The short fiction of j hardy carroll
The head custodian rode me hard from the minute I punched in right to the end of my shift, night after night. The son of a bitch moved as quiet as a cat and had the nasty habit of popping out like a jack-in-the-box in places you’d least expect—a stall in the ladies’ room, a…
“Don’t you like it?” He prods the pasta with his fork. “It’s great, Ma. Just like I remember. I’m not so hungry is all.” “You’re so thin,” she says, then trails off. Her eyes drift across the hook that replaced his beautiful hand, move over the ruin of his face, settle on the eyes. The…
Crispy and me see the pile as we turn the block, but he knew this morning something bad was coming. He wore it on his face like a wince before your mama slaps you. Every school has a Crispy, a kid whose clothes are never clean, who always asks if you want the rest of…
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…
“A film is a loosely collected series of events which don’t hold up to scrutiny,” he says. “Untruths which are designed to evoke certain emotions in us.” We are watching an obscure work by a Japanese director he admires. He’s seen it, of course, but years ago. “My memories of this movie are those…
“The trains always slow when they pass the power station,” Dad had said. “For safety.” Safety, he thinks, watching the rolling wheels. He’s never stood so near. Watching from afar, they didn’t seem to be going all that fast, but from this close it’s different. He feels their crushing mass shaking the ground beneath his…
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…
“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.…