It’s funny, the things you remember and the things you forget. For instance, I can’t recall what day it was, exactly; I just know it was a warmish evening in June. And I have no clue if I was wearing a sundress or a nightgown or if I’d gotten my braces off yet, but I … Read more
Now that I think back on it, I’ll bet every girl at Edgecomb knew about my affair with Denny Mackle, the college handyman. It’s hard to be private on a tiny campus jam-packed with three hundred post-pubescent Presbyterians. Having Winnie Foy for a roommate didn’t help, either. Winnie could spread gossip with the speed of … Read more
Natalia wakes me at 5:30 a.m. for work. She shakes my arm and I take out the earplugs that I’ve started wearing to block out the noise of the upstairs neighbors. They wake up even earlier than we do. Natalia and I both start work at 8 a.m., but she works right here in town, … Read more
The tractor brakes finally burned out in Helena, Montana and the boss only wired enough for one plane ticket, so John flew back to Chicago to get another cab and left Jerry in town to babysit the load—a bunch of basketball shoes. Jerry had never been to Montana before. First thing he did was find … Read more
Debbie pushed herself up to a sitting position and shimmied to the edge of the bed. She raised her eyes to the window, where the sun hit the frost-tinted glass and exploded in delight. In the kitchen, her mother sang out bits and pieces of the overplayed perky pop song of the week. The bangs, … Read more
I’m sitting across from Jane in the outdoor area of my favorite Indian restaurant in Los Angeles. She’s dressed casually. Her hair, longer than the last time I saw her, is falling out of her hood that she has pulled up, perhaps because she is cold. The courtyard of the restaurant is shaded and peaceful … Read more
Dan Coxon For the first week the wallet sat next to the phone. David would eye it cautiously as he left for work each morning, as if he expected it to burst into flames, or come to life and flap clumsily across the room. All it did was slowly gather a thin film of … Read more
Kacee Belcher After the wolf cub slipped from his mother into the den with his brothers and sisters, he hunched down in terror as he lay on the cold ground, his legs not yet working. His eyes, still closed, felt heavy with the placental fluid that had mixed with the dirt that surrounded the … Read more
Mathieu Cailler Penn continued to drive through the night. Snow and gales of wind assailed his SUV as he barreled towards home, his foot steady on the gas, his mitts positioned firmly at ten and two. Heat billowed from the vents on the dashboard and moved loose strands of hair … Read more
“Do you have a boyfriend?” It was one of the first questions my students asked me when I stood in front of their class on the opening day of the school year. Thirty-some heads of dark hair, thirty-some dark eyes, thirty-some blue-and-white uniforms, thirty-some giggling girls. “It's okay,” I said, calming down their laughter. “No, no … Read more
Justine was patient, with her cell phone pressed to her ear as she listened to her dear friend Sarah, but she was tired of the “you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find your prince” analogy she so often heard after yet another dreadful first date. Sarah was not … Read more
Samantha set her alarm clock for 5 a.m. every day of the week—including weekends. She had the volume set on two and kept it on her side of the bed not to wake her husband Gene. The soft sound of her alarm lifted her up with out a moment of lag time. She reached over … Read more
“Kid you got a golden thumb,” declared Cortis Haire. He had picked up the bright-eyed hippie outside of Los Angeles heading north on his pedal to the metal push towards Seattle. Cortis was an independent big rig driver, bringing up a fifty-pallet load of brake shoes to the Pacific Northwest. He was clean and sober … Read more
Two Hawks Quarterly Issue 2 – Number 1 – Summer 2008 __________________________________________________ A Letter Not Sent Kristine Ong Muslim Are They Real? Virginia Silverman Avoiding Her Art Eugenie Theall BLOCK Darby Bailey Bread & Tablecloths Sergio Ortiz Childless Eugenie Theall Defeating the Forces of Café Amore Laurie Barton FAMILY OWNED R. Neal Bonser Forever 18 Casey Cohen Mulling Spices Jennifer Bradpiece ORBIT … Read more
1. Our mother calls me to come and look at her. That is how we begin. “Say something,” she says. She tries to sound petulant, but her image in the full-length mirror makes her smile. “A sheath,” I offer, cross-legged on the floor. I hold a pillow on my lap despite the heat. Our mother … Read more
I was right in the middle of a late-night rush in the deli when Jeffers, one of our regulars, came slamming in like a lion late for a feeding. Most of our regulars are a pain to be sure, but Jeffers is in his own category. He’s hairy all over with this crazy-looking, giant beard … Read more
Two Hawks Quarterly Issue 1 – Number 4 – Spring 2008 __________________________________________________ Between the Bells Gina Maria DiPonio Bugs Morgan W. Strauss Catch Diana Corbin Crawl, Toddle, Walk, Run Darby Bailey Dancing Zachary Ash Dead Man’s Nail Dennis Fulgoni Dichos, and the Things my Mother Told Me Philip C. Barragan II Dining Alone Darby Bailey … Read more
It was those charged five minutes between 2nd and 3rd period when the courtyard of my junior high was suddenly thronged with twelve-, thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds of all shapes and sizes, all with backpacks dangling off their shoulders. Small groups began to form, halting traffic on the two narrow cement walkways that crisscrossed between the … Read more
Mom always wished for the moon for everyone else and settled on dirt for herself. Take Dad. He was gone for months at a stretch even before he ditched us for his new family. Each time he left, he would come back about the time Mom, my little brother, Simon, and I almost forgot he … Read more
O Organ-grinders The art of organ-grinding is fast disappearing, almost as quickly as we are. There used to be an organ-grinder and his little monkey on every street corner, distracting us from our troubles. Now we have nothing to distract us and we must pay attention to each trouble, individually. They say that when the world … Read more
All I wanted that night was to get out of Kelly’s quick. Kelly’s Market kept late hours, same as me, so once a week, hard on midnight, that’s where I’d find myself. This was in Arrowhead, in the San Bernardinos. Up there, even now, nothing good ever happens ’round midnight. Especially in February. * I’d … Read more
Two Hawks Quarterly Issue 1 – Number 3 – Winter 2008 __________________________________________________ Untitled Jacob Lasham I've Known Rivers Joseph McGonegal Incurring Telaina Morse Eriksen Finding Beautiful Karissa Chen Rain Season Loretta Williams Status Quo Eric Rydquist Hatchet Devin Galaudet happymeat.com Kim Hutchinson The Farm Fresh Egg Hunt Eileen Hodges The … Read more
Sam sits by the window and watches the storm swirling in a white cloud of madness, like angry wasps swarming after unwilling prey. The chaos of it entrances her, the way it dances across the landscape with no sense or sequence or sanity, just the passion and purpose to paint the whole world white. The … Read more
The End of the Affair *** Community In Shock at Vicious Murder; Vigil Tonight There will be a vigil tonight beginning at 7PM at the site of the slaying of Sally Green, 111 Great Heights Place, in Echo Park. Friends and neighbors are gathering to remember Green, 35, who had only recently moved into the … Read more
