have we gone wrong again? we laugh less and less, become more sadly sane. all we want is the absence of others.

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

listen, he said, you ever seen a b… bucket? no, I told him. well, what happens is that now and… will climb up on top of the others

I saw a vacancy sign in the window in front of a rooming-house, had the cabby pull up. I paid him and walked up on the front porch, rang the bell. I had one black eye from the fight, an...

I met an old drunk on the street one afternoon. I used to know him from the days with Betty when we made the rounds of the bars. He told me that he was now a postal clerk and that there...

When I awakened it was 1:30 pm. I took a bath, got dressed, checked the mail. A letter from a young man in Glendale. "Dear Mr. Chinaski: I am a young writer and I think that I am a good...

and the sun wields mercy but like a jet torch carried to hi… and the jets whip across its sight and rockets leap like toads, and the boys get out the maps

After Debra left for work the next morning I bathed, then tried to watch t.v. I walked around naked and noticed that I could be seen from the street through the front window. So I had a...

bet on #6, I try red, I stare at… wonder what Chekhov would do, and… blue plates sit eating the carnage… and look very much like Russians a… my left tit and try to smile like…

the problem, of course, isn’t the… it’s the living parts which make up the Dem… the next person you pass on the st… multiply

I walked into the counselor’s office. It was Eddie Beaver sitting behind the desk. The clerks called him “Skinny Beaver.” He had a pointed head, pointed nose, pointed chin. He was all p...