Frivolity #7
After they sold motor court in Tucumcari, the couple used a small portion of the proceeds to fund a lavish honeymoon in Vegas. They were seventeen years late.
Frivolity #8
She knew all the barroom tricks. But she had never seen anything like the rancher who spread his hands palm down on the bar and made his knuckles crack without any tugging.
Frivolity #6
The little man who took the open stool next to her at the blackjack table wheezed and sputtered. The dealer scowled and dealt.
Frivolity #5
Then her confidence returned. At first, she was suspicious. After a few days trying to puncture it, she was satisfied and lit out for Las Vegas.
Frivolity #4
When he told her they would leave at the end of the end of the month, she said she would let him go alone. He couldn’t blame her and told her so.
Frivolity #3
Maybe the wind would never let up, maybe it would keep slicing through the log walls of their cabin forever. None of the clay chinking they layered in worked with a damn.
Frivolity #2
Nobody wanted the party to stop and it didn’t. It couldn’t. Astonishing forces fed the festivities. You couldn’t even feel the first vague hints of it winding down.
Frivolity #1
Got the shu mai, got the eye in the sky and the pumpkin pie. That’s what he sang, walking with newfound optimism past the pawn shops toward Fremont Street.
Outside Copeland, Idaho
Outside Copeland, Idaho, he walked into a funeral parlor where the air was so dead a dry sadness scraped his skin. He felt the kind of grief that was inescapable. This surprised him. He was rarely overcome by gloom. This time it was tough to shake off. Outside...
Where The Night Scorches The Day
Where the night scorches the day and burns it away, the big signs blaze. Huge videos sputter and flash, beckoning like carnival barkers. Jackpots, jumbo shrimp cocktails and 3:2 blackjack, all ripe for the plucking, packing all the big signs with unimaginable...
Too Fast
Too fast for others on the freeway to approach, let alone pass, she soared as long as possible before traffic boxed her in coming up on the 405. “The woman who came to the party at your neighbor’s birthday that night, the one who arrived late.” asked Nick. “Who is...
When She Awoke
When she awoke, gauzy and warm, she tried not to disengage from her dreams. It would hurt to leave behind the place she had been. The people there had once meant so much to her. She may even have been in love with one of them. So Sarah rolled over, hoping to glide...
Only The Grifters Knew
First came the Mormons, then the railroad and then the grifters. Because they saw what others couldn’t, the grifters were both the most cursed and blessed. What the grifters saw and quickly built were stair steps, never leading up but always leading down. They were...
Trouble On The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
There’s trouble on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Thousands of steelhead trout are suddenly dying. It’s no mystery. The culprit is clear. Like salmon, steelhead trout travel from fresh water to the sea. In this part of California, they migrate down the...
Ivanpah Lake
Ivanpah Lake sparkled like the basepaths of a freshly tended infield. Their BMW X5 floated across the dry lakebed and sliced through an unattended gate at the California inspection station. They raced past Baker and its foul collection of disgusting bathrooms, made...
The Late Checkout
The late checkout was bestowed only after prolonged debate, granted by a disdainful desk clerk who took undisguised delight in exercising his benevolence. In another age, before Pope Pius V shut the racket down, the clerk would have made a fine archbishop selling...
Across The Freeway
Across the freeway they watched the long slopes of Mount Potosi catch the morning’s first sun. Thin ribbons of light fell through the window onto the floor of their hotel room. They each felt as worn as the room’s thinning carpet. “You said his daughter’s apartment...
They Both Lost Interest
They both lost interest at about the same time. Nick couldn’t crack into the Cypriot detective’s laptop. Even when he walked away from the problem, went downstairs to play a few hands of blackjack and returned with a freshened perspective, he couldn’t get in. He...
