"THE FARRIER": Short fiction in The Cartier Street Review

My short fiction THE FARRIER has come out in The Cartier Street Review, April 2009 edition. Read at:


http://thecartierstreetreview.blogspot.com/2009/04/april-2009-edition.html

Cover Image by Chris Labrenz, The CSR, Apr 09

Bernard Alain, Ottawa, Canada, is Principal Editor (blog site). Joy Leftow, New York, NY, is Production Editor (blog site). The Cartier Street Review is a not-for-profit magazine. 50% of all net revenues go to a children's charity.

Please support this month's charity by downloading a high resolution print quality PDF file at: CSR April 2009 Edition


Excerpt from my story below:

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"The Farrier "


Was Russet to live her life between the legs of horses? She could get kicked sometime, although I’m sure Russet never expected that. It’s a job she had for a long time. Russet had big hands. Her hair cut like a duckling’s tail caught in a twister. She was a farrier. With an uncommon but musical name – Russet.


That’s what she told me.

We spoke while rummaging through old books on sale downtown where they’d let us take a bagful for a dollar. Shivering in the line outside on the cold concrete, for it was late November in this little Upstate New York town, I rubbed my bristly palms inside fleece gloves to a frigid drop falling from above, listening to the drone of a man explaining to someone the intricacies of a Russian fireplace. Once inside, we rummaged and I saw she held this Alberto Moravia I wanted, Two Women. Like a predatory animal I eyed her. Silently pointed towards the Moravia. She eye-browed towards the flat thin book I was holding.

“Horses.” She said. “You like horses?”


“I don’t mind them.” I said. Why talk of horses? This isn’t a farm fest. It’s a book sale.



“You’ve a horse here,” she said, leaning over and touching the book I was holding. Tock tock. She knocked on the cover twice.


The flat thin cover indeed had a horse snorting in a yellow-green cornfield. I had no idea if horses liked corn. Suddenly it hit me why horses were the topic.



“Okay,” I said, sheepishly. She handed my book to me. “This is about women,” I explained.


“You like women?” She asked the same way she had asked if I liked horses.Yes. No. What do I say? I’m a man! I nodded. I liked women only because they are there, all around. Not in the same way I’d adore a race car. It was tough to explain.



Read more at Current Issue (April 2009)