CRIME
Dorothy Parker was arrested once for attending a rally in support of Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. After that, she was followed closely by the FBI, who once showed up at her door unannounced. When asked if she had ever attempted to overthrow the U.S. government, she scoffed. “Listen,” she said, “I can’t even get my dog to sit down.”
In this issue, our writers share their brushes with felonies, misdemeanors, and some terrible decision-making
****
Auld Lang Syne at the Parisian Five and Dime
Word Count 1080
Paris. New Year’s Eve. 1980. I have had to cancel my plans for dinner with friends to meet my father during his three-hour layover at Charles de Gaulle airport. Swollen with the kind of self-pity I excelled at, I wandered the aisles of Prisunic, a Parisian version of Woolworth’s that supplied the kind of hodgepodge one might call “sundries,” toy cars and plastic baby dolls sat disturbingly close to mousetraps and feminine hygiene products. While my neighborhood was hardly a tourist hot spot, a souvenir case stood near the store’s entrance, packed with made-in-Taiwan Eiffel Towers, and dusty Arc de Triomphe snow globes.