Meg Wolitzer / Narrator / Interviewer (25:28)

David Morse performed Stephen King's the Fifth Step. We spoke to Morse backstage at Symphony Space.

David Morse / Actor / Interviewee (25:35)

Well, it seems simple enough, a conversation between two men, sort of an uncomfortable one. It gets more comfortable as it goes along. Fairly intimate. And of course, it's Stephen King, so it takes a little turn. Did you feel that you're planning to set the listener up a little bit? Well, I think Stephen does that, so I'm just gonna tell his story. Did this feel like something that resonated with other work you've done? I feel a little bit at home with this. That niceness sometimes has a dark side. Yeah. I get asked a lot of times to sort of bring a more human side to some things that are kind of dark. Why does he dramatize so well? Because they're riveting on the page. But how do they come off the page? Well, you start with, you know, a great story. I mean, it's always that. Then really fun characters and every one of them so vivid. And I think that's probably for actors getting to do those roles. It's part of what's fun.

Meg Wolitzer / Narrator / Interviewer (26:32)

That was David Morris backstage at Symphony Space. When we return, a neighborhood reimagines itself with the help of some rabbits. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.

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Meg Wolitzer / Narrator / Interviewer (27:37)

Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On this week's program, we're considering the idea of intervention. It's sometimes associated with crisis and healing, but we like to think of good fiction as a form of intervention, arriving in your life just when you need a break or a change of perspective. And happily, our storehouse of great fiction can help in all these areas. To hear recent episodes of the podcast, keep up with our live season and our touring program, Visit our website SelectedShorts. Dot org. You've just heard some great short fiction. Now it's your turn. It's time for the 2026 Stella Kupferberberg Memorial Short Story Prize. We're very excited that this year's guest judge is one of shorts favorite funny mainstays Simon Richard. The winning work will be performed by an actor in spring 2026 and published on Electric Literature. The winning writer will receive $1,000 and a free 10 week course with Gotham writers. You have until March 6th to submit your story, which you can do by going to selectedshorts.org and scrolling to the bottom of the page. We can't wait to read your submission. Our second story, Blessed Deliverance, is by Jamel Brinkley. He is the author of two story collections, A Lucky man and Witness, which includes today's work. Brinkley has been praised for the way his stories explore both systemic racism and human bonds. Reader Tegel F. Bouget has toured extensively with the production Debate Baldwin versus Buckley. He's also appeared at the Public Theater and Lincoln center and on television, where his credits include A Beautiful Mind.

Narrator/Ensemble Cast (29:42)

Who knew that Old Ass Head Ass was capable of even greater feats of Head Assery? Our little crew had become accustomed to his foolishness, the imbecilic way he walked around Bed Stuy with his lips swelled up, all the various look at me antics. We were bored with him. He might as well have been a fire hydrant. It had ceased to affect us when he interrupted our hangs in the park by barking out one of his nonsensical jokes. By the time we started high school, his pratfalls on the basketball court were no longer amusing. We just told him to go bother people his own age, and when he would dig in the trash for scraps of pizza, it wasn't worth clowning anymore. Truth be told, we didn't even know Head Ass was still around. Word was he'd been framed for armed robbery and was doing a bid. Others said he'd been tracked down by a very distant relative and was living in Louisiana. What actually happened was a police raid of an abandoned building, a former hotel where Head Ass, among others, had been squatting. By our senior year, however, it didn't really matter. The five of us weren't thinking about Head Ass at all. Other things were on our minds. College, for instance, was becoming a thrilling prospect. Though we were each interested in different schools and though the guidance counselor had cast a puckered frown at our lists, striking out the Harvards and Yales and the Howards and Spelmans, our parents all seemed to be going through it, too, some losing their jobs, some suffering the very first symptoms of what would be fateful illnesses, some separating, divorcing, reuniting, testing new loves. There was an awareness among us that, despite our trepidation about growing dull with age, life apparently would never stop with the excitement, leaping from the gray shadows of alleyways to jump you, knocking you to the ground and seriously kicking your ass. Still, we weren't old yet, far from it, which meant that our bodies, beleaguered and intact as far as we knew, weren't dull at all. They were fascinating, which meant we could do whatever or whomever we wanted with them. And who and what we wanted to do could change from week to week, day to day, or moment to precious moment. Much of what we wanted to do was sex. For the most part, we hooked up or approached doing so with those outside our crew. But since the summer we had also developed new and irresistible interest in one another. The fact that we were friends, that we had grown up together, didn't make these particular desires strange. It made them strong. One afternoon during a balmy October weekend, the five of us assembled for the first time since school had started up and took a walk, something we used to do frequently. Call it an act of nostalgia. We stopped outside the new store, just across from the street of brownstones that always placed decently in the annual contest of the greenest block in Brooklyn, and stood as one, peering through the windows. A sign indicated the store was open, but it looked nowhere near ready to welcome customers. Yet inside, among towers of large, haphazardly stacked boxes, were intricate arrangements of junk. Every arrangement contained variations of the same stuff plastic bins, downy cushions, blankets, bowls, pellets of dirt. A trio of white people, two women, and a man in tan aprons moved slowly within the delicate maze, carrying large bags of what appeared to be desiccated grass. As they began to toss the twirling grasses here and there, everything around their feet twitched into motion. The cushions weren't cushions at all, but living things and animals, rabbits grouped inside rickety makeshift cages. We stared as we realized how many There were about 20 cages, each housing two or three rabbits. Most were hopping around or furiously nibbling, but some settled quickly back into absolute stillness. In response to all this, we slipped easily into our trademark goofiness and banter. Riffing on our old script felt like a form of solace when Weleda, incredulous, expressed her opinion that the animals were too large to be rabbits, that the somber droop of their ears meant they were something else entirely, Ronnie told her.

David Morse / Actor / Interviewee (34:37)

Shut up.

Narrator/Ensemble Cast (34:39)

Well, they are indeed rabbits, a man's voice announced. But actually there are guinea pigs and chinchillas too. The white man was peeking out the open door. Come on, kids, let's introduce you to them Shrugs. We followed him inside. The man explained that the place was actually a rescue and then began rattling off the names of the animals. That's Oreo, that's Marshmallow, Sasha's over there, and that's Balthazar. But he spoke too quickly for us to keep up. He had a pronounced underbite and a highly suspect chin beard that might as well have been a glued on strap of mangled pelt. After naming all the animals for us, he mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that he was Cyan.

David Morse / Actor / Interviewee (35:26)

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Narrator/Ensemble Cast (35:27)

They eat grass, but dogs shit on grass. Technically it's hay, cyan said. But they can't subsist on hay alone. It doesn't provide all the nutrients. He offered us an opportunity to feed the animals some lettuce and called toward the back of the store to for someone named Reginald. A moment later, this Reginald walked in. Except Reginald wasn't Reginald. Reginald was Head Ass. He stood there, also wearing an apron and looking even taller and lankier than usual, though a bit more youthful with the semblance of a healthful glow. Against his chest he held a clear plastic bin filled with wet, brilliantly green leaves. His pants were clean, well, at least clean for Head Ass, anyway, and his matted hair was parted oddly on one side. We gaped at the sight of him, and he yawned at the sight of us. Then, in a snap, a crooked grin stretched the left half of his face. Whoa, whoa, whoa, y'. All. Hired Head Assayan pursed his lips.

David Morse / Actor / Interviewee (36:39)

He laughed.

Narrator/Ensemble Cast (36:40)

It was always our intention to engage people from the community. Reginald here was the perfect person to help us out. The sound of that name had the effect of a magical incantation activating Head Ass. He stepped forward, but instead of distributing food among the animals in any way that would have made sense, he set the bin on the floor, grabbed a handful of greens, and vaulted over the tremulous perimeter of a cage in two easy strides. Then he lowered himself until he was sitting cross legged with three rabbits that, after a moment of wariness and agitation, reacted surprisingly well to him. Head Ass carefully lifted one of them and set it on his lap. With evident pleasure he began feeding it. Well, it appears that Reginald and dear Chicory have made a love connection, one of the women said. Head Ass was imitating the rabbit now with rapid pulsing movements of his nostrils and mouth as though he were eating too. His fingers slowly stroked the air just above the fur, never touching it. One of us started laughing, and it became reassuringly infectious. The pellets scattered in the cage with Head Ass scattered in all the cages weren't made of dirt. He was sitting gleefully in a pile of rabbit shit. We left the rescue and walked shoulder to shoulder, incandescent with jokes and cackles, five lit bulbs on a string. It's ridiculous, but seeing Head Ass genuinely taking notice of him, really witnessing him rooted there in the playpin of dung, seemed to bind us in a way we hadn't been bound in months. We walked and without speaking, agreed on which direction to turn at, which corner, and where to eat for lunch, and as we ate, we expressed enthusiastic opinions about the new album everyone was talking about and quickly agreed on which song was the best, which possessed the most fire. And after lunch, as we played it aloud on one of our phones, we claimed a little pocket of Marcus Garvey Boulevard, making it gorgeous as hell with our singing and our shouts and the perfectly synchronized dance steps. Even the two of us boys were completely into it for a minute, gleefully popping our butts along with the girls until we leaned into one another and just roared in the spirit of gratified exhaustion, without a trace of cynicism, irony, or embarrassment. As we resumed our walk, one word seemed to come to all our minds at the same time. Reginald. Why were those white people referring to Head Ass as Reginald? We screamed, which sent us into more fits of laughter. We agreed without an utterance of doubt that Reginald could not under any circumstances be his government name. But we did not acknowledge the fact that we too had named him, or our uncles and older cousins who'd grown up with him and had done it, so it was easy to avoid that particular complication, since he'd always, as far as we knew, answered to Head Ass. We avoided the complication of the idea that Head Ass was also sometimes, in a peculiar way, a part of us, because in that moment all that really mattered was the beautiful hazy dream of we the Five restored to harmony. But then, when it was suggested that we go over to Antonio's apartment, which is exactly what we would have done before, back when things had been normal. Antonio hesitated. He looked down at his hands as they gripped the side of his jeans. He said we shouldn't. His place was messy. Things were still weird there lately his mother had been feeling even worse. He started to say something more, anxious to offer additional excuses, but instead let his voice trail away. Cherise cleared her throat and said she too had to go. Then the two of them said hasty goodbyes and walked off as if holding hands in a direction where neither of them lived. So, Ronnie said to Alita, what was it you were going to show me? One of your cartoons? Weleda nodded. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Then the girls who developed a new and hard won intimacy left as well. Together but apart. And just like that, our reunion, our alliance was, however lovely, the bond broken. Two weeks later, though, our dormant group text lit up with a message from Cherise telling us all to come by the animal rescue. She was already there. So was Antonio. Weleda and Ronnie arrived last, but in time to witness some of the spectacle, Head Ass in a bulky costume stalking the sidewalk back and forth. The intention was probably to attract people who were or could be lovers of the Leporidae, but he was playing it all wrong. From where we stood, the fur was convincing enough. At the extremities, however, the color graded to the hideous fleshy pink of skinned game as Head as moved his feet and hands mechanically up and down. He seemed to carve the air with his pointed yellow nails, his fingers rigid and spread, his posture that of a demon giving chase. He was wearing a stiff plaid vest which jumped on his body like an ill fitting shell, but the strangest thing was the way his face peeked out of the creature's open mouth as though he were being swallowed or bizarrely birthed through a crown of sharp buck teeth, the same awful yellow as his nails. Behind him, Science stood at the doorway of the rescue, chewing loose fistfuls of peanuts. He must have been listening as we discussed Head Ass and the strange sound emanating from him. Little known fact, he called, but rabbits have the ability to purr, just like our feline friends. It's much cooler, though. You know why? Rabbits do it with their teeth. Head Ass wasn't doing anything with his teeth, and the sound wasn't one bit like purring. It was more a drawn out melancholic moan. Cyan came over to us. This was Reginald's idea, so we let him choose whichever costume he wanted. It's perhaps not what we would have gone with, but there's something to it. Maybe Cyan wasn't all bad for an invader. It was cool of y' all to hire a homeless dude. Cyan seemed taken aback by the comment. Well, technically speaking, he's a volunteer. Whoa, you mean you don't pay him? He listened to Head as moan and nodded regretfully. If only we could. Well, do you feed him? He balked. Feed him? Well, actually, there's usually lots of leftover romaine. Not to mention, let's see, there's bok choy, watercress, kohlrabi. We watch Head Ass stop, spin on his heels, and start in the opposite direction. There haven't been as many adoptions as we might have liked, cyan said, changing the subject. Not a single one so far, in fact. But folks seem curious, that's for sure. They slow down when they pass. Building interest is always step numero uno. You can't really expect a lot of rabbit adoptions in the hood, ronnie said. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why not? Cyan replied. History tells us that rabbits appeal to people from all walks of life. And this isn't really the hood anymore, is it? Well, Cyan was right about that last part, though he spoke as if he had absolutely nothing to do with it. We stared first at him and then around at the drivers parading by in their eco friendly cars, the cyclists in their biking shorts assaulting us with their law abiding goodness and safety. But all that was oppressively dull. What was interesting were the people and places that were gone. What exactly had been there before? The thing was to remember, to recollect. But despite our efforts, all we could conjure was a sign in the clouded window that read COMMERCIAL Space FOR rent. Suddenly Head Ass pivoted and stomped towards us, as if all his back and forth had just been a way of winding himself up. He stood directly in front of us and peered down into our faces, fully inhabiting his bestial role. Whoa. What's up, Head Ass? When his eyes narrowed in disapproval, we glanced at one another. What's up, Reginald? He shook his head emphatically. Then he sucked a deep breath through his mouth, pressed his lips together and moaned. We all laughed, but it was thin laughter, tentative, nervous. We didn't hide our bewilderment. Head Ass could talk, but he was refusing to use his words. He did it again. Deep breath, tensed mouth, long plangent moan. One by one we came to understand. He moaned, we moaned. And it went on like that, antiphonal, until finally all six of our voices coalesced in the quiet that followed, Satisfied, perhaps, Head as retreated into the rescue. He stood at the same cage he'd sat in two weeks earlier. The claws of his costume curled into the gaps between the metal, staring raptly at a fellow creature within. We left, but didn't get very far together, just reaching the corner required a colossal effort. What we had felt coerced into doing with Jerez cast us into a net from which we were eager to escape. The excuses came quickly. Antonio's mother was still sick. Sharee had chores to do. Weleda and Ronnie had to study in the street. That would one day win the honor of greenest block in Brooklyn was, at least for the immediate interval, also without question the loneliest. We returned to the rescue a week later on a cold day that could have been special but was depressingly ordinary. After the interminable hours at school, we found ourselves going in the same direction at the same time, so we just gave in to the accident of being together. The conversation was halting and slight. Outside the rescue, Cyan was sweeping leaves into a pile. He greeted us warily. Without a word, his mouth dropped open and the heft of his draw turned his expression into a shock of surrender. We watched him work, listened to the swish of the broom and the rasp of the leaves. Finally it was asked, where's head? As Sion froze. Why didn't anyone tell us he was troubled. Troubled? He lowered his voice. Mentally disturbed? Wasn't it obvious? We thought he was a little eccentric. Quirky maybe, but generally fine. You guys could have said something. Why would we? Is there a good reason why you wouldn't? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Please don't mention him anymore. From now on, consider Reginald Persona non grata here. But what happened? Cyan's face became strained and then relaxed into a grimace. There are things called zoning ordinances, okay? There are rules that have to be followed. And your friend? He put us in violation. If we hadn't found him by chance the other night, there could have been serious consequences. He was sleeping here, agitating the animals. He completely abused our kindness. Where is he now? Cyan looked genuinely aggrieved by the question. Who cares, as long as it's far away from us? He began to sweep again, the bristles uncomfortably close to our feet. None of us moved. We just stared holes into his head. But even this communal act of aggression couldn't hold us together for long. Man, fuck this place. Antonio said we out, but we didn't mean all of us. We did not. Wait, wait, wait. This is stupid bullshit. Can't mess up our day. Let's get into something, Go somewhere. Don't you guys want to do anything? Antonio's eyes got dull. He exhaled loudly. The day was already messed up. It was a dumpster fire the second the fucking alarm went off. There's not a thing we can do about it. Not a damn place to go but home. Cyan watched as we separated two by two by one, went every which way. After a minute he yelled something that had the striking ring of optimism, but we weren't close enough to hear it. At home, dad was waiting. Happy birthday. He held a brown paper bag, crisply folded and sealed with a square of tape. It was obvious that a book was inside. Thanks, dad. Appreciate you, son. Lord knows what things would be like without you. Without the rock. Sturdy and steady, no matter what. Dad, you know that place that opened up a little while ago? The animal rescue with all the rabbits and stuff? What of it? Do you remember what it used to be? Dad made himself look thoughtful. Anyone who really knew him knew that his chief affliction was an inability to ever fall forget after hamming it up like this for a while. He snapped his fingers. It used to be a church. One of those storefronts, you know. That's right. The Cathedral of Blessed Deliverance. That's what it was called for Real lion is Dying. You'd walk by on service days and the singing that came out of there would bring you to your knees. That one's gone, but there's still plenty of others around. Now come on, open your present. And guess what? Your dad's whipping up for dinner tonight. Your favorite. Not long after we ate, dad started crying in his room again. His weeping had always been legible and easily classified. Angry heaving meant his attempts to get a second job had resulted in some new humiliation. Pathetic quavering meant he wished mom would change her mind and come back to us, and so on. But the sound he was making that night was some kind of hybrid. Better to let people be when they get that way. Earlier that summer, Antonio had made a similarly horrible sound when he'd learned exactly how ill his mother was. Who knows what else he was figuring out? What else was baffling him. When you hear someone you love make a sound like that, the problem isn't that you don't know how to respond. It's that you lose all the discipline and self restraint that were actually keeping everything intact. So you close the door to your friend's room and begin gathering the dented soda cans and empty water bottles, arranging them in rows on his desk. You pick up every loose bit of soiled funky clothing from the floor and drop them into the hamper. You stack the crusted cereal bowls on top of the smeared plates and neatly arrange all the used spoons and forks. When he makes the sound again, you sit on the bed where he's crumpled into a heap. You lay your body down beside his. You put your arm around him and pull him close and hold fast, your chest knocking against his back. When he turns toward your body and its offering, you kiss along a meridian of his face, first on his eye, then down beneath his cheekbone, then lightly on the leftmost edge of his mouth. You say you're sorry, but he doesn't understand what you mean, or maybe he doesn't want to. So no matter how wretched the sound, it's best to stay very quiet and avoid calling any attention to yourself. It's best to do absolutely nothing. But if you must do something, try, as a means of control to obliterate yourself without violence. Try to endure the long waking hours and then slip unnoticed into sleep. Nearly three more weeks passed. We did see one another at school or on the street, two or three of us at a time in passing, but never all five, and the way we interacted during those random encounters with shrugging superficiality seemed to acknowledge that this was it. This was what life did, plain and simple. So maybe don't worry too much. It pulled bodies apart. But then one morning brought us back together. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving. The sun hadn't yet risen very far in the sky, and Bed Stuy was still waking up near Halsey Street, a chubby stray cat leaped from behind a tree and made an odd purring sound. At second glance, however, it wasn't a cat but a rabbit, of course, the one they called Balthazar. It jumped again, moving in reaction to a different sound that came within earshot, a distant clanging along the next couple of blocks, more than a dozen of them became visible, as if our little slice of Bed sty were like some town in the Midwest teeming with wildlife. It didn't take long to find the Source out on McDonough, besides the Open door to the unlit rescue, and Head Ass stood with a large metal spoon in one hand and an empty pot in the other. Among the people gathered there, Antonio and Charisse, Ronnie and Weleda standing together apart in their pairs as Head Ass continued to bang the spoon against the pot. Some began to warn him, others to cheer him on. More rabbits came into view as though summoned. The crowd grew and cheers intensified, punctuated with random shouts of yes, yes, that's all right, but also be careful, be careful, don't get got. Don't get got. It wasn't clear what the crowd as a collective was hoping to articulate. Everyone seemed to be smoldering in their own private fire. It made sense that it didn't make sense, and it felt good. We, the Five, weren't a thing anymore, and we wouldn't ever be again. But for a little while, as long as Head has kept up this racket, we could be a part of another thing, a large and incoherent body that had plenty to say and no need to justify itself. Still, such things tend not to last, and sooner than we might have expected, it was done. Without warning. Head Ass stopped the banging. He looked at the pot and spoon in his hands as if they no longer held any interest. He dropped them to the ground and the crowd started to disperse. Ronnie and Weleda, Cherise and Antonio. They walked until they were gone. Head asked, you should go too. It's not safe for you to be here. But he paid the concern no mind. Instead, he crept over to a car parked directly in front of the rescue and ducked behind it, disappearing completely for a moment before rising with a rabbit nestled in his arms. Grinning, he approached. The rabbit struggled a bit, flailing its little limbs, then relaxed as he got close. With great care he extended his arms, offering the animal for affection. He seemed so proud as he held it out. Its nose fluttered. Its fur was stunningly soft, its warmth and astonishment. It was the same rabbit from that first day, the one he'd held and obsessed over. This is chicory, right? He shook his head and responded, no, no. His voice richer and more sonorous than before. He smiled broadly and said a word, pronouncing it slowly, savoring each of the syllables, sharing the true name he'd given the rabbit out of love. Then he told me his name. Then I told him mine.

Meg Wolitzer / Narrator / Interviewer (57:36)

Tegel F. Bouget performed Blessed Deliverance by Jamel Brinkley at the Stissing center in Pine Plains, New York. I like the energy that this first person narration imparts to the story, and because of it we the readers and listeners, get to directly experience the narrative and the transformation of both the characters and their sense of their neighborhood. There's a side of Reginald that is like Lenny in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and the inclusion of Rabbit seems like a nod. But here his ungodly gainly impulses lead not to tragedy but in a roundabout way and perhaps for the first time in his life to being known. Intervention is an inviting concept in fiction because there is a built in sense of encounter, challenge, and moral ambiguity. Both Stephen King and Jamel Brinkley leave us with questions about right and wrong, and we might wonder whether the intervention they depict was the best way out of things. In the best sort of intervention, something changes for the better, and we hope that's been the case for you this hour. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Jennifer Nolsen. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.

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