The short fiction of j hardy carroll
Fog over green hills, the smell of leather, my jacket stiff with its newness, the expensive watch peeping from my cuff as I swing my arms. My dog trots at the end of his lead, his white fur yellow like an old newspaper, his once-supple walk stiffened by age and injury. He knows my pocket…
Uncle Jock and me is proper pished. As usual on the walk back he holds court, telling a thousand stories. And as usual we pass beneath Newark Castle. “Laddie,” he says, putting an arm around me. “You know the odds between an American and a Scot?” “Accents?” “Aye, true. But you see there?” He points…
It was the most ominous storm warning she’d ever seen, TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY flashing red. The tornado sirens sounded for thirty seconds, then stopped. She headed up the stairs, assuming it was over. The wind hit then, a roar like a jet taking off. The trees shrieked as they were torn from the ground, hurled…
“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…
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.…
He knows the old man is waiting for him downstairs, on this, the first shameful day of his retreat. It’s not hard to guess what he will say. The recriminations, the guilt. You dreamed about Harvard since you were in third grade. And the worst of all, What the hell happened? He thinks about this as…
He walks through the oh-so-familiar entryway, taking his usual pleasure in seeing the name on the side of the building. His name, his father’s name. He imagines how this will go, his last day. The slideshow of company history, anecdotes. There will be smiles and maybe tears. Above all, respect. Of course it isn’t like…
A porcelain vase, once shattered, will never be whole again. Mother must have said that a hundred times. Of course mother had other sayings, too. If there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt. Happy people never wonder if they are happy. All true, she thinks. She closes the laptop. Now she can’t see the emails. She…
There’s one in every Jersey town. More than one, probably. Named the same. Fat Tony’s. Greasy Joe’s. Vince’s. They all look the same, with the grease-slick linoleum floor that was never new, faded posters of barely-remembered movies, maybe a Pong or Pac-Man machine, maybe out of order. The smell of cheese, of vinegar, of frying…
Theodore Roosevelt manufactured a political revolution to make the US Navy a global power.