“Dirt Dancer” first appeared in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, where editor Dean Wesley Smith called it a perfect little Pulphouse story. Get ready to meet the quirky Billy Tennant and share his puzzlement over his serendipitous new job.
As Smith said in his original introduction to the story, “Dirt Dancer” packs a punch.
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When Billy Tennant left the boarding house for a round of morning loitering, he had eighteen cents and a boiled egg in his pocket, and not the faintest notion in his head that by nightfall he’d be gainfully employed as custodian and caretaker over a thousand square feet of Grade A, barren dirt.
But at day’s end, while the sun melted into the horizon like butter on a pancake, Billy stood in the vacant lot and surveyed his domain. The burnt orange sky ca
