Expensive Brownies

    I stirred a bowl filled with gooey brownie batter as my accomplice Christian looked over my shoulder. “So how much should we put in?” I held up a zip-lock bag filled with pot. I had just graduated high school, moved out on my own, and was ready to try any mind altering substance that came my way.

Trouble with Authority

    Whenever I ask my friends if they would care to join me for a cup of tea, or when they see me reading the latest issue of Poets and Writers, their response is usually the same, “Man, Old Pat would kick New Pat’s ass!”

Sixteen

    I was sixteen, a virgin, working at Vons as a bagger. One day an Italian woman named Monique was hired as a checker. Two honeydews sat on her chest; her ass was flat as a flour tortilla. She said she was twenty-six, but Tony the Butcher told me, “Don’t let her make-up fool ya kid, she’s over 30.”

Another Vodka Night

    I knocked and was greeted by a pair of leather boots, dangerous hips, tits that screamed like howler monkeys, and two Latina brown eyes. My guts churned, it was our first date.

One Step off the Narrow

    The day I grabbed a microwave meal out of an Albertsons freezer and stuffed it down my pants, is the day I realized I might have a problem. My father once told me, “This one time, I caught a guy stealing my guitar. I tackled him and choked him for fifteen minutes til’ the police came. You know something, that’s the worst thing you could be in this world—A God damn thief.” And that’s exactly what I had become.

"Old Pat, New Pat" – Pat Johnson

The Batting Cages

"Another Vodka Night" – Pat Johnson