Like a broke radio

A couple years ago, I wrote a story about rats in Union Square Park. When it finally got published, I think the story lost some of the ragged, mad feeling it had when I read the story out loud.

Hoping to reclaim a bit of that broken radio feeling, I just recorded a short audio version of the story at Travel Goat, the New York City podcast archive. Check it out...

One summer night on a pitch-black sidewalk in suburban Michigan, I literally stepped on a skunk. I screamed like a little girl and ran home through an eye-watering cloud of stink—stripping off clothes my clothes one by one. I crashed into my living room, barefoot in my boxer-shorts, and screamed at my shocked roommate: “Do I smell like skunk?”

Eventually, the smell went away, but the accident changed me forever. Like a broke radio receiving transmissions from outer space, I’m tuned to the stranger frequencies. Now I notice all the sinister sounds at night, the crinkle of garbage bags or the scratch of tiny claws on cement.

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