The Long Way Home

by Richard Chizmar

“No worries there, retard. What chick is gonna be dumb enough to marry your ugly ass?” Jimmy was bright enough in the ways of childhood to understand the twelve-year-old translation of this insult was: it’s all gonna be okay, buddy—so he returned the favor. “Plenty…starting with your naked sister.”

Drunkenness gone now, vaporized by a sudden surge