did you not equate his words with quacking? How could you have inspired such a transition? Were you a quackologist, a webbed-foot animal whisperer? When he came to you, waking up beside you where your lover…

My wife wanted me to grow a beard. “If I could do it myself,” she said, “I would.” “But I thought women hated beards.” “Maybe I have beard envy.” The next morning I didn’t shave. I didn’t look much different. My wife kept touching my face. “Just checking,” she said. We went to the supermarket.…

John does not own a wall mirror. “Sorry,” he says “we can use each other’s eyes to know we are human, okay?” He does not believe in reflections. There are drops of semen on my lips when he says he loves me for the first time, and tears. I do not dry them. + Twelve…

A man and a woman fall in love and are married, and are happy in every single way. Then one day a flying saucer lands in their backyard, and a door opens and an alien comes out. I’m going to have to take one of you away, it says. What? say the man and woman.…

“So,” she says smiling, “do you think this guy is stalking you or what?” They are going out to lunch together. She is the intern. She is young and vibrant, if a little weird and awkward, with her interest in graphic novels, Spider Man, and him, all things he is interested in as well. He…

My father made me sleep with snakes. They were mutt snakes he’d captured in a spring-loaded Folgers coffee can out back of our trailer where the tawny grass grew patchy and bug-infested. That first night I ran around the bed screaming until both my throat and pupils bled. Dad banged the door. He said he’d…

I. On Hotel Rooms It is considered improper to answer the hotel phone when you are staying with him during his out-of-town work conferences. He may remind you of this, bleary-eyed at 6 a.m. on his way to a meeting, and you should nod, hold your tongue and try not to start a fight right…

Now, there were no secrets good or bad between Daddy and me, but once he got popped for that third DUI coming out of Highlands, he brought me into the family business of carcass shopping down around Seneca and Greer. There he showed me to the bloody back rooms of old gutted trailers and flyspecked…

Isaac comes out of the southwest exit of the shopping mall and there — right there in the very front row of the parking lot — is the largest pickup truck he’s ever seen. Mega cab, height-suspension, four oversized rear wheels, two front, it has one of those trays on the back for transporting dead…