Short Stories
I drove a black Altima that was poppin’ during its heyday, but I got it when it was fifteen years old, and that piece of shit was beginning to show its age. The paint had faded, the stereo was busted, the seats were torn, the dashboard was cracked, and the …
It was a foggy Halloween night when Hector and Miguel arrived at the slummy Obstructed View Apartments for a double date they had arranged with a couple of girls they found on Fumbledorks, a dating app for bros who can’t hook up without their wingmen. Miguel parked his brown beater …
Time: A gazillion years ago Setting: A conference room Characters (The Four Seasons): Fall (aka Greg) – dressed as a leaf Winter (aka Fred) – dressed as a snowflake Spring (aka Eric) – dressed as a flower Summer (aka Tommy) – dressed as the sun Curtain. The Four Seasons walk …
One Labor Day weekend we went on a boating and camping trip along the Wazoo River. It was me, Jorge, and Raul, and to say nothing of the dog or the cat would be animal neglect. Chucho was an old, blind mongrel of mine that was usually barking up the …
Most of what Emilio knew he had learned from the silver screen. Geography, science, art, and romance. History, sex, music, and philosophy. It was all from movies, even his social skills. He had committed so many one-liners and movie quotes to memory for use in any context that they replaced …
I was going through a lengthy dry spell with the rucas of L.A. and my roommate Sergio was like, “Go down to the dog pound and get your ass a chocha magnet!” I was broke at the time so I went to a ramshackle kill shelter in Van Nuys and …
“It musta been something I ate,” said Ozzy, clutching his enormous belly. He was the size of a baby humpback whale and ate everything he could all of the time so it was difficult to pinpoint the cause of his discomfort. He had eaten four tacos for breakfast earlier that …
Pepe and Chico are shopping at Rags to Riches, a secondhand store that sells used wardrobe from Film & Television productions. “There’s an old joke,” starts Pepe. “Two Chicanos are shopping at a secondhand store and one of them says ‘Everything in here smells like asparagus piss.’ And the other …
Mano a mano means “hand to hand” in Spanish, as in hand-to-hand combat, but this loan term doesn’t just describe two people going toe-to-toe because they can’t see eye-to-eye. Most of the time, it’s any head-to-head, wire-to-wire competition. “They went mano a mano in a foot race!” Sometimes gabachos say …
Life in the big city is a fickle pickle. Too many variables make it the volatile vegetable (or flickery fruit) that it is and nothing is more unpredictable than the inconsistent night life experience: Friday night: I didn’t holla at any rucas at the club tonight because none of ’em …
