Author Dianne Simmons will be performing her story "In The Garden," which originally appeared in DB#13, in NYC this coming week. Where? Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC When? August 21, 2011 @ 6pm Cover? $7, includes a drink and more readings In The Garden (from Drunken Boat #13)

I’m out whacking blackberry bushes with the machete when Lulu and Guy come driving up with a jar of Red Zinger and a bottle of gin. Palmer is in his shop sawing away on something so Lulu goes and pounds on his window. He must have looked up because she starts a little war dance, waving the bottle of gin over her head. Lulu is a big goofy redhead in cat-eye glasses and you never know what she’ll do next. She acts all flirty toward Palmer but I don’t think it’s personal. I think that’s just how she is. Guy comes over to me and asks how it’s going down in the garden. He gave up on his own garden, so now he always makes a point of sympathizing with me about mine. I complain to him that with all the rain—it seems like it’s been raining more than usual—the blackberry vines grow over the path in just one day. By the second day they’ve linked up so you can’t get through. You’ve got to be out there constantly whacking. Of course we talk about the slugs because that’s the main thing that drives everybody crazy around here. They overrun your garden every night, and in the morning you find dozens of them, sprawled out on the lettuce leaves like they’ve been on a drunk.

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