Cartilage and Skin (40 page)
As my brain played out the various scenarios that were possibly being enacted in my old home, I continued forward. I had to gaze down at the fouled sidewalk. In some scenes, the madman realized his mistake and crept away without making a sound, but in others, the hammer fell before he knew what was beneath the covers, and still more, in other scenes, he peeled back the covers firstâand since these were the worst, I tried not to allow myself to imagine them.
I walked for a long time, but eventually, not far from the bright early hours of the morning, I approached the subway that would take me to the train station. Fretful over the weather, I hoped that everything was still on schedule. I stepped off the sidewalk and began to descend the staircase. Halfway down, a crumpled pile of rags was heaped against the wall, and if not for the solitary hand that reached out of the mound and held onto the metal railing, I wouldn't have known that I was passing at least one, if not two, human beings. Yellow bulbs glowed against the wet walls, but even so, it looked darker at the bottom. Shortly, commuters would be crowding along the passage in their morning rush.
My God
, I thought, but I went down nonetheless, aching with every step.
THE END
Michael James Rizza has an MA in creative writing from Temple University in Philadelphia and a PhD in American Literature from the University of South Carolina. He has published academic articles on Don DeLillo, Milan Kundera, Harold Frederic, and Adrienne Rich. His short fiction has recently appeared in
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Switchback
, and
Curbside Splendor
. He has won various awards for his writing, including a fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction. His current projects are a book about the theories of Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, and Michel Foucault, and a novel tentatively titled
Domestic Men's Fiction
. He teaches at Kean University. He lives in New Jersey with his wife Robin and their son Wilder, who was named after a character in DeLillo's
White Noise
. He welcomes you to visit his website:
mjrizza.com
.
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Starcherone Books, Inc., exists to stimulate public interest in works of innovative prose fiction and nurture an understanding of the art of fiction writing by publishing, disseminating, and affording the public opportunities to hear readings of innovative works. In addition to encouraging the development of authors and their audiences, Starcherone seeks to educate the public in small press publishing and encourage the growth of other small presses. We are an independently operated imprint of Dzanc Books, with new titles distributed through Consortium Distribution and Open Road Media. Visit us online at
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All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The first chapter of
Cartilage and Skin
was performed at Playwrights Theatre in Madison, New Jersey. An excerpt also appeared in Atticus Books Online.
This book is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council for the Arts, a state agency. Starcherone Books thanks the Council and New York State taxpayers for this support.
Copyright © 2013 by Michael James Rizza
Cover design by Julian Montague
Cover photograph by Mark Hillringhouse
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