First published here

Olivia Clark couldn’t find it. The punch for her Braille writer had rolled off the counter and apparently into oblivion. She was on her knees, feeling the floor, foot by foot, grumbling. Woofy, her ever-happy dog, thought it was a game. He danced around, nuzzled her neck and generally got in the way.

“God, Woofy. Go away someplace. You’re not helping.”

The screen door admitted plentiful sunshine, but it would never be enough. What it did admit this afternoon was the sound of a man’s voice calling her name, probably from the back gate that opened to the alley.

… Continue reading

First published in Deep South Magazine

The once-grand house now drooped in urban shabbiness, as did the rest of the neighborhood. At the turn of the century, the area had boasted Memphis’ carriage trade in graceful French Victorian homes. There had been glossy, black carriages, liveried servants, ships’ captains and cotton traders, ladies in velvet and silk who owned twenty pairs of gloves, elaborate parties, and spoiled children. Since that time, the gentry moved east. In the first wave of change, the houses remained neat, but clearly less than their former selves. They were occupied by large, noisy, extended families, multiple families or elderly remnants of the old life who were just hanging on to the pretense of long ago. In more recent years, some of the beauties were leveled for cheap apartment buildings. Others became boarding houses for the downtrodden. And some stayed in families who loved them despite their rapid decline. Seraphina’s house was just that.

… Continue reading at Deep South magazine

First published in Deep South Magazine

Lunchtime. The one hundred seventy-three students at Warren County Consolidated High School were in the cafetorium. They’d gone through the cafeteria line or brought their lunches from home and settled at the long tables with their buddies for the forty-five minute lunch break. Jocks sat together. Cheerleaders and their pretty wanna-be friends were at a different table. “Nerds” were in one group because no one else understood them. Kids who didn’t know where they belonged formed loose, shape-shifting groupings. Alvaline Turner never fit in anywhere and she didn’t care.  As usual, she made her rounds of all the tables, eating chips at this table, part of someone’s sandwich at that one, some fruit at another. She never bought or brought her own lunch and no one ever denied her.

She was only in the eleventh grade, but she’d been the talk of the school since the ninth grade when her figure bloomed. The good girls wore skirts that brushed their mid-calves. They topped the skirts with white, puffed-sleeve blouses. A few, from families that couldn’t afford decent clothes, wore dungarees, loosely fit, with blouses or sweaters that barely acknowledged their femininity. On the other hand, Alvaline’s dungarees clung to every curve and cleft of her beautifully rounded body. Her blouses and sweaters did the same. The female teachers clucked at her appearance and regularly requested that she be sent home to change, but the principal was a man and her mode of dress was never officially questioned.

Alvaline’s curly, copper-colored hair touched her shoulders and always looked as if she’d just climbed out of bed. She gave wet dreams to all the boys in school. Everyone thought she put out. Some boys claimed to have personal knowledge, but no one could really prove it.

… Continue reading at Deep South magazine

First published in China Grove Magazine

As Opal Pratt pushed her grocery cart to the Piggly Wiggly exit, she saw the clump of other shoppers bunched up and staring outside with exasperation. From the sound and scent, she knew before she saw it that another fall downpour was gracing the parking lot. The left side of the wide set of doors was crowded intermittently with shoppers running in, wet and yelling, from the outside. Opal never understood why the yelling was necessary, but obviously it was. She was too far back in the outward-pointed group to get out of the store easily, so she waited. Every few minutes, one or two shoppers in her group became either brave or impatient and made a dash for their cars. More yelling. A man and woman two shopping carts ahead of her laughed loudly and made a run for it. Opal saw something small, a paper of some sort, float out of their basket as the couple sprinted through the exit. The gust caused by the opening doors gave flight to the paper that crash-landed just three feet from Opal. She looked around and … Continue reading

First published in Belle Reve Literary Journal
Nominated by Belle Reve for a Pushcart Prize

It sounded like a gang of hooligans had surrounded the house and was throwing pebbles on the roof in an increasing assault. But as Opal Pratt lay in bed, she knew the truth. It was late January in Warren County, Mississippi. It was sleet. The sound was too dainty to constitute hail, but the dit-dit-dit had grown heavier and it would likely graduate into a full-out ice storm. The electricity would go out when the coating of ice on electric lines thickened until they snapped. The telephone would go out, too. Her little bedroom space heater would be inoperable. Good thing she had ample wood for the living room fireplace. She should move some from the outside pile to the porch to protect the wood from the coming storm. Wet wood won’t burn, and it would be impossible to retrieve logs after the ice piled up. She needed to take care of the animals, too. She needed to get up.

Opal was not a woman to lie in bed in the middle of the day. If Momma were alive, she’d call Opal a lazy girl. But Momma had been gone for several years and the bed was the only place where Opal could ease the pain in her side. Or was it in her belly? Her chest? It seemed to move around. Maybe it was the entire middle of her ample body. This ache was more intense than it was yesterday, and that hurt more than the day before that. Opal also wasn’t one to run to a doctor for every little thing, but today it didn’t feel like a little thing. Her forehead sizzled with heat and her mouth felt sandy dry.

“I have to get up. Nobody’s going to do this for me,” Opal said out loud.

… Continue reading

First published in Belle Reve Literary Journal

She raced up the back stairs to their second story apartment. It was Friday and Talent Roundup Day on the Mickey Mouse Club. She ran home from school every day for her favorite television show. Friday’s show was her very favorite, but she jerked to a stop on the landing that held the entry to their place. The door was open. No one should be there. Mama was at work. She couldn’t move, didn’t know what to do. And then, through the screen door, she saw mama breeze into the kitchen.

“Baby, why are you just standing there? Come inside.”

“Are you sure? Is there a criminal with a gun in there making you act like everything’s okay so I’ll come in and be captured, too?”

“Good gosh, Zuzu. Get in here. Where did you get that imagination? Never mind. I know.”

… Continue reading

First published in Deep South Magazine

On Saturdays, Opal Pratt went to the Piggly Wiggly in nearby Vicksburg, Mississippi to buy groceries. On Sunday mornings, she went to church and sat alone on the back row. On Mondays, she did her small batch of laundry. On a daily basis, Opal did her chores, listened to the radio and hummed her favorite popular songs. In the afternoon, she took a creamy, sugary mug of coffee to the front porch and sat in her momma’s rocker. The table next to it still needed folded paper stuck under one leg to keep it steady. When she considered the table’s repair, though, she remembered the coin purse that held her savings for a television set. Most people had them.

The dirt road to her house was short making it easy to observe the goings and comings on the highway – delivery trucks, the school bus, the Trailways bus taking folks who knew where.

Opal’s life was small, circumscribed by routine and loneliness.

On this afternoon, …

Continue reading at Deep South Magazine

As soon as the velveteen curtains closed at the front of the stage, Francine Fontaine quickly grabbed up her discarded garments and escaped into the wings to get out of the way for the next dancer. On her way to the shared dressing room, she passed the toothless old doorman who made his usual grab at the tassel dangling from her right breast.

“God dammit, Papere.” She didn’t really care. She always swore at him with a smile. He always cackled and spittle always sprayed. She never even slowed down. Their daily exchange was as choreographed as her striptease.

… Continue reading at Deep South Magazine

Dorcas was just getting ready for bed when her cell phone chirped. Pulling up her jeans to avoid tripping, she retrieved her phone, looked at caller ID and froze. She shot a hard look at her husband and held out the phone for Tony to see. Despite his frown, she answered.

“Yes?”

“Where are you? I don’t even know how long I’ve been waiting and you’re still not here. You’re late. Why do you always keep me waiting like this? You never could keep up with the time.”

“Mother, where are you?”

“You know exactly where I am. I’m on the porch of the old folks’ home where you stuck me. Just stuck me away like I stick away your presents that I never like. You never had good taste.”

… Continue reading at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. She couldn’t do any more. Amelia handed the test booklet to the proctor seated at a small, metal table just outside the door.

“You’ll have free time until lunch,” advised the proctor.

“Thank you.”

Amelia cocked her head momentarily, then started down the hall toward her room. She didn’t turn her head, but she knew others were chattering in clumps along the wide hall that always smelled of cleaning solution. They were comparing notes about the exams, the most recent one in particular. Amelia was generally not included in the camaraderie, but she didn’t care.

She didn’t want to be here, didn’t need to be here, shouldn’t be here. … Continue reading at NPR