The short fiction of j hardy carroll
He spoke of tremendous mysteries buried in numbers. “Right under your nose,” he would say. He’d spend an hour on the symbolism etched into the dollar, fill a notepad with calculations of its hidden meanings. He counted everything. Once I found him in the yard counting the needles on a pine tree, convinced the numbers…
“What’s this?” Big X pointed at the portrait of Jenks. “Tolly painted it,” said Reynolds. “Remarkable. Looks like a photograph. Good enough for identity papers.” “As long as it doesn’t get wet. Watercolors, you know.” “Pity. What is he working on now?” “He was copying the Soldbuchs for a while but was getting rather bored with…
“Another one.” “You didn’t bring it in for me?” “Why bother? There’s more coming.” She purses her lips, knowing that there is indeed another package on its way. At first, it was eBay, justified as a money-making opportunity. Many things arrived, but nothing was ever shipped. When the basement filled, he’d rented a storage container…
The newspapers lay where they’d landed, just inside the gate. The sheriff’s car was parked along the road. She rolled down her window and gave the deputy the code. He entered it and the gate swung open. “Wait here,” the other officer said, disappearing behind the house. He returned, shrugging. “Locked tight. Curtains are drawn.…
When I was a kid, I’d sometimes get my hair cut at Johnny Gibson’s barbershop. Johnny was a Tucson legend, and for a kid like me his shop was a Shangri-La. He had a real live shark that swam in an aquarium, photos of soldiers and race car drivers and Indian chiefs. Johnny’s chair was…
“Get Tall Charles up here. He’s a good reader.” The boy was fetched. He puzzled over the parchment. “From what I can make out of this, they gonna take all our land for what they call the greater good of New York.” Owens was indignant. “They can’t do that. We own this land. We own…