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    Soft Thunder: A Short Story
    Soft Thunder: A Short Story
    Soft Thunder: A Short Story
    Ebook33 pages23 minutes

    Soft Thunder: A Short Story

    By Adam Wilson

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    About this ebook

    An excerpt from Adam Wilson's debut short story collection, What's Important Is Feeling, which humorously pinpoints our most desperate moments of longing—sexual and otherwise. "Soft Thunder" is a short story about the members of a high school garage band who fall for the same girl and then keep falling.

    The twelve stories in What's Important is Feeling follow the through-line of contemporary American coming-of-age: from the ravings of teenage lust, to the soul-deep debauchery of college, and to the stunning loneliness of de facto adulthood—in lovably demented yet incisive prose.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 28, 2014
    ISBN9780062342652
    Soft Thunder: A Short Story
    Author

    Adam Wilson

    Adam Wilson is the author of the novel Flatscreen (Harper Perennial, 2012). His fiction has appeared in many publications including The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, Tin House, The Literary Review, The New York Tyrant, Gigantic, and many others. He is currently a regular contributor to both BookForum and The Paris Review Daily. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, Time Out New York, and elsewhere. Adam holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from Columbia University. A former employee of Brooklyn's famous BookCourt bookstore, he now teaches creative writing at NYU and The Sackett Street Writer's Workshop. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat.

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      Book preview

      Soft Thunder - Adam Wilson

      Contents

      Soft Thunder

      More About What’s Important Is Feeling

      About the Author

      Also by Adam Wilson

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      SOFT THUNDER

      No one knows who slept with her first. Besides, sleep isn’t the right word. What we did: pressed lips to closed lips, tried to slip in some tongue; buried her beneath us on carpeted floors and futon mattresses; fumbled for buckles; felt her dry skin against our sweat-wet hands; said, Don’t cry; wiped tears with our T-shirts; kept on because she said, Don’t stop.

      I met Kendra at Norm’s, the retro-chic diner where I worked weekends bussing tables. This was the end of junior year. Norm’s had a jukebox straight from SkyMall that played the same golden oldies all shift long, and a special sauce— mayo plus Tabasco—you could add on for a dollar, get your fill of fat and spice. The manager’s name was Wyatt but he went by Madonna. Around close he’d unplug the juke, turn up the kitchen stereo, and lip-sync Like a Virgin with a mop for a mic, while the rest of us hustled to count out and clean.

      Wyatt was the first out gay I ever met, a tube-tanned blond who both smoked cigarettes and chewed Nicorette. He took personal calls on the takeout phone, ducking behind the counter to answer, whispering to what I imagined was a variety of lovers, the covert homosexuals hiding out in my hometown. The markings of a clandestine existence were enough to make him my hero. Plus, he bought me beer and smokes without double charging like Tim Qwan from school, who had a fake ID and a sense of enterprise.

      Big Daddy, Wyatt called me in his lispy southern drawl. "Big Daddy, baby, unplug that

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