Fiction: I Didn’t Have a Ready Answer

By

Paul Beckman

We set out at 3am for New York. My GPS told me to take the Turnpike. My wife’s iphone told her to take the Interstate. My gut told me it’s not going to matter so I took the Turnpike to the Parkway and a mile down the unlit Parkway we were blocked by stopped cars. After 15 minutes I got out and walked up to the front car to see what the holdup was and there was a line of pickups blocking the road and in front of each pickup was a man in Camo carrying an automatic rifle. I walked up to the nearest man. “Hi,” I said, “What seems to be the holdup?” He swerved and hit me in the side of my face with the rifle stock knocking me down. “What are you doing to make America Great Again?” he asked.

Paul Beckman

Paul Beckman’s story “Healing Time” was one of the winners in the 2016 The Best Small Fictions and his 100 word story “Mom’s Goodbye” was chosen as the winner of the 2016  Fiction Southeast Editor’s Prize. His stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Raleigh Review, Litro, Playboy, Pank, Blue Fifth Review, Flash Frontier, Matter Press, Metazen, Pure Slush, Jellyfish Magazine, Thrice Fiction, and Literary Orphans. His latest collection, Peek, weighed in at 65 stories and 120 pages. Paul lives in Connecticut and earned his MFA from Bennington College. His published story website is  www.paulbeckmanstories.com and  blog is www.pincusb.com. He also runs the FBomb flash fiction reading series at the KGB Red Room in NY.