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Baffler Archives: Stories

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Stormy Love Story
January 14, 2013
I still think about him. You know, my ex-boyfriend, four-star General Norman Paul Schwarzkopf. It’s hard. I was a civilian, he was a general, leading our troops to victory in the Gulf War. To you, to the public, he was sober, fearless, dedicated, loyal. He delivered those ...

One Thing about a Goat
January 13, 2013
Animals don’t have it so good. It’s no secret. One thing’s clothes: you won’t see a goat browsing in Petites on Saturday afternoon. You won’t see a goat exercising her rights as a consumer. I’m not saying they can help it, I’m just saying it bugs me. I mean it just ...

Pills
January 13, 2013
1. How can I get some pills? Getting pills is a breeze. Just select a psychiatrist from the Yellow Pages—and make an appointment! Mental health professionals will hand over a prescription without any fuss or bother. They like pills as much as you do! Have you, at any point in ...

from Aurora
Chicago, 1989. A strike that has been going on for some time has finally collapsed. The union is facing ruination and the company has filed suit for millions in damages. On the eve of the trial, Gil, the union’s lawyer, stumbles into a romantic triangle between his North Side ...

The Skin Sellers
January 12, 2013
Dermali was once a tiny nation in the Balkans. It no longer exists. But its culture lives on among the Dermalian-Americans. In the Twenties, after the Dermalian economy had been smashed by The Great War, six of my eight great-grandparents emigrated to the United States and ...

Give the Millionaire a Drink
January 10, 2013
They come from all over to the town of East Hampton, this celebrated place at the end of the island. Private jets shoot off hourly from Dallas and L.A., the chilled Porsches and Saabs arrive from Montclair and Rye, matron busloads depart the Park Avenue swelter in a huff of ...

Helping Hand
I was never meant for this nocturnal stage, this sickening sabbat spun out of control. I am a creature of the daytime, engineered to delight housewives, to charm the Oprah-fed minions with my engaging deformity. Only through cunning have I insinuated myself here, become part of ...

Inter Office Mail
January 10, 2013
As of this moment I am practicing the letter. Sitting alone at my kitchen table, tonight, ten-thirty, I am practicing how to write the perfect letter with my brand new Bic ball-point pen and stolen company stationery. The problem is that there are so many ways to write this ...

Then They Say You’re Drunk
January 09, 2013
The morning’s nutter was there. Brixton, Guy decided, must have more headcases per square inch than any other place in the world. He had sojourned in the great cities of the continents, had seen some sorry, deformed, trashy sights, but for multitudinous loonies Brixton was ...

Disnae Matter
January 07, 2013
Ah wis it that Disneyland in Florida, ken. Took hur n the bairn. Wi me gittin peyed oaf fi Ferranti’s, ah thoat its either dae somethin wi the dough or pish it doon the bog it the Willie Muir. Ah saw whit happened tae a loat ay other cunts; living like kings fir a while: ...

Famous Men
September 23, 2012
I have met the famous men, the gaunt Caucasians with the powers you’ve heard about and thought you could fight, the men of letters, their names known to the captains of publishing, the teachers of literature, and the readers of Esquire, men successful enough to dress like ...