Joe’s Reviews > You May See a Stranger: Stories > Status Update
Joe
is on page 33 of 216
The bagels in the café were bland and spongy, but comforting, like chewing on my pillow. I’d sit there thinking and reading the newspaper and eavesdropping, and unconsciously tear off pieces of bagel, rolling them into pebble-size balls between my fingers before popping them into my mouth.
— May 05, 2021 07:14PM
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Joe’s Previous Updates
Joe
is 93% done
Wesley and Kim had named their baby “Clementine,� as if they couldn’t wait to get rid of her. The last time we saw them, Clementine had been barely a month old. And I hadn’t been pregnant. I didn’t remember noticing her particularly. Before you had your own baby, those belonging to other people were like accessories, as if the parents said, “Look, here’s our new Turkish carpet; oh, and here's our new baby, too."
— May 06, 2021 09:00PM
Joe
is 90% done
I woke up one morning having transformed into a cockroach. One day I was my normal, within-bounds horny self, the horny self I’d lived with for decades, the one that fantasized over the good parts in A Sport and a Pastime and watched Paul Newman in Hud over and over. In what seemed like a day, I’d revved into a freakish sexual overdrive. I couldn’t look at a cucumber without getting excited.
— May 06, 2021 08:40PM
Joe
is 82% done
She wasn't surprised to end up in his office, but she’d always thought it would be about her son, not her daughter. There was a lesson in it: instead of worrying about the ones who didn’t fit in, you should worry about the ones who seemed to fit in too well.
— May 06, 2021 08:07PM
Joe
is 80% done
“We should go back,� she said. “My husband will be looking for us.� But in the tiniest way, she didn’t want to go back. She wanted to stay with this strange man’s hand on her shoulder a little longer, to feel its ordinary kindliness, its undemanding, even indifferent, affection.
— May 06, 2021 08:03PM
Joe
is on page 50 of 216
I read the program notes on the piece that had just begun—Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Transfigured Night. I’d never heard it before. It struck me first as melodramatic, the musical equivalent of a Daphne du Maurier novel, ethereal violin arrested by the dark portent of bass.
— May 05, 2021 08:24PM
Joe
is on page 36 of 216
My apartment building was a modest brick mid-rise, remarkable only for its location across the street from the new Soviet Embassy compound. It was like living in a shack outside the walls of Emerald City. The Soviets had been allowed to build their embassy on the highest hill in Washington. Only the National Cathedral had a better vantage point for spying.
— May 05, 2021 07:23PM
Joe
is on page 25 of 216
“We’ve decided to roll our wedding and honeymoon into one. We’re getting married in Bermuda!�
How did I know that? And with any luck, they will disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.
— May 04, 2021 09:14PM
How did I know that? And with any luck, they will disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.
Joe
is on page 11 of 216
There are three genes whose proportionate presence determine a fly’s sex: One is called Sisterless; another is Sex-Lethal; the third is Deadpan. They sound like the names of punk bands: Deadpan, opening for the Sex Pistols. Sisterless, double-bill with Black Flag. I draw Punnett squares demonstrating how these three genes interact. As a female fruit fly, I would be Sisterless.
— May 04, 2021 08:26PM
Joe
is on page 3 of 216
Our classroom was at the end of a deserted corridor in the basement of the Mackleby-Warner department store. At first I thought the basement looked like the set of a slasher movie: the gray tub filled with naked mannequins and spare body parts was the place where the killer hid his victims. Empty plastic hangers stacked to the ceiling on metal poles, and straight pins covering the floor were instruments of torture
— May 04, 2021 07:48PM
