I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn’t particularly want money. I didn’t know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out,...

there was a frozen tree that I wan… but the shells came down and in Vegas looking across at a g… at 3:30 in the morning, I died without nails, without a co…

Bobby and Valerie came by and I introduced everybody around. “Valerie and I are going to take a vacation and rent rooms by the seashore in Manhattan Beach,” said Bobby. “Why don’t you g...

After 3 years I made “regular.” That meant holiday pay (subs didn’t get paid for holidays) and a 40 hour week with 2 days off. The Stone was also forced to assign me as relief man to 5 ...

remember, he told me, that when I… years old my mother was always tak… to the doctor and saying, “he hasn… she was always asking me, “have yo… pooped?”

I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future. I didn’t like what I saw down there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everybod...

she wrote me for years. “I’m drinking wine in the kitchen. it’s raining outside. the children are in school.” she was an average citizen

hooray say the roses, today is bla… and we are red as blood. hooray say the roses, today is Wed… and we bloom wher soldiers fell and lovers too,

the house next door makes me sad. both man and wife rise early and go to work. they arrive home in early evening.

she’s young, she said, but look at me, I have pretty ankles, and look at my wrists, I have pret… wrists

then there was the time in New Orleans I was living with a fat woman, Marie, in the French Quarter and I got very sick.

But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson, who had had one professional fight (he’d lost)....

eating cold plums in bed she told me about the German who owned everything on the block except the custom drapery shop and he tried to buy

It was 3 or 4 days before I had to fly to Houston to give a reading. I went to the track, drank at the track, and afterwards I went to a bar on Hollywood Boulevard. I went home at 9 or ...