Staff Picks: Short Fiction

Bud Wiggins Jr., a stubborn sixty-one and stubborner fifteen pounds overweight, was in the perma-crawl of LA freeway traffic when he ready-steadied for a bit of the old Mounjaro ultraviolence. From base camp, he heard thunder on not too distant slopes. Through the ages, men learned tricks to stanch ejaculation but when it came to tummy trouble, all strategies were a loser’s game. In a cold sweat, he scanned grassy onramps and adjacent knolls like a doomed pilot surveilling urban landing strips that would kill the least amount of civilians.

Amputation: An Exclusive Excerpt from Bruce Wagner’s Forthcoming Novel

The night before, Trooper the Surfer was way up in the Highlands fooling around with the trans bros—most of them were topless but still had pussies—he wasn’t a chaser but met one at the beach (Rory) who said he ‘cracked the egg about a year ago and had top surgery.’ Trooper gave his stock lifestyle-response, his Pete Davidson/Chad ‘Cool,’ and Rory, smiling with a degree of seriousness, said, ‘I’m making my own decisions. I’m my own legal guardian and people don’t understand that.’ He invited the surfer over and whoa the manse was a fuckin motherlode. Trooper’s uncle couldn’t believe all the shit he stole—the trans bros were so rich they didn’t notice or care.