Mullah Mateen sat in an oxblood leather chair at a massive glass-topped desk in former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s office, taking his turn posing for triumphal cell phone photos with other Taliban commanders who took Kabul without even trying. Don’t smile, he tells himself. Taliban commanders aren’t supposed to smile even though a couple of […]
Mole stood grimacing at the bar and blocking the waitress station at Clayt’s Horseshoe Tavern. Taller than a gun cabinet and just as broad, his stringy, greasy hair the color of fresh-poured asphalt hung below double-wide shoulders. The beard looked like a bramble bush with dead sparrows trapped in its branches. Mole’s nose looked like […]
Sopping up a puddle of spilled beer with a week-old rag, the young bartender heard a gravelly voice and thought the customer had lost his mind. Skeeter sat on his barstool repeating his name over and over. “Skeeter Dillon. My name is Skeeter Dillon. Hi, I’m Skeeter Dillon. Skeeter Dillon’s my name. Outlaw country music’s […]
Skeeter sat in his tow truck and wrote the lyrics to a country song on a ketchup-stained Bunny Burger wrapper from the Red Rabbit Drive In. Titled, “Hello Ma,” Skeeter knew the tune would hit the charts. Singing softly to himself in a voice that sounded like rust looks, he put the finishing touches on […]
Playing Chicken John ate chicken wings until his heart blew up at the best table in the American legion. Pouring Pabst draft beer down his gullet that night as fast as sea water must have rushed into the Titanic, he only took a breath to shove one spicy morsel after another into his mouth until […]
