Dave's Fiction Warehouse

These needy seniors are making me thirsty I used to be a Meals on Wheels driver, and let me tell you, those were the days: Pulling down a generous stipend while delivering gourmet cuisine to indolent oldsters. The only downside was that they were lousy tippers, and tended to complain if the foie gras was grainy or the filets were overdone. Ha ha. Very funny, right? Actually, I found Meals on Wheels to be about as economical and efficient as any government-assisted program could be. Almost austere, really. Nearly all of us were volunteers. We’d donate our time and cars and gas money to haul mediocre cafeteria chow to lonely folks who might otherwise go hungry. In the process we’d see how they were doing. We had one job and we did it pretty well. On my route, I never got the feeling that the food was being wasted. I don’t know that everyone was 100 percent delighted to see me personally at the door — I’m not the sort of man who lights up a room — but I always imagined that, worst-case sc...

Same body type, better manners Y ou run out of metaphors to explain Trump. In the shit-hits-the-fan scenario, is Trump the fan, or is he the shit? In the Hitler scenario, is Trump really Hitler, or is he Mussolini’s feckless brother Doug? In the comet-destroys-Earth scenario, is Trump the comet, or is he just a guy on his toilet, tweeting out his reactions to “Fox and Friends”? The thing about history is that when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to know what the hell’s going on. To make sense of things, you must turn to classic ’60s television. There’s a Star Trek episode called “ And the Children Shall Lead .” In it, a man who resembles the Trumpster gets children to indulge in homicide. The metaphor works because the Friendly Angel, who controls the children, is also overweight, cheesily transparent, and can’t speak without lying. The kids, like many of Trump’s supporters, are kind of creepy and easily persuaded to commit horrific acts in service to a none-too-bright svengali. ...

C all me Ishmael. Or call me Dave. Really, either one is fine. The thing is, I’ve started reading “ Moby Dick .” It’s a Lenten exercise. Last year it was “War and Peace,” this year it’s the great white whale. Somehow I’d managed to avoid it until now. Then Lent rolled around and I started thinking of things I’d never do except as penance. This book sprang to mind. Tough sledding, yes, but not without benefits. You know how it is when you’re standing around at a cocktail party and people start going on about Melville? Now I’ll have one less reason to walk away. Also, the next time one of those Facebook click-bait quizzes show up, about how many great books I’ve read, I’ll be able to pad the score by one. But really, I don’t know if I’m writing about “Moby Dick” now, or writing about Lent. Lent, probably. It’s something I never heeded as a younger man. But my wife was raised Catholic and is now Episcopalian, so I’ve become aware. I’m still a little fuzzy on the theological aspects of it,...