Meet Clever

Michael was a sandwich. He was a reuben with extra sauce. By the time Kevin arrived home, Michael had dragged the ping pong table from the garage and unfolded the legs in the middle of the living room. Michael broke the seal on a bottle of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum when Kevin noticed what he was doing. “Play me,” said Michael. “I’ll fuck you up,” Kevin said to the sandwich. Michael arranged six red cups on each side of the table and poured by eye about an ounce of liquor into each cup, then topped up each with a splash of Pepsi from the door of the fridge. “Bitch ass sandwiches go first,” said Kevin, rolling both balls across the table toward Michael. Michael squared up his crusts so that the fluffy part of his bread stomach just hung over the white paint around the edge of the table. Then Kevin said “Back up.” Michael obliged, inching backward to the wall behind him. Fondling the first ball between his fingers, Michael carefully eyed the cups on Kevin’s side of the ta...

When I was eight years old, my parents worked full time. My elementary school was only a few blocks away from my grandmother’s house, so I’d walk there after school just about every day. She lived in a small house with a large backyard dotted with peach trees and blackberry bushes. Grape vines scaled the sides of her brick garage at the end of the property. She had a rectangular patch of soil in the middle of the yard where she’d plant tomatoes and carrots. She taught me to always plant the basil right next to the tomatoes. She said it was because they got along so well. My grandmother didn’t drink a lot, but in a thick oak cabinet in her kitchen, she kept a bottle of vodka. The cabinet had wide doors near the bottom with brass handles. The rest was wooden shelving covered by glass panels on hinges that swung outward when you opened them. You could look through the glass and see everything on the shelves. That’s how I knew there was a bottle of vodka inside; I never saw my grandmoth...