1 Skylark A stoop-shouldered man with sparse hair stumbled into the Skylark bar from the bright, blue skies of October in Chicago. He perched on a bar stool and grinned at Mike White, the barkeep, “Make it a double.”      “Heck, yes,” Mike said, slapping the bar, “I thought you’d never ask. Hey, how are you doing this morning? Hope you had a good night, Bill," Mike said.      The gentleman, Bill Porter, waited for the drink to arrive. He surveyed the room of his daily social club, where he distracted himself from his disappointments. He looked over[...]

It was a cold, snowy day in December 2021. The heavy storm winds subsided during the night, creating an other-worldly stillness. Trees lined the boulevard to town, giant trees that pondered decades of memories of students trundling to campus with books under their arms. Dressed in an aged wool overcoat, a black and gold scarf tucked inside the coat's collar, and a black fedora whose brim he pulled down before venturing into the wilderness of the old neighborhood, the sixty-year-old native Iowan headed for the University of Iowa campus a mile away. He traversed the last porch step of the[...]

Looking down on Jimbo lying in his casket, I thought he didn’t age well. In high school, he was a certifiable jock, and the girls loved him. And now he wore too much rouge. I smiled. I had been the nerdy guy who wanted to hang out with a cool guy. And Jimbo fit the bill. He had been my hero for a time. And in recent years, I’d come to loathe him. I limped away from his body and took my seat at the back of the viewing room. My thoughts returned to a particular evening as a seventeen-year-old,[...]