ronearl

The disease had ravaged her body. She bore little resemblance to the woman she once was, but he still loved her. He’d long since forgotten what day it was. Gray stubble covered his cheeks and made him look older than his forty-five years. The smell of the stale broth on the nightstand, and the odor […]

It’s all about Billy. My little brother. It’s always been about Billy. From the moment he squealed for the first time in the arms of the doctor. He was a much cuter baby than me. A full head of spiky black hair and a small upturned nose. I emerged from Mom as bald as Jean-Luc […]

The pre-war rust-bucket taxi dropped Liam during dusk’s golden hour—the whole world a stage. Liam Gallagher dripped out. The sun backlit his lithe frame. He arched and reached to heaven. He knew he looked delicious. Thick shutters peaked open—the caller observed the show. Liam looked around Nixon’s suburban fever dream. The house was brick. Ivy […]

Girls. That’s what Mr. O’Malley called us when he gave us the strawberry Seagram’s wine cooler, which meant he knew it was wrong, since we were sixteen and his students. Felt weird to call him Mister. He wasn’t that much older than we were. Twenty-two, with golden hair and a face tanned from being in […]

Frank was a Junior. Hated it from the day he learned what “junior” meant. Frank Senior drove like he’d wrapped the car in eggs. Junior drove like Hell closed in ten minutes, the St. Christopher statue his ma gave him hanging on to the dashboard for dear life. The old man nibbled around the periphery […]

Their only hope was that Father Derosiers was a creature of habit. Every Friday at 12:25 p.m. sharp, his 1984 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham rounded the blind curve in Kavanaugh Street on his way downtown to what he called his deputy’s luncheon: deputy mayor, deputy police chief, deputy school superintendent and him, the auxiliary bishop of […]

Daddy don’t smoke, but he don’t fuss about it. Live and let live, he says. But Daddy don’t like the man chain-smoking at the Steelworker’s Labor Day Fireworks. He says it’s inconsiderate with kids around. Smokers should go to the third base line where a dozen men stand smoking, spitting and telling bad stories. The […]

Look, I’m not going to sugar coat things. These overhead lights, Danny, this basement, it’s the last place you’re ever going to see. And everything that’s planned, it’s going to happen right over there and you are going to feel every last bit of it before we dump you in that hole. Call it a […]

Bobby Wayne Boyd was a sucker for long legs, short skirts and tube tops, so when he saw Evangeline wrestling with the groceries in the back of her ’87 Toyota it was love at first sight. He couldn’t tell if the tattoo on the small of her back were angel wings or a Harley Davidson […]

Gotta stop picking up strippers, you think to yourself. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last. But that Louisville business worked out, so you’re flush with cash and driving south when you see the sign for Fantasyland Lounge off the interstate and decide what the hell. She comes out on stage […]

The end of my story is problematic. Too many choices. Theo strolls up to the gray, stucco bungalow. Lizzie flings open the red door, her eyes bright blue in her flushed face. Theo isn’t alarmed, though, until she says, “I know about your affair.” Theo searches her damp eyes, clasps her to his strong chest, […]

Carl couldn’t remember how the fight got started. He thought he heard the insult, incompetent moron, but that might have come from him. Carl had been using that expression a lot lately, began just days after the new sous chef arrived. The new sous chef, Derrick, had become a source of annoyance and disappointment for […]