You are currently viewing the stories for “January 2019.”
I moved to this city from Akron, Ohio in August 1971, and by the Summer of 1972, I was starting to wonder if I could actually make it here. I wasn't earning enough to have my own apartment and still found the pace of the city overwhelming. I was certainly not going to head back home, but it felt as though [...]
I have reached that age where childhood memories have become as vivid as my adult ones. It's not that my 1940s childhood was full of drama. I had few traumatic experiences, though I do remember, as an innocent, uncomprehending five year old, a queasy encounter with an insidious stranger who wanted to buy me candy. There are also no [...]
I am 21 and in the heat of my first New York summer, when I decide to have a four-centimeter rod inserted into the meat of my inner bicep. About the size of a matchstick and made of a material I can’t pronounce, it will release progestin directly into my bloodstream, preventing eggs from leaving the womb and thickening the cervical mucus. There [...]
The sun was gone, blotted out by the Port Authority’s roof. I disembarked into the effluvium of the upper tunnel and made for the gate. From there, clacking escalators, one flight after another, shunted me toward the bottom floor, the subway level. The vendor stalls had all been shuttered, and the soles of my shoes started feeling greasy and unsure. [...]
