Today’s post is coming to you courtesy of Kathy Pories, Senior Editor at Algonquin and Senior Editor of our annual New Stories from the South series (now in its 19th year!). She gets to soak up loads of short stories when making selections for the series and once a month she’ll share a favorite with us right here. And now, without further ado, here’s Kathy…
Many reviewers have pointed out that this year’s New Stories from the South trains its focus on Katrina and its aftermath. While this is true for many of the stories, the anthology also includes stories that are not related to Katrina in any way, but are simply standout stories. Steve Marion‘s “Touch Touch Me,” for example. In this story told by a lonely overweight reporter, he and a friend manage to pick up two ex-convict women and end up in the unlikeliest of places, a deserted supermarket. It’s there that we finally understand how this reporter sees himself in one of the convicts–and where the cryptic title of the story suddenly becomes clear.
I think there are few writers out there writing with the kind of originality and strong sense of voice that Stephen Marion possesses. I promise you, you won’t forget this story.
-Kathy
Gerald said it was fun to drive by the jail on a Saturday night to see if any ladies had bailed out. He called it F-Blocking. Once he had driven Alexander County north to south and west to east and found it empty as ever, Gerald would say, We are liable to have to resort to F-Blocking.
Liable to, said a reporter, crinkling his can of beer.
Gerald was master of high jinks. It had been Gerald who rearranged the letters on the dress-shop sign to read thirty-nine kinds of tight ass. He had transformed this reporter into a reporter. Last month, this reporter was a bagger, bagging with Gerald at Food City, until the help ad was clipped and he began to ask, Have you applied yet? Have you gone down there yet? Are you a newshound yet?
No no no no, said a reporter until Gerald with his own car forced him into the inky air of the newspaper office and this reporter emerged assigned to the Connie Mack Tournament that weekend at the American Legion Field.
Remember, said Gerald, you don’t say I. You say, A reporter. That is the first thing to learn about journalism. Everything else starts from that.
Gerald was up on journalism. He read the newspaper every day. He was up on all topics.
Look, said Gerald, waving the newspaper with Connie Mack inside. Lookahere.
But it may have been that summer with Gerald when a reporter chose his obesity. He may have selected a future of obscene fattitude, extraneous girth, additional gravity, because something was wrong, he was told later. Something was missing. But it did not seem so. But it may have been. A reporter, watching Gerald pop open the official brown bag of Food City, which his father had popped before him, may have made his choice, and not even known it. The man died at forty-eight, said Gerald. Died. People at Food City called Gerald Prince Gerald. He was manager apparent.
On the curb, between two empty patrol cars, stood a couple of girls. In F-Blocking, the idea was to find some who didn’t have a ride, or, best of all, had a ride coming but if given the opportunity might choose a different ride. This, Gerald said, had produced memorable evenings in the past. This reporter could not see the girls very well in the dark. Gerald stopped, turned down the radio. They came up, one forwardly, the other cautiously. The forward one got hold of Gerald’s door.
Read the rest of this entry »
Contrary to popular belief, not all writers sit in dark corners scribbling their serious, serious story about how gloomy and awful life is. Most writers use laptops now. Others, like George Singleton, forgo the expected, ho-hum gloom and doom stories and instead write dry, hilarious stories about eccentric characters and their bizarre run-ins with characters even crazier than themselves. So here’s to you, George Singleton, and your short story pick of the month. Seriously. 
ABOUT GEORGE SINGLETON
Wells Tower
