I messed up bad It was the first thing I'd heard from my younger brother in over a week. When the screen lit up with his text notification, though, I just rolled my eyes and pushed my phone further away. He was prone to sending me that kind of message as a lead up to... Continue Reading →

Whenever I see a shoe lying off to the side of the road, I think of my grandpa. He was terrified of them. During the school year when I was a kid and my parents were working, Grandpa would be the one to drive me in. We lived a few miles outside of town in... Continue Reading →

My mother tried her best to keep me and my brother, Miles, out of the woods behind our house. It was too dangerous, she’d say. We could trip and fall and hurt ourselves. We could get lost. Two little boys could get into all kinds of trouble out there. She went so far as to... Continue Reading →

Never had the phrase “You can't be crazy when you're rich, only eccentric” been more accurate than when applied to my uncle. He'd made a fortune developing some kind of military grade software that I won't even pretend to understand and, after retiring at the ripe old age of 42, had decided to spend his... Continue Reading →

Once upon a time, my hometown decided it wanted to try and get its name on the map. It was the height of the real estate bubble and people were buying, developers were building, and our small city was looking forward to a sudden and steady growth spurt. The thing about bubbles, though, is that... Continue Reading →

No one noticed when the strays started to go missing. It was just a cat here, another there, nothing too unusual for feral animals. Even as a kid, I was used to them coming and going of their own accord and sometimes wouldn't see them for months. It was just how things worked in a... Continue Reading →

My daddy put the “good” in good old boy. He was hardworking, stoic, and he kept his mouth shut unless there was something that needed saying. All he wanted out of life as to drive his trucks, make his living, and take care of his wife and kids; the rest was just background noise. I... Continue Reading →

There wasn't much for a young boy to do in my hometown. It was all long stretches of tired looking strip malls and gated communities for the snowbirds to flock to when autumn set in up north; very South Florida chic. It was the kind of place where an eight-screen movie theater opening up at... Continue Reading →

When you're a scrawny, awkward kid from a poor family, you're going to be teased. A lot. It's just one of those inescapable universal truths that nobody questions. Still, you expect it to remain almost exclusively a peer-thing; something that your classmates do when there aren't any adults looking. Even if the teachers happen to... Continue Reading →