From the wedding A. remembered mostly the food, which he ate heedlessly while Libby strolled around chatting with guests. Libby had invited a few of her friends but none of their coworkers. A.’s relatives were seated at a single small table. These were an uncle with his girlfriend, his stepmother and his grandmother. The next day they flew directly to Miami Beach for a week, taking in some floor shows and spending their days in the sand. The night they got back must have been the coldest night of the year so they slept shivering in each other’s arms. A few days later it snowed. The trains stopped running so they were both able to take the day off from work. They walked around in the snow for a while and made love when the steam came on and the radiators began to gurgle. Libby enjoyed being married. She was very affectionate and never stopped making plans. A. was agreeable. He enjoyed having sex with her and that carried him through the first year. He would have liked to see her only in bed. He continued to read widely and got a ten-dollar raise. He read more of Kafka and Mann and even Anna Karenina. Libby didn’t read, but she watched a lot of television and sometimes they had a little fight when a ballgame was on, though nothing very serious. On Friday evenings they usually had dinner at her parents’ house. Her mother always made a roast and afterwards they all watched TV.
A. liked to sleep late on Saturday mornings, reverting to his childhood habits. Later he ran over to the corner deli to pick up bagels and lox for their “brunch.” Then he read the paper and watched a ballgame while Libby nagged at him to go for a walk. On Saturday nights they went to the movies at a local theater. On very rare occasions they saw a movie in Manhattan and once A. even took her to a play, which she seemed to enjoy, or at least the occasion. Afterwards they ate at the Stage Delicatessen, where there was a line outside and they were shunted in and out in roughly fifteen minutes. This was the high point of their first year of marriage.
At work, where they had met, they always had lunch together. Otherwise A. sat in the big room opposite Dolores, who was in charge of Accounts Payable, and daydreamed about the women of Accounting. He undressed them in his mind, as the saying goes. He shackled their wrists and ankles to bedposts. That was not unusual. He imagined that even Mr. Lattimer, the company comptroller, did the same when he took some time off from his busy day to indulge in a bit of fantasy. A. kept his desk fairly clean, stuffing his paperwork into his bottom drawer at the end of the day. In the drawer above it he kept a few personal items and in the top drawer his office supplies: pencils and a pencil sharpener, erasers, paper clips, staples, rubber bands, markers, carbon paper, graph paper. Office supplies, being a precious commodity, were Mr. Lattimer’s domain, kept in a locked closet in his office. There had been talk about transferring responsibility for supplies to Dolores, but A. understood that Mr. Kroll, who stamped papers all day in a little cage, was also in the running for the position, and besides, Mr. Lattimer had let drop certain remarks indicating that he had serious doubts about Dolores’s capacity to assume additional responsibilities, given her medical problems, which included a missing breast. For a while the office was effectively divided into two rival and one might almost say hostile camps or factions, one supporting Dolores, the other supporting Mr. Kroll, and naturally enough certain resentments came to the surface, forcing Mr. Lattimer to call a special meeting to quiet things down. Mr. Kroll was even supported by Miss Malone in Personnel, though what went on in Accounting was really none of her business. A. had spoken to Miss Malone once. She was elderly but not unpleasant to look at, despite the severity of the way she dressed and wore her hair. A. had thought to flirt with her, thinking it would be harmless enough and wondering how she would respond. Once he had seen her leaving the building with Mr. Kroll and thought he had detected signs of intimacy, which would explain her support in the office supply business. She had a pointed chin and pointed breasts. Everything about her suggested hardness and angularity and yet A. was fascinated by the secrets of her body and imagined it might be pleasurable to take her. Her age did not deter him; on the contrary, it was a spur or goad. But their talk had not gone well. She had looked at him with distaste, leaving him feeling somewhat foolish. As always, Mr. Lattimer seemed to know everything. “How’d it go?” he said when A. came back. In any case, A. naturally threw his support to Dolores. She was well organized and highly competent, as far as he could see. She knew her stuff, that is, Accounts Payable. She had mastered the trade.
All the women of Accounting were in truth highly competent. It was to Mr. Lattimer’s credit that he had put together such a team. The constant hustle and bustle in the office, befitting an army in the field on the eve of battle, was a tribute to his leadership. No one walked, except Dolores, who had some problem with her legs, and old Mr. Kroll, who would not have been expected to bestir himself, and in any event hardly ever left his cage. Mr. Lattimer had in fact clearly made an effort to organize the department along military lines, regarding himself, no doubt, as some new breed of man, the accountant-adventurer, leading a small but valiant army in a hazardous campaign against various industrial powers and government agents. At times, things got so hectic in the office, the air so charged with tension, that it did come to resemble a kind of advance command post deep in enemy territory, with messengers darting in and out of Mr. Lattimer’s office with such frenetic haste that they sometimes overshot the mark and had to rein themselves in at the last moment, pivoting abruptly on one foot while executing a series of precarious little hops in order to change direction and turn in at the right door.
Visitors to the department were not surprisingly astounded by the constant movement and the horrendous clatter of the office machines. On one extraordinary occasion the majority stockholder had brought some associates up to the department for a quick look at how it operated. Mr. Lattimer had been called out and introduced, engaging in a lengthy conversation with the contingent. This had been a source of considerable departmental pride, giving everyone a big lift. A. too had felt the glow. It reminded them that they were being led by a formidable personage who could hold his own in any professional or social framework.
Mr. Lattimer was bald and also wore glasses. He would have been forty at the time, or thereabouts, ready to make the leap from middle management to the higher echelons of the organization. All the top executives drove big cars that they could barely maneuver into the narrow street when they came out of the company garage toward evening. Mr. Lattimer drove a medium-sized car and lived in Long Island in a medium-sized house with his wife and three children. From time to time A. took a peek at the photo on Mr. Lattimer’s big desk. It told him nothing. He would have liked to learn the history of Mr. Lattimer’s marriage. Had there been romance? Had there been that magical moment when the protagonists made their declarations of love in long speeches full of poetic locutions? Had they perhaps previously been at odds or had a falling out as in those books by lady novelists in another century? A. could not imagine how Mr. Lattimer might speak intimately to a woman. A. knew only himself, and from this knowledge all his other knowledge derived.
From time to time Mr. Lattimer would address the office staff formally. These were solemn occasions, otherwise Mr. Lattimer would not have made a point of calling everyone together in the middle of the day, though generally he did so during the coffee break so that a minimum of time would be lost. On one occasion he spoke at length of the extra effort that was required at inventory time, on another he spoke of the need for special care in handling documents after discovering in one and the same week a stamped invoice that had not been filed and a filed invoice that had not been stamped. During these meetings the staff gathered around him in no fixed order, such as women in front, men in back as when group photographs were taken, though the tendency was for coworkers to stick together, Accounts Payable with Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable with Accounts Receivable and so on and so forth. A. stood slightly off to the side, as though to emphasize that nothing that Mr. Lattimer might say pertained to him and that he was in fact there more as an observer than as an ordinary worker. Of course Mr. Lattimer also attended the frequent conferences in the big conference room on the fourth floor. A. had attended such a meeting just once, when Mr. Lattimer was due to make some kind of presentation and required logistic support. Dolores had attended too. They sat side by side against the wall like junior officers at a council of war. One of the vice presidents had presided. The majority stockholder had also made an appearance. The vice president told a leisurely story about some garbage disposal problem he was having at home, ingeniously tying it to the company’s hiring and firing policies. The treasurer mentioned something about how Miss Malone had knocked over a vase with one of her pointed breasts and everyone laughed. The treasurer then yielded the floor to Mr. Lattimer. A. was called upon just once, nodding his head vigorously when Mr. Lattimer turned to him to confirm a point. Dolores also nodded her head, reinforcing the positive impression the department was making. She had worn her strong perfume and her leg pressed against A.’s. Coffee was served by someone called Manuel or José who came up from the cafeteria with some pastries as well. Dolores picked out a donut for A. The crumbs fell into his lap and he also spilled some of his coffee. After Mr. Lattimer finished his presentation he started twirling his tie.
Manuel or José also appeared with a selection of pastries during the coffee breaks and this was of course one of the high points of the day as everyone gathered around the coffee dispenser and bought danishes and donuts, the cowlike Marcia or Marilyn, who sat behind A., usually taking one of everything but others watching their figures and rarely getting anything, such as the foreign girl who spoke without an accent, though her bad teeth suggested other problems which may or may not have been related to her diet. Dolores usually had a donut. She ate, for the most part, daintily, chewing with her mouth closed and a dreamy or self-absorbed look on her face. Perhaps she was thinking of other things as she ate, sylvan scenes, childhood memories, romance. Occasionally, when someone had a child, a box of chocolates was passed around. Mr. Lattimer, on the birth of his son, had passed out cigars to the men, though it was said that Dolores had jocularly reached out for one too, causing great laughter, but that had been before A.’s time and was part of office lore now. The company had been in existence for many years. All kinds of people had passed through Accounting. Some were remembered fondly, others had left under a cloud. Dolores was one of the senior members of the staff but had pretty much gone as far as could be expected in the department, given her health problems, unless of course she was transferred to a position of responsibility in some other department where her missing breast would not be an impediment. Mr. Kroll too, given his age and peculiar habits, was not slated for advancement. That left the head of Payroll. A. did not consider him a rival as he contemplated his new career. His background in accounting was limited. He knew little beyond payslips. It was true that there was a rigid chain of command in the office and much attention was paid to precedence. Invoices too worked their way up this chain in a fixed way. As Mr. Kroll seldom left his cage and Dolores seldom left her desk, getting invoices from one to the other was no simple matter. It was determined that Marcia or Marilyn, who sat opposite the foreign girl, would be the go-between, though it was in fact the foreign girl who supplied Dolores with the invoices, that is, after checking them against the purchase and delivery orders, she would bring them around to Dolores’s desk and place them in her inbox. Dolores would then process them and place them in her outbox, at which point the foreign girl would come around again and retrieve them, placing them in her own outbox, after which Marcia or Marilyn would come around to take them and bring them over to Mr. Kroll’s side of the room, clearing her throat to get his attention and placing the invoices in his inbox. It was true that the foreign girl might have handed the invoices to A. and A. might have leaned forward and handed them to Dolores, as they sat opposite one another, and vice versa when she was finished with them, and in this way the foreign girl would not have had to jump up from her desk a dozen times a day, but this was not how things were done in the department. The present arrangement was thought to work very well. Mr. Lattimer himself had approved it.
Mr. Lattimer was always saying that a team that played together stayed together. That was why the company organized company outings once a year, boat rides, picnics, excursions. It was an opportunity to let your hair down and get to know your co-workers a little better. The year they went to Bear Mountain Libby stayed home with a cold. They had gone by boat. Dolores had worn a straw hat and her very bright lipstick. Miss Malone had worn her bright lipstick but no hat. She wore a see-through blouse that showed off her pointed breasts. She had bony knees and red toenails. Dolores had shapeless legs and was unsteady on her feet. She wore a blouse that concealed her missing breast. Accounting played Sales or Purchasing in a softball game. A. was the pitcher. Dolores played first base. Mr. Belcher, the head of Sales or Purchasing, brought his second wife. She had short hair and was quite athletic. She hit a double with the bases loaded. Mr. Belcher tried to score from first but fell down rounding third and broke his leg. That ended the game.
Afterwards everyone drifted off, the men with their wives or girlfriends, Mr. Kroll with Miss Malone, Mr. Lattimer with Camille, an Italian or French girl who was the secretary of one of the vice presidents. A. sat on a rock and looked out at the scenic view. He had a sense of himself being watched and admired from afar as a thinking man with a troubled past, a lone figure contemplating life. Dolores brought him a plate of food and sat down on another rock. They ate in silence. Neither of them had anything to say. A. was put off by her, when all was said and done. He did not think he could develop a romantic attachment to her.
In the second year of their marriage Libby got pregnant. This was unplanned but she was overjoyed and made sure that A. understood that it was time to get a permanent home. A. had his nest egg from his father’s estate so they were able to buy a three-bedroom house near her friend Joannie in Long Island. The nest egg had increased A.’s value considerably in the eyes of Libby’s family when they found out about it and was one of Libby’s strongest selling points when promoting him to them. Libby quit her job of course and devoted herself to fixing up the house until the baby came.
After the baby came, Libby was less ardent. She sat in the center of their bed and issued commands. A. was efficient. He boiled diapers and prepared the baby’s formula and did the shopping and had time to spare, so he daydreamed a lot, feeling trapped. Libby’s mother came over occasionally in the middle of the week and cooked for them, freezing enough dinners to last them until she came again, or cooking at home and sending over her husband with the week’s meals. A. would have preferred ordering in pizza or chinks or something from the deli. Libby must have gained 20 pounds. She was fat now. A. was neither fat nor thin. He bought a punching bag at Joannie’s husband’s sporting goods shop at a nice discount and worked out a little. Whenever he started hitting the bag, Libby shouted, “Will you stop making that noise. You’ll wake the baby up.” A. always replied, “You’ll wake the baby up yourself with all your shouting.” And so on and so forth.
Occasionally Libby relented and thanked him for the enormous effort he was making to provide suitable logistic support for herself and the child. A. had no desire to sleep with her. Occasionally he masturbated. The child didn’t interest him either. He was self-absorbed, that is, A. was. When Libby and the baby were asleep he watched TV. He didn’t read much now, or rather he read thrillers, stocking up on them for the long weekends. He still liked Ed McBain. He discovered Ross Macdonald. Between the thrillers he tried to read Proust but gave it up. He felt a little dazed. He was being swept along. He only found release in fantasies and daydreams.
Libby lost a few pounds but wasn’t anywhere near the shape he wanted her in. The baby rolled over, then sat up and finally began to drag himself along. All this was a prelude to more serious endeavors. A. began to take an interest in him but he was far too young to engage in serious conversation. Most often they grunted at each another. Libby said, “Say words. That’s how he’ll learn to talk.” A. said, “Wasn’t that a culinary delight, li’l fella.” Libby said, “That isn’t funny.”
Libby’s parents, who made him think of Ozzie and Harriet, appreciated A.’s sense of humor and wondered how much of his nest egg remained. A. figured that when his stepmother died he’d come into the rest of the estate, unless of course her own relatives – nieces and nephews, for example – got some of it too. He wondered if he should cement the bond a little more firmly but decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. He had invited her to the brith and she had given them some baby clothes, then stood around in her starched skirt eating herring and salted crackers. No one talked to her except A.’s grandmother. She left early, telling A. she had to be at the firing range to try out a Mauser she had recently picked up. The grandmother, who had come in a cab, went with her. The grandmother hadn’t aged at all. She wore very short skirts and her hair was tinted pink. That was the only contact A. had had with them since the wedding. He belonged to another world now, the world of Ozzie and Harriet.
Joannie had another baby so A. figured that Libby would want another one too in the near future. The two couples visited back and forth. Ralph, Joannie’s husband, gave A. another nice discount on a basket to hang out back but Libby didn’t like the noise so he only used it when she wasn’t around. He had a nice jump shot but not too much in the way of moves. Ralph didn’t even have the jump shot. They started playing tennis together but A. lost interest when he realized he’d never be good at it. Sometimes they watched a ballgame together and once or twice they played pool. Ralph was his closest friend.
At work, A. envied Mr. Lattimer, envied his aplomb, envied the air of conviction with which he went about his business. A. was less convincing in the conduct of company affairs. An astute observer might have cast doubts as to his commitment to the organization, what it stood for, what it aspired to. It wasn’t enough just to do your job. You had to live it, you had to take it home with you. Carrying around an empty briefcase was well and good but it wasn’t good enough when it came to doing your homework and coming to the office fully prepared for whatever the day would bring. Mr. Lattimer did his homework, Mr. Kroll was never without his stamp, and the big boys upstairs had big boxes carried down to their cars every evening.
Each day A. waited for the girls of Accounting to punch out. They all crowded around the time clock waiting for the hour to strike. It made a good impression to remain nonchalantly at one’s desk as though not begrudging the company its minute or two of unpaid time. Mr. Lattimer of course didn’t have to clock out. That was a privilege that told you you’d arrived. On the other hand, he didn’t get overtime pay either and sometimes stayed very late. Sometimes the only two people in the building would be Mr. Lattimer and Camille, though God knew what business she had there in the evening hours. Once A. had stayed late, after the inventory count, totaling up the various slips. On the few occasions when everyone had had to come to the office on Saturday, A. had permitted himself to dress casually. That was the norm. Mr. Lattimer came in wearing a checkered shirt and a windbreaker. Old Mr. Kroll came in wearing a motorcycle jacket and some kind of military headgear. It was said that he had been a major or captain in the army. Mr. Lattimer too had been in the war. He had been over in France and had apparently seen some fighting and it was rumored that he had had an affair with a French girl, but that was before he was married, or so people believed. In any case he knew a little French. Mr. Lattimer belonged to a different generation but was au courant. People like Mr. Lattimer ruled the roost. This was their time. Most of the women of Accounting wore slacks. Those were heady times.
After his fourth year in the company he got still another ten-dollar raise. He was a little disappointed. He was beginning to have second thoughts about his corporate career. He was in another rut. Clearly he’d never get to make the big money like the boys upstairs with their private toilets. He didn’t have what it took. He lacked the solemnity and sense of high purpose to move up the corporate ladder. Fortunately his little nest egg generated a modest supplementary income. Minnie, his stepmother, in effect managed it and he certainly couldn’t fault her business acumen. She was doing a little brokering now and even had an office in Manhattan. He also read an article about her in some gun magazine where she had been named Markswoman of the Month. It showed her standing steely-eyed in her starched skirt in front of a wall of trophies with her pump-action Remington cradled in her arms and her conical breasts as menacing as a pair of torpedo heads. In the meantime they had another baby, a girl this time, so they were pretty much finished in that department. Libby told him she felt fulfilled.
A. played ball with the boy and when both the children were in school Libby went back to work, getting a part-time bookkeeping job in a little factory in Farmingdale serving the aircraft industry. Now they were fairly comfortable, on a modest scale, that is, they could afford some of the better things in life, like a new, easy-payment car and a color TV. A. was thirty now. Libby was fat but not unreasonably so. In a girdle her loins generated power, like her big thighs and heavy breasts. In bed he liked the feel of her soft belly and the round calves of her sturdy legs. They had sex twice a week, sometimes three, especially if they went out. She complained that he didn’t help out enough with the kids or act romantic though he still kissed her every morning before they parted company and even squeezed her breasts occasionally in the kitchen when he got aroused. She told him that he was only nice to her when he wanted sex and that was true though he also relied on her to deal with certain unpleasant matters. A. liked to have a drink when he got home and unwind. Libby gave him a quarter of an hour before she started nagging. The kids fought all the time. A. didn’t have much patience for them. Libby cooked, cleaned and put the kids to bed. A. read the newspaper, then he watched TV. Sometimes Libby joined him, sighing and asking him to make her a cup of coffee.
In this manner another ten years passed. A. realized that his life was slipping away and occasionally became depressed. The children became teenagers, living in their own world. Libby kept her shape, such as it was. The big boys upstairs were making a hundred thousand dollars a year. A was making a hundred and fifty dollars week. Neither of the kids wanted to go to college. The boy was already working as a stock clerk after school and planned to remain right where he was. The girl was a little brighter but wanted to be a beautician. A.’s influence on their lives had been negligible.
A. looked forward to meals, sex, ballgames on TV, weekends in general, a few social occasions, his evening drink, a new Ed McBain, and sleep. Otherwise he dragged himself along without having any aim in mind. Libby was better adjusted and still full of bounce. She knew exactly what she wanted. She’d gotten her two kids and the house in Long Island. She even liked her job. He envied her, in a way. He couldn’t imagine his life without her.
A. was forty now. The flush of youth was gone. He looked a little gaunt. His joints ached. He was in the middle of the journey, though he wasn’t really going anywhere. He was still with the company, a solid rock in the Accounting Department, someone who knew the ropes, envied perhaps by the younger clerks who might aspire to achieving his status in the organization, such as it was. The big boys nodded at him in the corridors. He’d been around for quite some time. They knew who he was.
At home, Libby and the children were usually underfoot. Ideally, after his drink, he might shoot a few baskets out back, but of course he had to take the garbage out first or even run over to the supermarket for some tomato paste or bread. Libby wore an apron in the kitchen and sweated while she cooked as though she were splitting rails. A. tried to make himself scarce, retiring to the den with his newspaper. This was where he kept his books and the records and the rifle his stepmother had given him as a memento of his father. He was beyond Music now. He was beyond Literature too, though certain thoughts would always be fixed in his mind, like beacons illuminating his sense of the world. He still liked to quote the Great Philosophers. In his own mind he occasionally wrestled with their propositions, but quickly grew tired of the effort and was left with random thoughts that really told him nothing about the human condition or who he was.
Libby had a double chin but the same youthful, pretty face. She no longer let him take her from behind or sought the edges of their mattress with her heels when she spread her legs but opened them somewhat reluctantly unless the idea was hers. Her tic had gotten worse over the years and sometimes her eye stayed nearly closed, the lid fluttering like a palpating membrane. Surprisingly she had excellent vision, always spotting stains on his shirts and confiscating them in the morning before he had a chance to put them on. She ruled the roost. A. brought home the bacon. She only made sixty dollars a week in her part-time job which she stashed away in one fund or another. On the other hand she used their credit cards very liberally.
It would not have occurred to Libby that A.’s mind was somewhere else. She thought he was a little lazy, not to mention unambitious. Her parents too were a little disappointed that he hadn’t gone farther in the organization but appreciated his supplementary income. When his stepmother finally died they got her house and debated moving there. It was bigger than theirs and fixed up much more nicely but they, or rather Libby, decided to sell it instead, so now they had another nest egg, a considerable sum of money in fact, and Libby used it for some renovations and they put away the rest. Minnie had herself cremated and a nephew took the ashes. A. felt prosperous. They even took a trip to Europe with the kids. They went to England, France and Italy in 14 days. In Italy they saw the Coliseum and Pompeii. A. thought about ancient civilization. He still remembered some of his Latin. He remembered his old college roommate Buck Anderson, who was teaching Classics at Harvard now. He remembered his sister Phoebe, who had crawled into his bed when he visited them in Albany. These memories were a little vague now. He was stuck with Libby.
A. had not fulfilled his destiny though he still dreamed about it. He lived best inside himself but his inner life too was an unexplored country, known only through the signs and symbols that suggested its shape, illuminating its contours like an electric grid. He was forty now. He could not stop the years from rolling on. They were outside him. Inside himself he was eternally present, for all moments were the same moment, containing all the possibilities of a life. So great was the tension within this moment that it could fuel the birth of an entire universe.
Unlike A., Ralph was satisfied with his life. He liked his wife and he liked his job. A. envied him a little. He wondered what it would be like to live with a woman like Joannie, though she really wasn’t his type and he wasn’t attracted to her. He supposed the novelty of a liaison might carry them along for a while. Ralph was always improving the property. He was committed to family life. When A. came over they sat in the den drinking beer and watching a ballgame. When it was time to go, Libby came into the den and said, “We gotta go.” That was because her parents were coming over. That would be on a Sunday afternoon, barbecue time. Libby had bought him an apron and a chef’s hat for Father’s Day as a kind of joke. A. had worn them once or twice. It was a short drive back to the house. Libby said, “Do you got enough charcoal?” A. said, “Yeah.” Libby said, “Drive faster, I gotta make the chop meat.” A. said, “Do you got hot dogs?” Libby said, “Yeah.”
Ozzie and Harriet arrived just after them. The kids were in their rooms listening to music. They all got together on the lawn. They had steaks too. Harriet brought her homemade potato salad and a couple of pies. She said to the kids, “So how are you kids doin’?” The kids said great. A. said to Ozzie, “You wanna watch the end of the game?” Ozzie said, “Nah.” Libby said, “Leave him alone with your games. We’re having a family gathering.” They had a wooden picnic table outside so they sat there eating their hamburgers and hot dogs and steaks on paper plates. Libby said, “Pass the potato salad around. This is really good, Mom.” Harriet said, “You know me.” Ozzie said, “No one makes potato salad like your mom.” A. said, “Pass the Pepsi.” They had the pie in the house. After the parents left, the kids went back to their rooms and A. watched television while Libby cleaned up. Later they watched Alice, The Jeffersons and Trapper John together. Then Libby went to bed. A. went down to the den and sat in his favorite chair for a while. Then he put a magazine into the rifle that he kept in the closet and went upstairs.
Fred Skolnik was born in New York City and has lived in Israel since 1963. He is best known as the editor in chief of the 22-volume second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, winner of the 2007 Dartmouth Medal. He is also the author of The Other Shore (Aqueous Books, 2011), an epic novel depicting Israeli society at a critical juncture in its recent history. A second novel, Death, will be published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2015. His stories and essays have appeared in over 150 journals, including TriQuarterly, Gargoyle, The MacGuffin, Los Angeles Review, Prism Review, Words & Images, Literary House Review, Montréal Review, Underground Voices, Third Coast, Word Riot, The Recusant, and Polluto. Under a pen name, he published two novels in 2014: Rafi’s World and The Links in the Chain.