Lugo in Normal Time: A Story from Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events

By Kevin Moffett

In this story from Kevin Moffett's dazzling new collection, Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events, a single father with an alcohol problem becomes an unlikely tragic hero. Always acting against his good intentions—both before the story begins, with his ex-wife and during it, with his fourteen-year-old daughter—Lugo is an earnest, doomed protagonist in which we will all see something of ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9780062233325

Kevin Moffett

Kevin Moffett's stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Tin House, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere, as well as in three editions of The Best American Short Stories. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2010 National Magazine Award for the title story. He lives in Claremont, California.

Book preview

Lugo in Normal Time

A Story from Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events

Kevin Moffett

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Cover

Title Page

Lugo in Normal Time

For More Stories from Kevin Moffett

Copyright

About the Publisher

Lugo in Normal Time

Lugo unbidden, Lugo at home in a new pair of sweatpants, holding, circling, waiting for something to happen. Something often happens.

This weekend he has his daughter. He’s sipping brandy and following her from room to room while she works on a project for school. A teacher has asked her to find a household item and use it to tell a story, so all morning Erica’s been picking things up, studying them carefully, and putting them down. She roots through the boxes in his closet, boxes in the hallway and in the kitchen. She finds a fondue set: a pot with six blue-handled and six red-handled prongs, like equipment for opposing teams. She taps one against the sink. How about these, she says.

Lugo regards the derelict prong from the kitchen table. Never used, he says. The idea, the hopeful logistics of him and Irene making fondue together seem ridiculous now. He remembers the old lady who sold it to them repeating, It’s so lovely, it’s so lovely. We bought it at a yard sale before you were born, he tells Erica. It’s supposed to melt cheese.

And you still have it why?

I guess it reminds me of your mother, he says.

Erica is fourteen years old. She has brought a to-do list with her, which she keeps taped to Lugo’s