Out on the stoop, I’m smoking a cigarette, which is a big mistake. Kris has noticed me. He lives in a building up the street and he’s a pain in the ass. As he approaches, I already know what he wants.  

Writer Christopher Coake will be reading from his first novel, “You Came Back,” at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. Coake teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, but his ties to this part of  

The last time Hope was in my life was early October, 1994. I had just come back from Seattle, Washington where my twin brother had died. We met at a bar in Price Hill. Hope and I got our drinks, went to a table and talked about my brother maybe for a couple minutes. Then we talked about bullshit things that didn’t matter. I remember feeling angry about it later, but Hope was just being Hope. Talking about real life wasn’t something she was interested in.   

It’s hard for me to really say when my eyesight started to go so horribly bad. I guess it was more or less a gradual thing, but during the spring of last year, it seemed to suddenly worsen. More and more, I was living in shades of pale.  

Strange sounds outside my apartment window in Covington have some along with the warmer weather. I often hear stray cats howling or even fighting early in the mornings. One recent morning in particular, they woke me up at five o’clock. It was a day I wasn’t really looking forward to.  

If I ever see Charlene again, I have a few questions I’d like to ask. Whether I actually ask them is anybody’s guess. I noticed her about a year ago. I was living in Westwood and had gotten a ride to downtown Cincinnati to catch a T.A.N.K. bus to Kentucky. We were waiting at the same bus stop at Fourth and Main. It was a cold winter morning. Awaiting different buses, we sat on the same bench. She kept looking at me and maybe I was looking at her, too.   

It had been more than 20 years since I’ve had to deal with a mouse in my living space. Nevermind the fact I was born and raised on a farm where I’ve seen mice in barns and even in houses. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a country boy, and having this rodent in my living quarters freaked me out.   

I have long, skinny fingers except when I go Christmas shopping. Once I’m in a store listening to Christmas music and hearing all that holiday cheer, my fingers swell up. This has been happening since the 1980’s. My fingers are no longer fingers. They’re long, fat sausages that are tired of picking up stuff and trying to decide what to buy somebody.  

I arrived a little too early for the meeting. Having a vodka and tonic at the Backstage Café in Covington, I was waiting for my editor to show up. It’s never a good thing when your editor wants to talk about your column and “the future.” I kind of knew the kind of future he wanted to discuss.  

The young guy sitting on the bench to my left was high on something. He kept mentioning how he got caught “getting it on” by the girl’s boyfriend. “He went out to his truck to get a gun,” the guy said. “I got out of there quick, man, hightailed it.” I nodded my head at him as he spit on the sidewalk. He spit a lot.