Knockemstiff

by Donald Ray Pollock

The trailer smelled like a closet full of bad times. All the windows were shut, and it must have been a hundred degrees inside. Black flies crawled on the walls. A flaky brown snakeskin was stretched out on the kitchen counter.

“we’re gods, remember? Shit, we can do anything.”

Spanish fly orgy in the abandoned beach house.

DEL HAD THE FEELING THAT HE’D GO ON FOREVER, WHICH is a great feeling really, especially after you’ve watched your cousin commit suicide with a Marlboro.

You could have nailed a cross to her forehead and the woman wouldn’t have changed her expression.

Looking at his daughter, Del suddenly felt a great sorrow well up inside him. Falling to his knees, he was just beginning to ask the baby for her forgiveness when he heard his wife tromp back down the hall and slam the bedroom door shut. Both daughter and father jumped at the sound, one still flush with innocence, the other guilty of a thousand trespasses.

she couldn’t escape the sounds of televised religion.