Tag: racism

The Double Iron Cross by William E. Wallace

Listen to this story on the podcast.

I stayed in bed, pretending to be asleep until Nola left for work. I needed to piss and take a dump in the worst way but I knew if I got up while she was still home, she would get into it with me about getting out of the apartment and finding a fucking job.

So I held out, lying with my back toward her and breathing as quietly as I could until she finished her toast and coffee, pulled her purse off the hook in the closet and left.

Thirty seconds after I heard her turn her key in the door, I slid out of bed and staggered to the john, barely making it in time.Read the rest

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Flames by Robert Guffey

A searing portrait of hatred and regret.

As the 19th of April dissolved into the 20th, Samuel crept into an alley permeated by the stench of week-old garbage. Piles of rotting food, broken wine bottles, torn magazines, and a horde of other useless objects had spilled out of a large blue bin standing against a graffiti-stained brick wall. A stray black cat leaped out of the refuse and darted in front of his path. Christ, just what he needed.

Samuel knelt down in front of the church’s back door. The lock was primitive; it would be easy. He reached into his belt and removed two pencil-thin lock picks made of hand-finished clock spring steel.… Read the rest

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