Dumbfounding Stories

          “Yard Work,” a short story I wrote about an angry retired firefighter just appeared on Black Denim Lit, where it’s streaming. Here’s how it starts:

Bob Quigly stood looking out his bay window wondering when the neighborhood started to suck. When Janet, the kids, and he moved in, it was all cops, firefighters, and teachers. Who had to live in the city for their jobs. Things were suburban as Chicago got. But that was twenty-two years ago and for a while now, whenever somebody moved out, somebody worse moved in.

            Like that fat slob across the street in her lawn chair. Why did she always sit there?

The people over there before never pulled that shit. They stayed inside or sat out back like normal people. Then that weirdo had to move in, who sat there every afternoon; usually came back in the evening, too. He felt like she was staring into his living room. Because she was.

            Or the house to her left. Russian immigrants moved in about a year ago, owned three cars between them. Why they needed the third one, a rusted out Toyota, he never knew, but they liked to park it in front of his house. Left it there a week sometimes. Once, they left it there two weeks. Finally Bob made a late night trip to McDonalds for a chocolate shake. He flung it along the car’s street side. They might take a hint, he figured. But no, the car sat there another week. OK, milkshakes didn’t do it, so he started thinking he should slash their tires…

If you’d like to read the whole thing, just click the link below.

http://www.bdlit.com/yard-work.html

Tags: "Yard Work", Black Denim Literature, Kent McDaniel, short story about a retired Firefighter