Tommy knew there was a monster in the bathtub. You could have told Tommy that the bathtub didn’t *exist* more easily than getting him to give up his belief in the monster. The monster wasn’t just real, it was hungry, it was mean, and it wanted Tommy. Tommy was sure of it, more sure than a seven year old could be sure of anything. His parents tried cutting off television. They tried taking away his comic books. They tried a therapist. The therapist said his belief in monsters was natural and would pass. It didn’t. [Read more…] about What Doesn’t Eat You
artists
Paying for Your Soul Up Front
The Painter’s eyes weren’t ordinary eyes, nor was he an ordinary sketch artist, bargaining for a twenty dollar bill on Times Square. He had a little booth next to a bodega on 3rd, and he didn’t work in chalk or pencil, but in fast-drying egg tempera, with particularly dark yet vivid hues. The Painter wasn’t known to anyone by name, as far as anyone knew. He was simply “the Painter” and, if you sat for him, he looked at you the way you look at a bug in a jar. Your surface persona – that was the jar. [Read more…] about Paying for Your Soul Up Front
Breaking Bone
A tongue is the most dangerous thing next to love. The Christians warn of the tongue devouring the speaker. The Hebrews say the steady, gentle pressure of a tongue breaks bone. And none of this comforted Jerald Parker, whose tongue was enormous by any standard estimation. When Jerry opened his mouth, girls cringed, so most of the time he didn’t. He was twenty three years old and had never been with a woman whose company he hadn’t paid for. Jerry had learned shyness from a young age – that was his Uncle, Roger, who had gotten him a “21st birthday roll” which Jerry had expected to be something you ate in place of cake, maybe with a couple of candles on it – one of those wax pairs of numerals representing his coming of age. [Read more…] about Breaking Bone
Hands that Listen
Racy Feder is the fastest sketch artist in the world. When the second tower fell in New York, she wasn’t taking a photograph, she was standing in the street, pencil in hand, making a sketch. When she was witness to two men making it out of the bank on 42nd Street with automatic weapons and sacks of Chase’s money, no one dared hold up their cell phones for a shot. Racy, sat calmly and efficiently with her knees tucked in, seemingly scribbling on a pad, and her not one but two sketches became the only globally syndicated images of the holdup. During the ice storm two years later, when cars were sliding out of control on I-87, Racy turned in drawings to her grandmother’s insurance company, made on the scene, showing the trajectory and position of each car in her line of sight, even before their own vehicle was struck. [Read more…] about Hands that Listen