You are currently viewing the stories for December, 2006
The Super With The Toy Face: Redux
by Ennis Smith 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
[When the site first published Ennis Smith’s “The Super With The Toy Face,” its impact was felt immediately–not just on the site, but on the literary history of the United States. Smith has sent us a revised version of the piece, which we are happy to publish below. We’re going to keep the original up, […]
To Every Dog Its Bone
by Suzanne Comeau 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Lower East Side
I felt like I owed him something, even if I couldn’t say what. It wasn’t money. I closed my eyes like a dead man and gave those coins to the nuns on the corner. My brother is a music publisher. I’m not really sure what this means, but I’m proud. People always ask about it. […]
The Iguana Incident
by Hal Sirowitz 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope
In Park Slope, Brooklyn, on a week-day afternoon a woman was trying to sell her iguana for twenty-five dollars. She was giving it up for a more traditional pet, like a cat who didn’t need to be constantly put out in the sun to digest its meal but could do so underneath the bed. “It […]
The Smell of Bologna (An Essay in Ten Parts)
by Patrick J. Sauer 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx
[Patrick J. Sauer also has a website. –Ed.] The sense of smell is the most powerful reminder of past events. It’s the hardest sense to pin down, the hardest to define. A smell is never described as it is, only in simile form. It smells like burning leaves. You know, it smells wet, like…like…like a […]
Joyless Dancer
by Sherri Rosen 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Financial District
A young woman dressed in a leotard was dancing in City Hall Park today. The sun was brilliant and warm, the fountain flowing with water and the soft sound of an alto sax in the background. I felt nurtured in the sun, and great joy looking at the voluminous colors of spring tulips in luscious, […]
Four Years
by James Patrick Brogan 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
We are driving in from the country, out where we go to school, a little town in a valley and a school on the hill. We come in from the west, over the Bridge with the sun sliding around the tip of lower Manhattan, mocking the Lady’s little torch, basking in its own reflection off […]
Heteroflexibility
by Daphne 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea, Multiple
I troll craigslist searching for traces of my ex. He dates trannies and the dregs of society. I had lunch with him the other day and I said, “Hey Luke, did you put this ad up?” “Oh my god! How the hell did you know!” I wanted to say, it’s really not that difficult when […]
The Last Pharmacy
by Lacan 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I have three different nights confused in my mind. It was raining each night–a sentimental story. This is a sentimental story. I have been living in Vermont so long now that when I come back to the city its cleanliness and prosperity seem obscene to me. These nights were different–in my memory it was darker […]
Felix’s Eighth Life
by Ken Krimstein 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I never shared my life with any pets – unless you count a legion of uninvited cockroaches. Until I got married, that is, and my wife brought a black cat home from the gym. “This cat has been rescued, my instructor was offering him up,” she said. “Cat’s poop inside,” I said. “You’ll love him.” […]
Rory
by Thomas R. Pryor 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Outer Boroughs, Queens
Early March 1954, in a Woodside apartment overlooking the # 7 Subway El and the Long Island Railroad station below it, two express trains crisscrossed, one rattling over the other. “Bob, please get me some food.” Patricia pleaded from the kitchen to the living room. “There’s plenty of food,” Bob answered as he played with […]
Something in Common
by erika 12/31/2006Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
As a survivor of a tragic event, I remember it like it was yesterday and yet, it seems like a dream. The first five weeks were surreal. I don’t know how I got through it. My friends helped. Everyone said I was strong–I wasn’t. I wanted to die. I almost did but I held on […]
Wat is the Wat
by Matthew Fishbane 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Bronx, Outer Boroughs
One thing Sambath Suen can’t abide is the cold. Until four years ago, Suen lived in Kandal, a Cambodian province that borders on Vietnam. Before that, he lived in Vietnam, where he earned his diploma, and before that he had lived in his native village, about thirty knots downriver from Phnom Penh, where he spent […]