It’s Saturday morning and I’ve come downstairs to find my wife Jane sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading a magazine. I’ve been upstairs showering, dressing, and generally trying to decide how I want to waste my time today. That’s what Jane calls it. Wasting time. I’m okay…
Posts TaggedDavid Todd McCarty
Power tools
Up until quite recently, my entire tool collection consisted of a few mismatched screwdrivers, a circular saw my mother gave me, a power drill my wife bought me, and various tools we had given Ricky, my seven year-old step-son, for Christmas. Ricky’s tools weren’t even toys, they were real and…
Looking For bears
“We’re going to the dump,” Jane announced. I was lying on the sofa of a cabin in the Adirondacks. We were on vacation and I had purposely traveled thousands of miles away from home just so I wouldn’t have to do anything remotely like work. This sounded like work. I…
I’m Not From Here
Originally published in New Jersey Monthly Along the shores of Tuscany grow wild, salty shrubs that sailors, long ago, claimed to be able to smell long before they could actually see land. It was this distant scent that alerted them that home was near. Although I have never spent time…
Chickens In the brothel
Jane wanted chickens. Live ones. “Four of them,” she told me matter-of-factly. She thought about it some more then said, “No six. Yes, six. And red.” “Six red chickens,” I repeated, not looking up. We were having lunch outside, as it was an unseasonably warm day. I was trying to…
A Brief History of Violence
I’m the guy no one sees. An invisible man in a city of millions. Oh, it’s not hard to be invisible in the city—not like back home in Calumet, Oklahoma where we had a whopping 553 people in the whole town—well, until I left, and then I guess it was…
They Go Flat
“They go flat,” she said. “What goes flat?” I asked. “The cats,” she said and motioned to the old black cat laying on its side on the deck. She sucked on the crab leg she was pointing with and continued, “They go flat in the summer.” I looked over at…
Going to Church
Back before the accident we’d always go surfing on Sunday mornings. He called it going to church. “Come on, let’s go to church,” he’d say. “I’ll call you in the morning. We don’t want to be late.” Then he’d laugh and slap his knee like he hadn’t said that a…
Shady Palms Motel
You see the sign before you see the motel most times. It’s a big neon one of the type of place that still advertises air conditioning and television as if these are recent inventions and worthy of bragging about. The Shady Palms Motel is not the worst place I’ve ever…