Lewis Robinson is the author of the story collection Officer Friendly (Random House, winner of the Pen/Oakland Josephine Miles Award), the novel Water Dogs (a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection), and the forthcoming novel Islanders. His stories and essays have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Tin House, The Baffler, The Missouri Review, Open City and elsewhere and have been featured on N.P.R.’s Selected Shorts. He has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Lewis holds an M.F.A from University of Iowa and a B.A. from Middlebury College. He is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maine Farmington.
-
Officer Friendly and Other StoriesFrom"The Toast"
“Now, because it’s his birthday and he wasn’t supposed to make it this far, he asked that we throw him a bash, like the old Augusta blowouts, and he asked that at midnight we shoot him dead.”
I stared at him. He didn’t waver.
“We figure you’re the best guy to do it,” he said, slapping a hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve never even shot a gun,” I said.
He pulled up my shirt and took the gun from the back of my pants. “It’s pretty basic. Point and pull. You’ve seen the movies.” He aimed the pistol at the portrait of the old man, said “Bang” and faked the recoil, then blew imaginary smoke from the barrel.
Officer Friendly and Other Stories: -
Officer Friendly and Other StoriesFrom"Fighting at Night"
The fights came quickly. It took a full day after sparring to feel tip-top again—my headache would fade—but Alice never let me rest much. If she sensed I was feeling good, she’d take me out to the pond, or she’d tie bags of sand to my ankles and wrists and she’d bike with me as I ran. I was hammering the local competition, never allowing anyone past the third round, but there was still a waiting list to get into my ring. Red Heingartner was the only one to hit me hard—he had a quick hook that snapped me back—but even with Red, all I had to do was decide the fight was over, and it was over. A flurry of punches and the man went down.
Officer Friendly and Other Stories: -
Officer Friendly and Other StoriesFrom"Puckheads"
That night, in the janitor’s closet of my apartment complex, beside the mop buckets and toolboxes, I kissed her, and when she kissed me back, she bit my tongue, then sucked on it, clamping down around it with her lips and yanking it with the strength of her lungs. I took her coat off, and she unzipped my pants, so I removed her sweater and unbuttoned the outermost of the three shirts she was wearing. I tried to respond to each move she made with an action I hoped she’d find interesting, original, unclichéd. When she kissed me on the eyelid, where my scar was, I put my pinkie in her navel, but she squirmed, telling me it made her feel sick.
Officer Friendly and Other Stories:
“Robinson has that rare power . . . to make a setting breathe, to invest it with a vitality that seems as authentic and intense as the pulse beats of his characters.” —The New York Times Book Review [on Officer Friendly]
“Eleven letter-perfect stories with the keen understanding of human nature readers expect to find in works by veterans like Alice Munro.” —The San Francisco Chronicle [on Officer Friendly]
“[Officer Friendly] has the lustrous finish and satisfying heft of classic craftsmanship . . . Fully formed, totally irresistible, and refreshingly retrograde . . . [The characters’] predicaments have the unfailing power to elicit surprise, recognition and wonder . . . Robinson has an eye for the complex misunderstandings that bind people—best friends, lovers, kids and their parents. It’s knotty, no-nonsense stuff, but Robinson works it into heirlooms.” —Los Angeles Times
