Nonfiction | May 07, 2016
The Polish Prince
John W. Evans
During Prohibition, Granny Wiskowski sold bootleg gin out of her living room and, at the end of her life, she was still a skilled gambler. The night she won a gold-and-turquoise Miami Dolphins pendant at hospital bingo, she took down the box from her bed stand, held it out to me and poked a figure into my sternum. “Don’t take no shit from no one,” she said in her hoarse half-Polish, half-English whisper. I had never heard an adult swear except in anger, and now I wasn’t even in trouble. I hooked the clasp around my neck and wore the pendant for most of the decade, right through the tarnish. A necklace. My new favorite team.
This essay is not currently available online.
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
Nonfiction
Mar 02 2021
A Series of Tubes
Although widely ridiculed for the statement, the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was right when he said, “The Internet is a series of tubes.” He was just off by a… read more
Nonfiction
Mar 01 2021
Terroir
One night while counting down the till at Casa de Agave, the San Diego tequila bar I’d been working for a couple of fun but exhausting years, I received an… read more
Nonfiction
Dec 11 2020
Magnet Man
Magnet Man I shift from foot to foot. Both my feet hurt. I’m packing magnets at my dad’s factory, and the rubber mats meant to cushion my joints from the… read more