“Across the Alley” by Raymond Miller

When Cold-bone described beating his girlfriend unconscious because she threw up on his shoes while giving him a blowjob, Burnadette decided that she wasn’t hungry after all . . .

“Off Empty” by Tobias Record

The train lurched forward like a giant hiccup. Holiday awoke from his hiatus, opening his eyes just enough to make out light and dark shapes. You coulda blindfolded him with dental floss . . .

“Knock Yourself Out” by Montague Kobbé

On Monday morning I woke up to the beat of electronic music drumming in the living room like it were Saturday. Or at least Thursday. I slipped into my jeans, half angered, half asleep, and walked outside looking more for an explanation than a fight. Except for my flatmate, the room was deserted, the subwoofer booming. His head bobbled from side to side like a serpent making its way up a tree, his left hand twitched not so much nervously as involuntarily, and he shuffled from one foot to the other as if he had been standing for a long time . . .

“We Are Not Saints” by Lauren Eyler

This is axiomatic. This is easy. The hard part comes when you have to say, hello I am an. My name is and I am an. I am alcohol. I am an alcohol named and I am an. Well, we are not Saints . . .

“Clubbing” by Jennifer Schaefer

It took the bulky female bouncer all of five seconds to find the stash in Sallie’s bra: “Now, what’s this, love? Next time keep it in your knickers.”

Damn it—now she’d have to try to score inside . . .

“Herbal Tea” by Steven Jay Flam

Harry was a twenty-two-year-old junkie who made his living pedaling marijuana to sailors on Telegraph Avenue. He would buy lid bags of Mexican for ten dollars apiece and resell them for twenty. Some nights he would sell five . . .

“Class Two” by Virginia Aronson

We’re in the elevator and Jancy is climbing up the metal wall, using my knee as a stepladder. “Look Mom, I’m rappelling,” she says, bouncing up and down on my thigh.

I want to yell at her but I need her like this . . .

“A Night at Storytime Hamlet” by Richard Klin

As Chessy slowly approached Thomas’s house, he offered up his usual fervent litany: that Thomas’s mother or father wouldn’t answer the door, and if they did, the strained, obligatory small talk would somehow be less excruciating than usual. But fortune was smiling on him this evening—Thomas was perched right outside. For now, at least, the parents could be avoided . . .