The Park Avenue Hovel, page nine

    Ray's letter, in substance, was not unexpected; it was the particulars that Michael had to know, and couldn't face. Funding for the shelter was always tight: the counselling center kept above water fairly easily, an obvious community resource the city couldn't excuse cutting off, but the night shelter for at-risk and homeless youth had a harder time staving off crusading law-and-order councilmen who called it criminal coddling and tried to shut it down. Ray had a few choice things to say about the last mayor, whom Michael knew, and the new one, whom he only dreaded, but reported happily that the new Social Services director was not the kind ... (read more)

Strychnine Over(ride)

Thursday     The sigh behind him as Adam's feet landed square at Michigan and Vallejo could have come from those feet, or hands or eyes or elbows that swung, or shoulders as the job drained from them: only the exhaling bus doors closing, though, that breath fitted in, the last part in his working day. Adam kicked heels after toes and walked away, letting the job with its myriad petty headaches and tyrannical urgencies drain away, sheepish shadows filling cracks and stormdrains in his wake. Down a block and then left, then up four flights and it was almost gone: lights up over his furnished one-bedroom Adam swung the door behind him and the ... (read more)

Further, from "Artifacts"

    When the phone rang, she let the machine answer it.     "This is a message for Rebecca Mulroy, confirming your ten o'clock appointment with Dr Ostler on Wednesday the seventeenth. If you are unable to keep this appointment please contact our offices to reschedule. Have a nice day." Her physical therapist's receptionist was at least concise; her calendar, on the wall beside the fridge, corroborated. Without sparing a glance to the book, she made lunch, chopping vegetables with irritated care.     The rest of the day went by without incident; she checked her mail, took her medication, and put her left ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page eight

    Ten years ago, or fifteen, or five, or even six months ago, she had thought that people didn't just wake up and not love each other anymore. It wasn't possible, she thought, to simply not love someone: it had to slip away or drain out somehow, giving notice before it left. She had thought that right up until one morning, twelve weeks ago, when it had happened. Now, listening to faint music filtered through two walls and the plumbing stack, she couldn't identify where or how it had gone, and certainly had no way to follow it down and get it back.     She didn't hate him. She filled out another form, signing her married name ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page seven

    They ate in the second kitchen, tucked by the back stairs, originally for the servants' use, being half the size or less of the main galley behind the dining room. She watched Gwen move from fridge to cabinet to table, fully at ease in the small space, admiring her hands and feet as she pulled a decent meal out of raw materials. Lunch cleared away, Adrienne left Gwen to get on with her errands and returned to her own room.     One of the two on the top floor, her bedroom faced a long, narrow room that held a billiard table and bookcases, the full bath between her and the quiet woman, going through a divorce, whom she could ... (read more)

From "Artifacts"

    She was waiting for him to come back, content in the knowledge that he would not. She was waiting because it gave her an excuse to not do anything else, and so that, later, she could say that she'd waited. Watching headlights come over the hill, she wondered how much longer she had to wait, until she achieved plausible deniability. Until she could say "I waited half the night, but he never came back," and everyone would nod and frown and not ask questions. She was waiting because it would seem too strange not to, later, explaining it. Idly, she wondered where he was. It was his business, of course, but she couldn’t help ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page six

    Michael had spent half an hour that morning getting the blood stains out of the pillowcase. The nosebleeds worried him, he couldn't deny it, but there were other things that occupied his attention: the question of whether the stain had come out or the whole pillowcase was simply a uniform shade of near yellow had finally driven him out of the room. Returning in late afternoon, he couldn't remember what color the linen had been before the nosebleeds had started; in a saner light, the pillowcase looked untainted, safe to sleep on.     The emptying aspirin tube, no more a refuge, demanded a decision of him: let it run dry or ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page five

    "I seem to recall asking you a question, earlier." Head at the foot of the bed, Gwen wiggled her toes in the pillows and propped herself up on one elbow, casting her eye up toward Adrienne, whose hair was silk against her feet.     "Well, yes, but then you distracted me and I forgot my answer. And the question."     "Oh." Gwen walked her fingers up the instep and calf stretched out beside her, "Well, let me remind you. I asked what your plans for today were."     "Oh, is that what it was? Let me think." She swung her legs away, tucking them ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page four

    In April of 1924, a fire had started upstairs, an accident stemming from an unattended curling iron. It hadn’t done much structural damage, catching mostly on the rugs and wallpaper, but three rooms had been gutted and all the siding on the north side had been ruined. The siding had been replaced and the top floor remodeled afterwards, a few walls knocked down to turn two bedrooms into one and the bath expanded to accommodate the growing household. Smoke rose again from the old nursery windows, a much thinner plume which threatened only the ceiling plaster. She stood as far away from the bed as she could, keeping the desk between ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page three

Cont'd from last page He lay alone in it, one stranger to another,and felt himself relax, heart slowing and harsh breathing quieting as he let the nightmare, feeble product of his unaided imagination, out of his system. The air conditioning cycled on, taking the humidity out of the September air, fluttering the sheets on its way out of the floor vents. Calmer now, he swung out of the narrow bed, stretching in the pre-dawn gloom; still shaking, his hand reached for the nightstand drawer for something to steady himself. The liar's aspirin tube rattled louder now, emptier than it had been in a year, and Michael gazed at its contents all unsealed before ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page two

    "Mr. Penziero?"     He pulled his head up, aware of a room full of eyes not on him. Four rows of heads stayed bent over a spelling quiz; the boy standing in front of his desk his only audience.     "What is it, Jack?" Part of him hoped he'd remembered the kid's name.     "Um. I'm bleeding, Mr. Penziero." Jack was holding his left arm awkwardly away from his body, a bare trickle of blood inching away from his elbow. Michael pushed upright in his chair and focused, watching it start to drip onto the carpet. Behind the boy an impossible trail of spreading red dots ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page one

     In the picture, Marcus is sitting on the sidewalk, his head turned away. The photo is black and white, but a certain brittle delicacy of the light gives it away as early morning. His face, a bare slice of profile, is obscured by shadow, elbows knees and shock of hair (in life, she knew, a tangled black) the focus of the picture, fluidly organic against the street and kerb. When she had taken on the house, that picture and the kitchen wallpaper had been all she'd kept of their mother's decor. It sat where it always had, overlooking the landing on the second floor, the head of a now-gone line of family photographs, hard by the master ... (read more)