Fat Chance

It's Friday night in Wilton Manors, and Sidelines, a gay sports bar, is packed with slender boys. Carlos Lopez, 28, sits on a barstool near the door nursing a glass of whiskey. Trim and handsome, Lopez chats with Blake, a lean 29-year-old with chubby cheeks.

Blake, who moved to Florida from the Midwest last year, says he doesn't really have one type of man he goes for.

Does he know that Lopez likes big men — really big men, as in guys who weigh 280 to 350 pounds?

"He likes fat guys!?" Blake says. He touches his cheeks. "Am I fat?" he asks... full story »

Mother's Keeper

It was 7:30 in the morning, a bright school day in 1971, and eight-year-old Lisa Hall was lying in bed, contemplating the day. Through sleep-caked eyelids, she could see the first rays of sunlight pouring through the window of her Westlake split-level. She'd have to get ready for school soon. If she could just sleep for a few . . . more . . .

As she drifted off, her mother swept into the room, a cloud of perfume and silk. She sat on her daughter's bed, smoothing the kinks in Lisa's short auburn hair.

"I have an idea," Joan said, smiling wickedly. "Let's forget school and play... full story »

A Devil's Deal in Dallas Court

When Gerald Pabst took the witness stand to testify against his brother-in-law, he looked scared. He was literally shaking. Yet he answered the prosecutor's questions in a soft, even tone that didn't fit the gruesome details of the murder.

It was all the fault of Clay Chabot, Pabst said. At dawn, after the two men spent the night boozing and doing meth together, Chabot had dragged Pabst along to get compensation for a bad drug deal. The speed-fueled escapade had ended with Chabot killing the dealer's wife. Pabst said he'd obeyed Chabot's orders because he'd been threatened.

Free Poker Tour Is a Dead Man's Hand

We know why you are underground, to many people looking for you.

By this summer, when he received his first e-mail death threat, plenty of people were looking for Matt Sowash. And at him: The Colorado Bureau of Investigation was investigating his Amateur Poker Tour for possible securities fraud. Investors, most of them poker players, had handed Sowash tens of thousands of dollars — their entire savings, in some cases — to buy into the game, believing that they'd all become millionaires. But now the Wheat Ridge company's pot was empty, and there wasn't enough... full story »

The Boys of Fall

Ryan Langerhans might be the face of the 2007 Oakland Athletics, even if no one can remember his face.

The former Atlanta Braves phenom became property of the locals following an April 29 trade, and three days later stood in center field at Boston's Fenway Park wearing Oakland's green and gold. "He's a player we've liked in the past," A's general manager Billy Beane told reporters at the time. "He's off to a rough start in Atlanta and became available to us."

The fans' imaginations bloomed: Another surprise star: a Jay Payton? A Milton Bradley? A Frank Thomas? Had Billy found... full story »

Houston's Very Best Songs Ever

When we originally set about attempting to catalogue a list of Houston's top songs ever, we thought it was a stretch. How could there be a list of ten, much less 100, world-recognized songs from this relative backwater of a music city? In fact, the exact opposite is true. The more you look back through our history, the richer it looks, and the harder it is to keep the list at a reasonable size. Few cities on earth have a more fertile musical heritage.

This was made abundantly plain when we blogged about the project on full story »

My Secret Life in the Klan

I was already nervous when I saw the woman. There was nothing intimidating about her, just a woman in her mid-30s in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, on an evening hike in early August. Still, when she passed me, I looked away from her. It was my first time distributing KKK fliers, and I didn't want to be noticed.

I'd purposely dressed as anonymously as possible: white shirt and jeans, with an 11-day beard, glasses and a ball cap for a university I never attended. My partner for the evening, Adrian Trentadue, was a bit more noticeable, thanks to his T-shirt with a cartoon... full story »

British Ex-Millionaire Fights for Freedom

When security guard Jorge Aparicio arrived at the DuPont Plaza in downtown Miami for his 7:00 a.m. shift Thursday October 16, 1986, Biscayne Boulevard was still cloaked in darkness.

Aside from the sleepy-eyed staff trickling into work, the hotel was quiet — almost peaceful. Nothing stirred on the 12th floor. Midway along the narrow hallway, some 100 feet east of the elevator, a maid looked in on Room 1215 and noted it was completely still. The curtains were pulled shut, the furniture polished. The twin beds at the top of the two-story suite's wooden staircase were just as... full story »

Steroids Confidential

Prison changes a man. Makes him hard and cold, "like the frozen earth itself," as Hemingway once observed. Only returning to the outside has allowed Marlon Leftwich to thaw his spirit, to warm his soul.

He was paroled in August after serving a six-month sentence, ample time for seasons to change and hope to decay. The San Francisco native landed behind bars for a crime spree vast in geography but narrow in its choice of targets: Over a six-week period, federal court records state, Leftwich crisscrossed California, Arizona, and Nevada to rob 44 convenience stores.

He... full story »

The Case of the Shanghai Shamus

Qiu Xiaolong came to writing the hard way: As the son of a confirmed capitalist during China's Cultural Revolution, he was forced to write his father's confession speech. The year was 1968 — two years into Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Qiu had looked on as his father penned a confession speech, mounted a small stage, and owned up to his sins before a group of Red Guards — groups of communists empowered by Mao to try "class enemies" at independent tribunals.

This time was different. Qiu's father had recently undergone cataract surgery: "He could hardly move because... full story »