Not for the first time, he wondered if he was destined to become just another aimless, wounded war “hero” in an era when wars and heroes were no longer in fashion. "What’s dat stuff on your face? What is it?" Mark Cahill tried to pretend he was still asle...
This is a more-or-less faithful retelling of the great, “Where Were You?” controversy that occurred back in the fall of 1951. However, due warning is hereby given that being as how the story involves Louisiana politics, no claim is made, either explicit o...
The name ‘Big House’ had to do with the people who lived there allowing almost anyone to use it as a temporary shelter. Of course, preference was given to “heads” with dope or booze and to all females. The two-lane asphalt highway crawled with summer cong...
Over on a web site for the blind I often infest, someone said the recently passed first day of May, in addition to being May Day and Beltane, had also been something called ‘Barefoot Day’. To this I felt compelled to reply as follows, sort of:As for that...
This first appeared in, Maggie Rascal’s, otherwise excellent, Select Stories’ site. Everything else there is better, in fact, much better. Check it out for yourself. “I guess it’s time we had that little talk.”His father’s voice was teasing, but Mark knew...
Blurb: She felt excited, nervous, maybe even a little scared. Most of all, her mind kept spinning trying to figure out just how she’d ever gotten herself into this room, at this moment and, most of all, with this man. ### In Mark Cahill’s considered opini...
“Ann, are you telling us our straight-arrow, nice-Jewish-girl-from-Queens, Gwen, took some guy she was fooling around with on her ward to the park where they did, God only knows what?” "Is this stuff animal, vegetable, or mineral?" Ann was cautiously exam...
Mark stood and offered his hand. She smiled and accepted the help. In one gentle, fluid motion, he lifted her from the chair and then into his arms. The kiss that followed was long, natural, and perfect. After her confessional the night before, Ann would...
"And while you're making out with this ‘Nam vet, I'm stuck on the urology ward with a bunch of old farts who can't pee, and jive doctors who keep hustling me." Still stunned by the patient’s unexpected kiss, Gwen Kaplan leaned against the wall outside his...
I was halfway between Sears and flat broke, sitting alone in the mall’s noisy food-court, eating a tasteless salad, and wondering why I let my mother con me into getting dressed and driving into town with her to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, the...
This feeling I had was unreal. It'd been years since I'd last seen Holly Hightower. There'd been many women in many places since then. But now I was falling for this one…hard. * Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd...
"Welcome to parents participation training.” The debonair young man holding the microphone had a big, toothy grin. "Many of you will be first-time parent participants in this area's various summer youth league competitions. Your appearance here demonstrat...
For the first ten years of my life, I lived in a Sears and Roebuck ‘mail order’ frame house built by my grandfather, a carpenter who died before I was born. While I was but a wee, callow youth, maybe three, my father took it upon himself to put a new ceil...
WHAT SUMMER MEANS TO ME Summer means no school. Summer means having to mow your yard instead of going fishing or swimming. And to make matters worse, my tightwad father don't hardly pay me a thing for all that work. He claims riding around on a John Deere...
He’d left the dance early, needing to be alone, to think, to sort out his emotions. Then he got hungry. The one place still open was the all-night, Hilltop Café Motel and Truck Stop.With the country club dance still going on, the over air-conditioned, neo...
