Author: Guest Author

Being convicted of a state crime was one thing, but a federal crime? That was something else altogether.

First of all, the sheer amount of paperwork required by the feds was intimidating. Winnie Chapin fanned the stack of pages attached to a beat-up clipboard. A federal probation officer, Agent Riley, had instructed her to fill out this “Presentence Report, Federal District Court of Georgia—Character Witness” before her interview. That was another thing about the feds: their probation officers were trim, neatly dressed F.B.I. agents with close-cropped crew cuts—a far cry from the doughy, indifferent social workers that handled probation for the state courts.

I blame the rain. When it’s dark out, the brain produces an excess of melatonin, and your body thinks it’s time to sleep. This was no drizzle either. This was the type of rain that hits your windshield in giant globs. Even with the wipers going full speed, everything I saw was filtered through this thick layer of water. The streetlights merged into this glowing mess of red and green. For all I knew, I could have been staring at fireworks or a damn Christmas tree.

Do not let a boy move in with you after the first date. He will sleep in your bed and eat your food. He will slip into your robe and slip into you, too. He will make you laugh. He will copy your key and use it to come in and out of the front door. Sometimes, he will come in the back door. He will lose his key and need you to come home to let him into your house, as if he belongs in your house and expects to get in. When you do, he will kiss you on your mouth, as if he belongs in your mouth and expects to get in.

Bill asked Mel if she had anything to drink around here. Like anything. Mel, from the bathroom, shouted, Yeah, like a a-third-a-bottle-of Smirnoff in the freezer—oh wait that’s what she and Stel used to make Bloodies yesterday. So, no? Bill asked. Mel, striding past him to wash hands in the kitchen sink, slurred, Did she look like she needed any more anything at this point?

Ronald took the landline off of the wall then paused for a moment. He hung it back up. The note still lay on the kitchen table behind him. Ronald walked over and picked it up. He unfolded it, thought better of it, folded it back up, and set it back down.

My office director and I are having sex. Two or three times a day in a motel room. Slippery, air-conditioner’s broke sex, with strange conversations spilling out after. She tells me she spoke with God as a child, like some before-They-were-famous pen pal.