Lonely Planet

Sometime after midnight I stepped into a smoky cellar bar, gave the miserable clientele the once-over, and located an empty stool toward the back. The bartender, a cigarette between his lips, was drying glasses with a dirty rag. In my beret and belted black raincoat, I might have been taken for a fugitive Trotskyite – or perhaps the assassin sent to execute him. A woman slipped onto the next stool. She had a face like that of a 13-year-old girl who died of heart failure following prolonged laughter. “I am here to entertain you,” she said, “but only during my shift.” From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (forthcoming from Ethel Micro-Press).