All bad things must come to an end.
Tag Archives: ryan sparks
The Gustav Evacuation, Part 3: The Wait, by Ryan Sparks
October 12, 2009 – 8:20 am
We know what we smell like, okay? Hours and hours under the sun or smothered by night heat have us sweating coffee, sweating Red Bull. The clench of old cigarette smoke. Fast food and soda breath. We are covered in pet hair or the sticky evidence of children’s fingerprints. We ceased to smell like travelers [...]
The Gustav Evacuation, Part 2: The Drive, by Ryan Sparks
October 8, 2009 – 8:18 am
Cue the music. We’re going for a ride. It’s hot as Labor Day weekend should be, summer’s last holiday, last chance to boil. We have our windows down and the music is passing between cars and mixing in the space between, pidgin notes and lyrics. The few radio stations not on a constant bulletin loop, [...]
The Gustav Evacuation, Part 1: Preparations, by Ryan Sparks
October 5, 2009 – 8:04 am
As Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf states in August of 2008, memories of the Katrina disaster triggered the largest evacuation in US history. Three million fled the oncoming hurricane. Most of the refugees were from the Louisiana south coast. Author, New Orleans resident, and Katrina veteran Ryan Sparks was among them. The following [...]
James Ellroy’s Blood’s A Rover, a review by Ryan Sparks
October 1, 2009 – 8:39 am
Ryan Sparks tackles Ellroy’s latest, Blood’s A Rover A shorter version of this review originally appeared on the Writer’s Center blog, First Person Plural.
Brave Captain Harvey, Conclusion by Ryan Sparks
July 23, 2009 – 11:08 am
“Now. I’m stark naked, holed up in a cramped room with two dead whores, my radio is shot to shit, and I’m blue-balled all to hell. Twelve shots in the clip. I’m estimating there’s at least seven of ‘em outside, and they ain’t all going down with one bullet. My options were severely limited.”
Brave Captain Harvey, Part One by Ryan Sparks
July 20, 2009 – 2:05 pm
“I knew things were bad when the second whore shook, seized up, then slid sideways off of me like a concussed jockey falling out of the saddle. Shot right through the breast. I’d thought the other one just fell or something, you know? She was dicking around with the radio in the corner of the [...]
Haunted by the Dog Man by Ryan Sparks
June 22, 2009 – 2:04 pm
Here they come around the corner of the block, the man and his dogs. He wears soft buckskin moccasins so the sound of his feet treading the sidewalk imitates that of his two companions. Padt padt padt. The only difference is the rhythm of their strides. The dogs are tall and shaggy, solemn black and [...]
Make it Up as We Go Along by Ryan Sparks
May 7, 2009 – 9:19 am
When our two eyes meet for the hundredth time in the day, skies outside cloudy, a rolling froth of clouds threatening to boil over, caught in the red rhombus of a televised tornado warning area, something happens that was unlike the first ninety-nine. We are pulled inward. A glass is set down on the counter, [...]
Non Sequiter Love by Ryan Sparks
May 24, 2007 – 1:49 am
Words falling, dropping against the floor in Cuban jazz rhythms. “What’s hid-ing in the ten-e-ment hawwwls?” she sing-songs, her fingernails trailing against the old hallway that’s wearing thirteen coats of off-white paint. She looks over at me for acknowledgment of her creation, and I smile and force an audible amount of breath out of my [...]