Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Those bikes need a lot of adjustment T here’s something about being an older white guy in America: At some point you feel like the kids need to get off your lawn. Figuratively speaking.  We got some new neighbors a few weeks ago. This neighborhood is OK, but there’s a somewhat decrepit rental house across the street. It’s so decrepit that it is actually affordable. Thus, the tenants come and go. They come for the affordable rent; they go because the house is, well, decrepit. Black mold and so forth.  Our newest neighbors are two or three young guys who spend a lot of time working on their mini motorbikes on the sidewalk out front. There’s only one way to work on a motorbike. You tinker with it, and then you start it up and twist the throttle to see if your tinkering has made any difference. Maybe take a test run up and down the street. Repeat until the neighbors call the authorities.  We’re not calling the authorities. Sometimes, brooding through slatted blinds, I’ve felt...

It's probably not art S ome miscreants have been spray-painting penises on the streets of our neighborhood. The Facebook reactions have been interesting. Some decry vandalism and the harmful effects on children who may pedal by. Others see vibrant guerrilla art, part of the rich tapestry of life in a supremely chill neighborhood.  I’m somewhere in the middle. Not really vandalism, since nothing is broken. And I doubt it’s going to corrupt anybody. I mean, they are supposed to be dicks, but the technique is so crude they could just as easily be abstract alligators or inexpertly rendered Amazon logos. If it’s art, it’s strictly seventh grade. We still don’t know the perpetrators, but I’m pretty sure we can rule out Banksy. As far as neighborhood color goes … yeah, whatever. I find the painted dicks about as cool as the fast-food trash we see so often in certain parks and corners of Springfield. Neither the dicks nor the trash represent an ethos so much as the absence of it. In any ca...

T oday I went to Publix, thinking I should do something to prepare for the approach of a Category 4 hurricane. But the only thing I bought of a hurricane nature was a case of bottled water. Publix had big pallets of it stationed around the store, and most people seemed to be grabbing at least one. I did too. If everybody had been grabbing big sacks of pomegranate, I probably would have done the same. We should all know it’s possible to fill up jugs with regular tap water and keep it for a few days, right? But when a hurricane’s coming you feel like you have to step up your game. Thus the bottled water. I also bought an overripe honeydew melon and some Cheerios and milk and a screamin’ BOGO deal on whole-bean coffee. I filled up the Prius and got $100 out of the ATM. And more wine, of course.  Bring it on, Dorian! Hurricane warnings are tough for me. I can never get in the proper mindset. The tracking forecast changes at least hourly, and it’s hard to maintain a true sense of urgenc...

M y morning walk was cooler than it’s been in awhile. Gray skies and the possibility of rain. Still humid as hell, but when you’re in Florida in late August, a dip into the mid 70s can put a spring in your step. They say those gray skies may portend a Labor Day hurricane, but I’ll go ahead and enjoy them for now. I saw an older black guy on a pedal bike stopped at the corner. He appeared to be rolling up his rain jacket. He had a boom box in the front basket, playing some cool ’70s soul number at mid volume. Sounded like Al Green. “Let’s Stay Together,” maybe. I liked it. Usually when people play their music in public, the music is very shitty and very loud. Way too much bass and the only lyrics you can make out have to do with motherfuckers. This tune was just right, fading pleasantly as he pedaled away down the empty street. The song was still in my head three miles later. If the guy had looked my way, I might have smiled or nodded or given him an inane thumbs-up. But you don’t want ...

I t’s been a slow week. So let’s go to the mailbag: Dear Dave : So, what have you been reading lately? A : I just finished Beautiful Ruins , by Jess Walter. Excellent book, about a struggling Greek innkeeper and his encounter with an American actress in 1962, when the movie Cleopatra was being filmed. Richard Burton makes an appearance. I can say no more than that, because I don’t want to spoil it for you. But it’s a lovely book. Dave Bob, the idiot savant who inhabits a renovated supply closet here at the Warehouse, gives it four stars. Jess Walter wrote the highly regarded Citizen Vince in 2005. My brother Mike recommended Beautiful Ruins, and because he reads nothing but crime fiction, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this is not a mystery at all. Not a serial killer in sight. It’s just a very good, funny, and insightful book. Check it out. Note to Jess Walter: I’m available to do back-cover blurbs on spec. Dear Dave : What’s it like living in the Springfield neighborhood...