Hi, I'm Lavar Burton and this is Lavar Burton Reads, where in every episode I handpicked

a different piece of short fiction and are related to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

I've wanted to share a story by today's author for a few years now and I'm very excited

to finally do it.

Danielle Alarcone is a really brilliant writer, journalist and professor based in New

York City.

Now, you might know him as the host of Radio Abumulante.

He's a Peruvian American.

He was born in Lima but grew up outside of Birmingham, Alabama, fascinating juxtaposition

of places.

Reading his stories, I often feel like a fly on the wall or maybe the guy down at the

end of the bar observing something unfold out of a corner of my eye.

Danielle's work can be very intimate and explore some dark places and as a listener advisory,

this story does contain an incident of physical child abuse.

Now, Daniel's voice as a writer, I think, is informed by his work as a journalist.

He has said that when he's finished writing, along with his piece, he'll often still have

lots of anecdotes or characters that lie on the cutting room floor.

Maybe he knows they are tangential or their storylines he knew but couldn't prove to

be true through reporting.

So he often takes those bits of information and people and fictionalizes them to explore

them a bit more.

...