“This would have been her big Thanksgiving, because she was always saying how, you know, when she was gone, if we all could do the holidays and not ‘eff’ it up, then that would mean she did right by us. She would not have said ‘eff’ it up, by the way, but she would have […]
“The last guy gave me $10 on a $22 order. I told him ‘Thank you, thank you so much.’ He said he used to do the same thing I’m doing. He lives in a big house now. Did you see that house? Imagine living in a house that big.” He’s been doing this for four […]
“I wasn’t young for very long.” She takes me to Glorious West African Cuisine on Elmwood Avenue. We eat fried plantains and dry rice, and she accuses me of picking at my food. “You finicky? I used to call my son finicky. Then he got older and now he’ll eat whatever you put in front […]
On the second floor of an apartment on Parade Street, there’s a man with no shirt standing in front of a window trying not to draw Superman. “It’s hard when something gets inside your head and you feel like you have to get it out, but it’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of […]
We were sitting around a circular table trying not to eat the bread. “You put out food that gives off a nice smell, like fresh-baked bread or soup,” said our hostess, a woman in her mid-60s who had invited the group of us to her house for a seance. “It invites the spirits in.” This […]
She works in a small office on the line where Providence meets North Providence, where she does medical billing and tries not to fall asleep. “I bartend at night, and when I first started, I could juggle all these things,” she tells me over coffee near her house. “I’m getting older now so that’s not […]
I sometimes wonder if I survived the drop. It’s a drop that never happened, but could have– Maybe it did. Years ago, I was standing on a rooftop in downtown Providence on a date that was going poorly, and the guy suggested we go out onto the roof, which seemed like a romantic strategy for […]
He played me something on his piano. “That’s not my best,” he says, “but it’s the one I like the most.” His house is on the South Side across from a little neighborhood convenience store where he shops every day. “I get the paper. I talk to the woman at the register. Sometimes she’s the […]
“He was shaking so bad I thought he was going to pass out,” she said laughing, while he nodded his head with a good-natured smile. “I was thinking, Oh no, this is not the man for me. Look how nervous he is. I will destroy this man.” I ask him what happened next. “Well,” he said, […]
I wanted to find someone as old as Providence Place. When I passed by a banner in the mall letting me know that the capitalist center I used to beg my parents to drop me off at in high school was turning 20, I knew that I had to write about it for this column. […]