"Jawbone Creek"—Propeller Magazine, March 2014
Brady woke to the feeling he’d been caught. The chuffing sound of helicopter blades filled his tent, the noise hitting his ear and filtering through his hangover, percussive balloonish thumps pouring on and between the lobes of his brain. He groaned. The helicopter—helicopter?—did not seem to be passing on, and the nylon of his tent rippled with the gusts. Fumbling around with his eyes closed, he pulled on his snow pants and then the rest of his gear. Once dressed, he opened the flap of his tent and stepped outside the rainfly.
The sun’s reflection shot up from the snow and Brady stumbled, pupils narrowing in the harsh winter glare. He took a sip of water from a bottle in his pocket, swished it in his mouth, and spat it in the snow before squinting up. A man leaning from the helicopter’s door was speaking through a megaphone. Brady couldn’t make any words out. The megaphone got louder, a fuzzy wonking drone dopplering in the swirling air, still unintelligible. His stomach roiled. He pointed at his ears and shook his head. The man with the megaphone disappeared, leaving Brady to shiver in the gusts of the blades until the man pitched something out that fell and landed with a steaming splash in the snow. Brady trudged to the small crater it left. Steaming brown splotches surrounded the object he dug out—a paper coffee cup. He lifted it and saw scrawled on its side:
Shooter at large in park. Last seen headed toward Rainbow falls. Head west back to ranger station. Do not leave park w/out escort.
The sun’s reflection shot up from the snow and Brady stumbled, pupils narrowing in the harsh winter glare. He took a sip of water from a bottle in his pocket, swished it in his mouth, and spat it in the snow before squinting up. A man leaning from the helicopter’s door was speaking through a megaphone. Brady couldn’t make any words out. The megaphone got louder, a fuzzy wonking drone dopplering in the swirling air, still unintelligible. His stomach roiled. He pointed at his ears and shook his head. The man with the megaphone disappeared, leaving Brady to shiver in the gusts of the blades until the man pitched something out that fell and landed with a steaming splash in the snow. Brady trudged to the small crater it left. Steaming brown splotches surrounded the object he dug out—a paper coffee cup. He lifted it and saw scrawled on its side:
Shooter at large in park. Last seen headed toward Rainbow falls. Head west back to ranger station. Do not leave park w/out escort.
"For My Uncle Danny"—Tin House Open Bar, May 2013
I was slapping at the welts on my shins one green evening when you told me to suck on the head of a match. Sulfur, you said, would get in my blood and keep the mosquitoes away. One match a month was all it took, you told me. I went back to catching fireflies. You said it was phosphorous in their bulbs that kept them lighting up. I walked around with a match in my mouth for a week, the stick swollen soggy in my mouth, until my mother slapped it out because of the chemicals.
You told me once that you were Johnny Unitas. It was your stage name, and no wonder. A name like that, Unitas. You didn’t want to have people stopping you and making a scene. The secret to being a quarterback, you said, was seeing the whole field. I remember you stepping backward, feet like a fencer’s, palming an invisible ball and checking down the passing routes in our backyard. Scan the field, and make a read you said. I told everybody at school.
