“Death and Gingerbread” by Joseph Hirsch

The sergeant of the watch…stumbled onto the once-enchanted house…. We pulled up at the oxbow bend in the driveway paved with crushed sugar shards. The officers secured the crime scene, unspooling yellow tape between candy canes large as lamp standards. I lit a cigar to cover the smell of death and gingerbread. “What do we […]

“Wikipedian Was” by Joseph Hirsch

But I needed the teen to be alive…. Why, then, was this balm for my soul’s remainder? By which I mean, to watch a movie from 1957 on a computer screen at 3 a.m.? The shaggy monster creeping like a dirty Labrador draped in a pile of shag carpets making slow progress toward the chrome […]

“My Father Met Jayne Mansfield” by Joseph Hirsch

He must have sensed her blonde came from a bottle…. and that his parents were liars, too. He met her as a child which somehow seems a waste, a thwarted prepubescent prank played by a horndog demigod. His head only came up to the curve of her oft-measured breasts, and when he peeked, he was […]

“Much Worse Ways” by Joseph Hirsch

This was Ant’s first time in Ohio, and he wasn’t impressed. Pennsylvania, he knew from the Poconos, but this was pure boondocks. The sticks. His passenger, Carmine, didn’t seem to like it either. The morning sun came rushing through the tinted windshield of the rental car, and Carmine spoke while playing with the rounds in […]

“Poor Roy’s Picaresque” by Joseph Hirsch

The myth is that the knight fights the Dragon. The truth is that the Dragon teaches men to breathe fire, Obviating the need for knights. Taking this time machine to Brooklyn now, think of Poor Roy Luck and life against him. No, he wasn’t cross-eyed But other than that, he was fat, small, and bullnecked […]

“Bail, and Other Bonds” by Joseph Hirsch

1. Order of the Purple Heart It was just like the bastard to not tell me he was in town for all this time, and to wait until something serious happened before he got in touch with me. I don’t know how he got my cell number, but he called me at work, while I […]