Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

In every episode I handpicked a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

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

Today I'm asking you to scrounge up a couple of quarters from the center console of your car

or from the bottom of your purse.

Warm up your reflexes and start flexing those thumbs y'all and join me at the gold mine arcade.

Where two sixth grade boys are trying their damnedest to fly under the radar of bullies

while enjoying a game of Gallagher or Defender.

I was a teenage space jocky is the second story I've read on the podcast by Stephen Graham

Jones.

His narration is so distinctive and so much fun to read.

He's a prolific and New York Times best selling author who's published over 15 novels, hundreds

of short stories and lots more essays and comics and other sundry pieces of writing.

Just how prolific you might ask?

Well.

The website you can click on books with the titles from a to f books with titles from

g to m and books with titles from in to z his most recent novel is my heart is a chainsaw

and the second in that trilogy of books is do out this February it's called don't fear

the Reaper.

The piece that I'm reading today originally appeared in the great light speed magazine.

You all remember light speed and was collected in this year's best American science fiction

and fantasy anthology edited by the wonderful Rebecca Rowan horse and series editor John

...