Lucas Díaz-Medina
Bio
I'm a Dominican immigrant living in the New Orleans area since the 70s. A father of two, I've been a service worker, war medic, ER tech, pro fundraiser, nonprofit leader, city bureaucrat, and now a PhD'd person, but always a writer.
Achievements (1)
Stories (24/0)
Jim Crow Done Gone
J.T. Richardson didn’t mind being instructed to wear his best suit. What did bother him, however, was going there alone. Knowing full well Mr. Belikoff had a standing order with the university to never send anyone but the president. The very idea of it left him feeling uneasy. Despite all the rumors of overzealous major gifts officers, he was going to see the old man alone. It didn’t seem right. Didn’t feel right. And of all people—him. Why him?
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
- V+ Fiction Award Winner
Going FishingV+ Fiction Award Winner
Johntee never would have taken Curtis if it hadn’t been for Uncle Joseph mentioning their dad’s fishing stories. It all came out one night when Uncle Joseph got so drunk he forgot to hold back his memories, and Johntee and Curtis both got to hear about their dad in a way they had never heard before. As he guided Curtis onto the nearly empty pre-dawn bus, Johntee knew that Curtis would never have got it into his head to want to go fishing. Curtis was just a kid. He didn’t know anything. He wanted to see where their father used to fish. He wanted to fish there. What could he do, Johntee asked himself as he held the rods he’d purchased after three months of cutting grass. He’d had to get them without his mother knowing or she would’ve had his behind for it.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
Scattered
When he awoke from his midday nap, the large handwriting that ran across the sheets of construction paper scattered around him reminded Jonas Jackson of his grandson Troy. Looking around the room, he caught sight of his daughter’s picture, which sat atop a corner table, and he remembered her, not as the runaway mother of his grandson, not as a convicted drug addict, but as the five-year-old child who Jonas treasured so much in the vivid, but aged, memories of his deteriorating mind. For a brief moment he wondered when she would return before remembering correctly this time that she would not.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
Failure
The shouting behind the emergency room double doors inside the New Domangue Medical Center was muffled but nonstop. It worried Yuri. Was that Lena? Yuri couldn’t tell. Was Lena ok? Was she hurt? Yuri lost track of her surroundings as she thought about the last time they talked. That was a few weeks ago. It didn’t go well. Lena said some things that hurt Yuri and Yuri may have said some ugly things back, the types of things Yuri knows no mother should say to her daughter. Sometimes Yuri can’t help it, unable to break from the old habits that shaped her childhood in the D.R. For a spell after that, Lena didn’t answer the phone, didn’t call, so Yuri let it go and waited. Yuri waited like she always has. Ever since Lena’s father died, it’s been this way. Ten years now and Yuri felt no closer to Lena than that day.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
From Around Here
So I’m standing at my register in Stump’s Supermarket, checking people through my line without any of my usual crazy thoughts, when Reynaldo comes into the store with this uppity-looking white woman. I don’t realize that it’s Reynaldo right away because he doesn’t look like the Reynaldo I used to know.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
The Rainstorm
Just south of New Domangue proper, where the people living in hamlets along the skeleton-patterned, shell-covered riverside road known as Maple Street waited for the asphalt that had been promised more than twenty years ago, Nadine Bouchenaix dreamed of one day running upriver toward New Orleans. If she could just reach the big city lights where she believed her mother waited for her, she would be able to fill the emptiness she’d known her entire life. Now, barely fifteen years old, Nadine worried about a different sort of emptiness, one that she wished was inside her instead of the growing womb that pushed against her jeans.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
Guilt
“If that father of yours had known how to be strategic, he might be alive right now. Then again, even if he was strategic, it may not have mattered. Returning to Maimón after such a long time, Pietro walked in here like he was famous. He ran around like he was royalty from the moment he showed his face. He was boastful and showy, traits he wasn’t remembered for when he was last seen around here,” Guzmán shared in Spanish with Hector.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
Available
“I don’t know what else to do, quite frankly,” Machato Perez shares with his sister. “Have you thought about that alternative school? You know, the one where they focus on doing things physically? I think they do lots of wood working, garden work, you know, stuff like that.”
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
Will You Stay with Me?
I should have known that something was up with Papi when he came home early and didn’t do anything to us after he caught us running from the street toward the house as fast as we could. That wasn’t the first time he’d come home when he wasn’t supposed to. One time, five months ago, everyone at the refinery was sent home early when there was a leak from one of the tanks. Papi came home excited at first, but after he cleaned up and ate dinner, all he did was complain about being tired, about not being paid enough, and about the many things that were wrong with New Domangue. Then he fell asleep in front of the TV.
By Lucas Díaz-Medinaabout a year ago in Fiction
