The Late Americans

by Brandon Taylor

It was the height of foolishness, academia. You sank down and down in debt, in desperation, in hunger, so that you could feel a little special, a little brilliant in your small, dark corner of the universe, knowing something that no one else knew. Art was worth many things, but was it worth putting your whole family

sometimes your life was so filled with other things that there was no room for other people and their stuff.

Both because there was no point to the argument and because the truth did not change the material reality of what had happened to this place and to these people.

Before the present became the past and before the past became history, when it was your family going hungry or your town losing their jobs, getting wrung out, it didn’t matter if you got the blame pinned on the right son of a bitch.