if you can’t stand the heat, he sa… kitchen. you know who said that? Harry Truman. I’m not in the kitchen, I say, I’… oven.

I got a letter in the mail. It was addressed from Hollywood. Dear Chinaski: I’ve just read almost all your books. I work as a typist in a place on Cherokee Ave. I’ve hung your picture i...

That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading at Venice Beach. She was about 28, fair body, pretty good legs, a blonde about 5~feet-5, a blue...

I keep thinking it will be outside now waiting for me blue front bumper twisted

we talk about this film: Cagney fed this broad grapefruit faster than she could eat it and

Tammie came by that night. She appeared to be high on uppers. “I want some champagne,” she said. Then the phone rang. It was Lydia. “I just wondered how you were doing. ...” “You know D...

16 years old during the depression I’d come home drunk and all my clothing— shorts, shirts, stockings—

That evening I started drinking. It wasn’t going to be easy without Katherine. I found some things she had left behind—earrings, a bracelet. I’ve got to get back to the typewriter, I th...

The riots ended, the baby calmed down, and I found ways to avoid Janko. But the dizzy spells persisted. The doctor wrote me a standing order for the green-white librium capsules and the...

the German hotel was very strange… double doors to the rooms, very th… looked the park and the vasser ter… it was usually too late for breakf… would be everywhere changing sheet…

at the hospital that I have been going to the nurses seem overweight. they are bulky in their

he sits all day at the bus stop at Sunset and Western his sleeping bag beside him. he’s dirty. nobody bothers him.