Fiction | September 01, 2000
Melvin in the Sixth Grade
Dana Johnson
This story is not currently available online.
Excerpt:
Maybe it was around the time that the Crips sliced up my brother’s arm for refusing to join their gang. Or it could have been after the Crips and the Bloods shot up the neighborhood one Halloween so we couldn’t go trick-or-treating. It could have even been when my brother’s friend Anthony got shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever the reason, my father decided it was tim to take advantage of a Veteran’s Loan, get out of L.A. and move to the suburbs. Even if I can’t quite nail down the events that spurred the move, I know that one and a half months after I climbed into my father’s rusted-out Buick Wildcat and said good-bye to 110th Street and hello to Verbugo Street, with its lawns and no sidewalks, I fell for my first man.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
Joy Comes in the Morning
I went over to Rosalind’s house because the Sunday Sisters had gathered to pray for me. I told them I didn’t believe in God but attended services with my mother… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
O’Herlihy (Née Noonan)
On the second of April 1923 she was born in the main bedroom of the family home, in Drumcondra. Her colour was deep blue. The thundery richness of this blue,… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
Purple Knot
My mother’s birdwatching mania began with my fourteenth birthday, when she gave me a pair of exorbitantly priced binoculars she’d bought from an enthusiast in Lexington, Kentucky. They weighed as… read more