He finally had the Camaro. It seemed like only yesterday Kenneth had helped his brother Bobby put in the new engine. They had gotten so greasy when they put the motor back together and shoved it underneath the hood of the `69. Afterwards, the chrome glistened from the valve covers and the motor rumbled with the smell of fresh 91 octane as it ran through the Edlebrock carburetor. Since the motor had been covered in oil from years of leaking, they smelled like oil for a week. With sparkling blue paint and black racing stripes the car looked like a beautiful spider, crouched and ready for the kill.

One thing bothered him though; this wasn’t how he wanted to get it. It had been two weeks since the accident and 12 days since Bobby had been laid to rest. Kenneth started up the Chevy. Today was the day. He was going do what they talked about so many times; he was going to the dragstrip. It had been too cold in the weeks before Bobby died, but now spring was starting and the slight chill in the air was just enough to add a few horses to the 302 cubic inch beast beneath the hood. Perhaps it would take his mind off the pain, anything but reliving the horror of when he got the news. This was his pilgrimage.

Read More >

“We have, oh, I don’t know, maybe four hundred and thirty miles behind us,” William said, “and one-twenty-ish yet to go. But trust me, the worst is yet to come. Route 58 from the freeway to the four-lane before VIR is just… hateful, particularly with the tire trailer behind us. Not a single light on the road. No gas stations — the public-urination stories I could tell you, seriously. And the road twists and turns forever, one time we were towing the race car here and Jim literally freaked out, made me stop the truck in the middle of nowhere so he could calm down, he was convinced we were going to tumble down the side of a hill, a lot of spots there’s a sheer drop. I think half of the reason anybody ever goes to Summit Point is that, frankly, it’s an easier drive by a long shot. Same distance from Indy almost but so much easier. But, you know, one more fuel stop at the exit, then you can sleep, I’ll go slow, and then we have the little condo rented on the Climbing Esses, you can wake up late, and you can sit out on the porch and watch me drive. If you want.”

“Oh, yes, I think I dooooooooo want to see you drive,” Kristin smiled in response, stretching her long body out in the Corvette’s confined passenger area, her bare feet scrunching the thin carpet and the line of her neck visible in the reflected glow of the arc lights above them along I-77. “Yes I do. And you can take me on the racetrack? We can race, right?”

“It’s not racing,” he laughed, “but don’t tell some of the other Vette Club guys that, they are pretty sure it is. It’s called an open trackday, but there are no trophies, no prizes, and the focus is on safety.” His pocket buzzed, and he ignored it. Although the cabin noise in his C5 Z06 wasn’t nontrivial, both of them could hear it. A minute or so later it buzzed again, and they started in mutual fascination at the light of the screen visible through his jeans, then he slowly withdrew the phone from his pocket, and they saw his wife’s face, and her name. Then it went silent, and for a moment he felt relief, before the screen lit once more, and he looked from the phone, to the road, then to Kristin, who challenged him with her eyes and whispered, as if the face on the screen could hear but not see her already,

“You’d better answer that.”

Read More >

The letter was longer than he had intended and Jim’s penmanship had suffered towards the end, but now that it was complete he was satisfied that it said everything he wanted to say. He put the cap back on the pen, laid it across the bottom of the paper and left them together in the middle of the kitchen table. He made one last pass through the house to ensure that all the lights were out and that everything that could possibly cause a problem had been unplugged, picked up a small overnight bag off his neatly made bed and headed out to the drive to where his new Oldsmobile sat waiting. Read More >

Note: This is a sequel of sorts to The little death and as such contains adult language, sexual situations, and descriptions of illegal driving— JB

“I think this next turn is… oh, let’s guess and say right, shall we?” Of course, Sebastian knew perfectly well that the road curved right after the blind crest. He’d been driving these roads for twenty years, since he’d been a humiliatingly poor student in an eighty-one-horsepower Volkswagen, working in the cafeteria to make twenty bucks a week and then spending it on ninety-cent gasoline. Learning how to drive these hills one mistake at a time while his friends disappeared to Jackson Hole or Daytona Beach for the weekends or simply plowed their way through a couple of willing Tri-Delts back at the fraternity house. Sebastian had always been short the fifty-or-hundred-dollar buy-in needed for the parties and his presence had been resented there as a result. Easier to go for a drive. Sometimes he’d just driven until the VW had a gallon left before curling up in the back seat at one of the parks and sleeping until it was time to wake up and go to class. His Pirelli P4 tires had been thirty-eight bucks each after all the price-matching and with careful rotation they were good for a whole spring-to-fall before showing cords. Thousands of miles, at full-throttle, alone and untutored. He knew the roads, and he knew this one would curve right after the crest.

With this knowledge firmly in hand, he snagged fourth gear with a practiced insouciance and the Ferrari’s flat-crank V-8 belted him past one hundred and twenty miles per hour and the whole car went dizzyingly light over the hill and he kept his foot in it all the way down before stroking the silver 360 into ABS for the second-gear left-hander at the bottom. He chanced a look to the right and saw Katrien braced in the passenger seat, her long legs open and taut up to a pair of very short shorts, her makeup-free face shining, her lips parted slightly. Hey, kid, Sebastian laughed to himself, you didn’t know it, but the story you were writing twenty years ago ended pretty happily. Then it was time for third gear again and a quick step over the double-yellow, blowing by some hick family in a smoking-tailpipe minivan, and then both of them were laughing out loud, like children who had gotten away with something, safe and sound, all-ee, all-ee in free.

Read More >

warning: the song in the video (“A Mistake” by Fiona Apple) contains strong language.

When I announced that fiction would be verboten on these pages, more than a few readers suggested that it might still have a place if it could be clearly marked and separated from the usual content. So here we go: “Sunday Stories” will be the place we put fiction. The usual TTAC loose restrictions on length and content will be further loosened for Sunday Stories, so read at your own peril. We’re welcoming submissions for this. If you readers don’t send me anything, you’ll be forced to see “fiction” about Tennessean hairdressers and Nevada strip clubs and whatnot, so get cracking! – JB

Kenny Huynh awoke alone in his room on the thirty fourth floor of the drab grey tenement. It had been a fitful sleep but it would be enough. He had a job to do. Only his great skill could ensure that the people he cared about had enough to eat. Fortunately he was the best. His skill would prevail. Read More >