Follow my sister, Nina, and me as we make a book together: my writing and her gorgeous inks on paper.

Posts tagged “K10

I WANTED TO SIT CLOSER: Losing Daneel.

Posted on September 3, 2015

In August of 2007, our co-worker, Sherri’s, daughter was killed by an ex-boyfriend. He followed her car home, slipped under the arm of the security gate, and then shot her multiple times in her apartment. He went back to the parking lot and killed himself. The complex has them on videotape: Daneel standing her ground, telling him “It’s over, Manny. Go home,” and then walking back up the stairs to her place, Manny in his car, getting his gun from the glove compartment, loading it with bullets kept in the trunk, walking back up to Daneel’s, then back down to his car before putting the gun under his chin. It took him thirteen minutes to die. Read more. Re-published on THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Many thanks to Brad…

I WANTED TO SIT CLOSER: The Skeleton Key.

Posted on September 3, 2015

I started tutoring the Moorhead sisters twice a week at their charter school on Napoleon Avenue. It was one of the first schools to open after Katrina with 319 students enrolled. The Moorhead sisters got to school by city bus. They had evacuated Katrina late – in a rainstorm – and saw the car in front of theirs drive over the spillway. Everyone in it died. Their family had lost their home and they’d relocated to a double on Elysian Fields. Their mom was an RN at Touro Infirmary, but she’d decided to open her own catering business. The sisters were both in the 7th grade because LaDell had repeated. She was quiet and serious, with a smile that tripped me up, it was…