7.11 / Pulp Issue
Pulp: From the Special Issue Editor
There’s that moment, you know, when I’m reading a story and a section smacks me crossways and I know I’ve come across something special.
I’m an animal
of the worst sort–
old, trapped,
but still needing
to go on.
(That’s Norman Savage there, who’s been chronicling hard times and hard living since the 60′s. I’m [...]
Ghost Pianos & Idle Hands
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”Every day, it’s a-getting closer, going faster than a roller coaster…
Every day, it’s a-getting faster, everyone says go ahead and ask her…â€
-Buddy Holly “Everydayâ€
A man, a woman, and her child, all walking too fast through a carnival. Jacki, a young Hispanic woman with that sweatshirt and black [...]
Ollie
When Ollie found the body in the dumpster what he thought was: That’s George Hill. Somebody killed George Hill and put him in the dumpster, he said out loud. Ollie had driven the garbage truck for twelve years and he knew every dumpster in town. When the police arrived, he [...]
my wife & william
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2
perfect
strangers
leave the bar
& walk the sea wall
arm in arm.
he’s known only
as william
& he stinks
pleasantly of pickles
& gin. i’ll wait
until he enters
my wife.
i’ll wait until
he’s done.
then.
Parricide
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Michael was almost to the gas station that didn’t sell gas. They sold out-of-date groceries and cold beer. After that he’d best go see Greenie Blake. Better he explain things than let someone else do it.
Sumerville, North Carolina, had plenty of Blakes and none of them worth [...]
The Hunt
She sneaks up on me when I’m out at night. I’ll bump into her at the grocery store, or on the subway. When I’m sitting at a café, supposed to be studying but really staring off into space, she’ll take the seat opposite mine.
Then we’ll lock eyes. And then we’ll [...]
The Big Nap
Mikey Smalls finds me at recess. I’m by the back fence, the new one they built after that kid slipped through and got himself drowned in the retention pond. I tend to stick by fences. Keeps things from sneaking up on you.
“You still got a bad uncle?†Mikey asks.
I shake [...]
Seven Poems
My Choppers
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are negotiating
with what remains
of my mouth: chew this
slowly, you fool; too sticky,
idiot; asshole,
that side no longer exists…and so on.
Sugar has eaten parts of whole.
The ride of word passion bloodied sanity.
I’ve fucked with the odds; they’ve rendered me
a chalk horse, scratch, even money
to be turned into glue
anytime [...]
The Son of Dajjal
Some time ago in the Wazirate, an Arab city-state similar to the others along the Persian Gulf, a tribeless nomad named Ali al-Mutawakkil began tying brass cooking pots to his feet and went out into the spectral sand swirling under the moon and vandalized the bulldozers and the rollers and [...]
The Little Death
I push the massive wooden door of the church. It’s easier to open than I expect. It looks like it’s been there for a hundred years, but it doesn’t squeak. I walk in unnoticed. My steps are as light as my combat boots will allow. I stand in the corner [...]
When I Make Love to the Bug Man
Bug Man, Bug Man, who came to save me from the spiders.
It didn’t seem fair that there should be so many spiders in one house. Wolf spiders, jumping spiders, daddy and granddaddy longlegs, cave cricket spiders (sure they’re a kind of cricket, but just take a look at one and [...]
The Sea of Intranquility
This was back when we still hadn’t figured out the key to living forever, back when all the dumb schmucks about to check out down on Earth would pay to have their minds warehoused in the chitinous skin of those giant low-grav shrimp and lobsters they’d let loose on the [...]
Scrapped
“Aunt Marge. That you up there on the porch?â€
Quickly raising the car window against the spew of cold air, Jerzy Fields looked around warily, then parked on the street. Her aunt’s driveway was more mud and potholes than asphalt, and she’d wrecked at least one pair of shoes and a [...]