I stood, we all stood, stiff as the massive high pines skirting the cemetary. These are the Bowdoin pines, one-hundred feet tall and twice as many years old, once reserved for the King before Maine severed its ties to England. A mast agent would come to your land, mark the trees ideal for outfitting the schooners that plied trade to and from England and its colonies. No one liked the mast agent. No one of us liked being here, in late September cold, yellow and red leaves tripping across the…

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The woman who looked like she knew how to cook a good hearty meal rummaged through her purse first. The rest of us looked at the floor, squirmed, sent each other sly gazes.

"....from the bottom of my heart. My name is Lamont," he said loudly and clearly too. His voice pleaded from the first syllable and never let up. "I have just been released from prison. I am homeless, and I am sick." "Prison," "homeless" and "sick" bounced off the windows like birds fooled by the…

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They were black or brown, back then. Eamon longed for white ones, along with white high-top Converse sneakers. The boys played basketball in the basement of the church, and eventually, as Father got interested in the sport, on the outdoor court in good weather. What Eamon lacked in height, he gained in physical strength. He was short, but tough and he let fly many an elbow and got caught hardly ever.



"White as communion," Eamon would say after a game, bragging to Joe about the laces… Continue

He had one blue eye and one green, like a siamese cat or a Siberian husky. Rarely did people not notice, in fact when he first met someone, he or she inevitably looked from eye to eye, deciding which one they might direct their introduction to. "I'm Lulu, she'd say, darting her own dark browns left and right, blue to green.



He could tell whether the different colors would be a deal-breaker on a first date.

Last Saturday, the woman he met sipped her Johnny Walker on the rocks with… Continue