The Handy Thing About Being

Rueful, Bittersweet, Funny, Written With Tenderness And Bite, Merrill Feitell's Stories, Like So Many Classic Short Stories, Are Made From The Plain And Painful Stuff Of This World, And Haunted By The Possibility, And The Impossibility, Of A Better One.

There Were So Many Pittsburgh Poets In My Hallway That If, At That Instant, A Meteorite Had Come Smashing Through My Roof, There Would Never Have Been Another Stanza Written About Rusting Fathers And Impotent Steelworkers And The Bessemer Convertor Of Love.

They Lay There For A Few Seconds, In The Dark, In The Future, Listening To The Fabulous Clockwork Of Their Hearts And Lungs, And Loving Each Other

I Said, “i Need To Hear Something That’s Going To Save My Life.” Re: Selecting Songs From A Jukebox.

And Then The Man Reminded Max, With A Serious But Suave And Practiced Air, That Freedom Was A Debt That Could Be Repaid Only By Purchasing The Freedom Of Others.