Dorothy Parker was funny in a cruel way which I think made us like her all the more, especially mother, who saw herself as some gutsy, wise, old truth teller of the old school. Now it’s really easy to see she was just mean and unhappy, possibly with us; definitely with father and the uneven parade of men that followed him. Each had his baggage and stayed around only long enough to unpack it on us. There’s no fixing it now, we’ve all grown too old to hug such things away. I do, though, from time to time find myself passing off Ms. Parker’s remarks as my own. If Mother notices my plagiary, she only smiles and says nothing. I think I’m her new hero each time.

Jason Graff

A widely published writer and Pushcart Prize nominee, Jason Graff’s novella, The White Wolf’s Secret (aka In the Service of the Boyar), is out now from Vagabondage Press. His first novel-length works, heckler and Stray Our Pieces will be published in 2019 by Unsolicited Press and Waldorf Publishing respectively. You can sample the future via his Humorscopes at blueplanetjournal.com. He lives in Richardson, TX with his wife and son.