The kid tried like hell to be liked and get accepted into this one group. A homie got cancer and it's metastasized. He'll kill me if I write a piece about him. I'll probably do it anyway. The war in Gaza? I guess throw in Hezbollah while we're at it? Look, we're Things Men Carry, … Continue reading Year 4 in Review
Author: neal
Undecided in ’24 (1 of 3)
I'm in an imaginary van going down an imaginary highway. There's a motley bunch inside. A mix of brown and black and one white white person. It's okay. You're not a racist. I'd probably think the same thing, too: it's some kind of correction house. And because there's a few smaller whippersnappers and even the … Continue reading Undecided in ’24 (1 of 3)
It’s still out there, homies
(24 years, hot damn. And happy birthday, Jason. Hope to hear more from you, Homie)
Happy birthday
I picture her in a squat, stony house on a Portuguese island, stepping up on a stool to grab this bowl or that salt to help her mom cook. Because it's what my grandmother, the cook, told me about her little helper, my mother. I picture her in Puerto Rico on her honeymoon in some … Continue reading Happy birthday
As Good as Your Last
I had this sort of slight condition, let’s call it. I mean, anytime it ever came up, Rebecca, my girl, put it all to rest of course. I was just shy was all. That’s what she’d say. “Besides,” she’d say, “you know it wasn’t your gift of the gab I fell in love with. If … Continue reading As Good as Your Last
‘I don’t have AIDS’
There's a scene in the movie Boondock Saints when Willem Dafoe, who plays an FBI agent, is standing in the middle of a neighborhood where a gun fight happened. It’s a crime scene. There’s carnage everywhere. Dafoe, or Agent Paul Smecker, plays back to all the forensics guys and others what he thinks took place … Continue reading ‘I don’t have AIDS’
Only man I ever kissed
I was fresh out of Quartermaster school and everything, and I'd write him letters in morse. Dit-da-dit kind of stuff. He corrected me. In morse. It had to be close to fifty years for him since his last time talking to ships via morse off the Island of Sao Miguel in the Portuguese Azores, and … Continue reading Only man I ever kissed
18
It's official. You can leave the house now and rent your own apartment. Order up a tattoo and put it anywhere. You can vote. Drive for Uber (in that thing?). Okay, maybe not. So many more things now. Not to mention hair everywhere, spriggin', sproutin'. You could pass for one of the young revolutionaries. You … Continue reading 18
Here’s to a snot-nose Christmas
I cried Monday. A lot. It was at my home parish decked out in Christmas celebration. Poinsettias and glittery Christmas trees and a standalone, gazebo-like structure with cream-colored silks for a cover, while underneath a nativity scene. I cried for the baby who would just wind up getting insulted and berated His whole adult life. … Continue reading Here’s to a snot-nose Christmas
A Hillbilly Love Story
In retrospect, I never should have put that snake in Annemarie Kitsap’s mailbox. It wasn’t like it was a rattler or cottonmouth. Nothing that would jump out and fang you. Just a big bull. Ferocious-looking, but harmless. Prized in these parts for their propensity to devour rodents and truly dangerous reptiles. In my defense, … Continue reading A Hillbilly Love Story
Things Men Carry 