Robert

Roman

Empire

RED BRICK ALLEY STORIES

The Killards Are Coming

Every damn day in Religion Class, Sister Anna Banana yapped about the Soviets revving up to start a nuclear war with the new president, Ronald Reagan. She said after the cities burned to Holy Hell, there’d be something called “nuclear winter” that would kill all...

Double-Strength Demon Dogs

Fantastic Freddie was the only altar boy from the Red Brick Alley. He was always consecrating Ritz Crackers and trying to make us eat them like communion wafers. He light-fingered incense from the sacristy, and he blessed water from Old Lady Tully’s spigot...

Laser Loop

I couldn’t see over the tall green school bus seat except when we hit a pothole and I bounced up in the air like a Pop-Tart jumping out of a toaster. Nobody at Saint Augie’s could believe I was allowed to go. My first school picnic ever. I was good from the day I handed in my pink...

The Boy Wonder

How the Hell did Jaggerbush get himself up there? He was clawing his way up into the open window above the Science class door like a real-life gargoyle. The blockhead of a wooden mallet stuck out of the back of his Toughskins where his butt crack was. He wore three...

My Own Private Ulysses: In the Pages of the Bloomsday Journal

Today’s Ezraku : In the Pages of the Bloomsday Journal Written words for the wasteland of Joyceana: From Heaven or Hell, your choice of manna.

Oct 25

My Own Private Ulysses: In Stephen’s Mixed Metaphor of Mulligan

Today’s Ezraku inspired Senan Molony’s “ Helen of Joyce .” What the Hell’s an Ezraku? Answer here . “Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.” In Stephen’s Mixed Metaphor of Mulligan Face, equine in length; hued hair like pale oak: Wooden horse, Troy’s towers in flame and smoke.

Oct 20