L. Erin Giangiacomo
Bio
I'm a writer because I can't hold a job and I have no friends. B.A. English Literature, J.D.
Stories (15/0)
TONK
The last time I was suspended without pay, it was because I got plastered in Tijuana, which is not why I got in trouble because everyone goes to TJ to get shitfaced, but apparently, I puked- no, not puked, scream puked, the entire length of the bar at the finest of cantinas, La Incognita Tijuana where I had been tomiendo tequila todo el dia. And, as such, I knew that to be my indisputable cue to get my culo out of Mexico, but when I reached for my wallet to settle what surely was a sizable tab, it was gone. I was so borracho I let myself get pick-pocketed. As you can surmise, that’s when la policia showed up, and I was off to the juzgado. Now, when you fuck up in Mexico, no abogado is coming to your rescue, and the one phone call you’re going to make is for the wire transfer to pay los oficiales who will just as soon explode a can of soda up your nose. But I’m not just any American gringo. I’m a United States Border Patrol Agent, call sign Victor 297.
By L. Erin Giangiacomo8 months ago in Fiction
The Hypocrite
America, she no like Italians. She named for Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, but she forget. America take everything from Italians. When I come here in 1920, there was Italian senator named LaGuardia. Great man. The president, was Herbert Hoover, I can never forget, he tell this senator we are murderers and bootleggers. We should go back where we belong. Tell Mussolini to make us honest citizens. And this senator no born in Italy. He American, but not American. This the America I came to, in 1928. My name is Nichola Giangiacomo, and I am an enemy alien. I can no speak Italian. It is a crime. Mussolini’s language. I can no go to the park with my wife. Because I am Italian from Francavilla al Mare.
By L. Erin Giangiacomo8 months ago in Fiction
I HAVE A DREAM, OR MAYBE JUST A PARANOID DELUSION
“Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.” — Frances Wright There is a frantic sheriff’s deputy at my door, knocking with the obnoxiousness peculiar to cops. He wants me to open the door. I tell him to take a hike. He says he cannot leave until he sees me and sizes up my well-being. My affirmation that I am just fine does not fly, and we are at an impasse, each one either side of the door. He is a persistent motherfucker, and we argue; neither budging. We strike a deal: if I open the door and he lays his eyes on me, he will be satisfied, but I know he’s lying because I am a former federal agent and I have a law degree.
By L. Erin Giangiacomo10 months ago in Psyche
The Grandeur of Fancy
“Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy, ‘til you have gone mad.” It is Saturday March 18, 2023, 3:42 p.m. and the police can break in at any time, without a warrant or a Miranda warning, and deposit me at a hospital, behind locked doors, where I can be tied, facedown to a bed, and injected with a chemical sedative. I will have the right to a hearing before a judge, in about three weeks time, to challenge my detention where I can try to convince a judge to rule in favor of me, a mental patient, over a physician. I can be detained for months without access to fresh air or exercise, at the mercy of the one person with more power than the police: the American psychiatrist. With the stroke of a pen, not subject to question or challenge, my constitutional rights evaporate, and not even a writ of habeas corpus can set me free. What is my crime, you ask? I have manic depression.
By L. Erin Giangiacomoabout a year ago in Psyche
CONTEMPT OF COP
CONTEMPT OF COP: WHY COPS KILL Victor 297 Retired Montgomery County, Maryland police captain Sonia Pruitt wrote in her recent essay published on CNN.com in the wake of the murder of Tyre Nichols by the Memphis Police Department, “ Law enforcement has conducted training time and again and revised policy over and over, and yet we still have too many unnecessary deaths at the batons, feet, hands, fists, and guns of police.” Until Memphis, we all thought that the nearly non-stop murder of African-Americans at the hands of police was the heinous and hideous hand of racism holding down innocent black men, and sometimes women, until they died under its weight. But now that tidy interpretation has collapsed under the weight of the expandable batons of five Black Memphis police officers who clearly did not get the message that Black Lives Matter. What the heck is going on with America’s police?
By L. Erin Giangiacomoabout a year ago in The Swamp
THE PERILS OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS
THE PERILS OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS The New York Times ran a front-page article about the risks politicians face if they reveal conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder. The story in a powerhouse publication and on the front page is progress, if not long overdue. Psychiatric discrimination in politics dates back to 1980 when Lee Atwater attacked a congressional candidate who had ECT treatments in his youth for being “hooked up to jumper cables.” The decision to reveal a psychiatric condition to an employer may seem cathartic, but it is an invitation for co-workers to view your behavior through the prism of your diagnosis. Displays of emotion trigger the question, “off your meds?’ People who don’t know the difference between a psychiatrist and a shaman will dismiss your credibility, call you crazy and unstable, and make jokes behind your back. And everybody jokes about mental illness. From looney toons to looney bins, it’s clear that we think conditions that destroy lives and families are funny.
By L. Erin Giangiacomoabout a year ago in Psyche
