The funeral was to be at 10:30 a.m. but it was already hot. I had on a cheap black suit, bought and fitted in a rush. It was my first new suit in years. I had located the son. We drove ...

more wasted days, gored days, evaporated days. more squandered days, days pissed away,

what’s bad about all this is watching people drinking coffee and waiting. I would

“I’ve made it,” she said, “I’ve c… through.” she had on new boots, pa… and a white sweater. “I know what… want now.” she was from Chicago an… had settled in L.A.’s Fairfax dis…

My father always ran the neighborhood kids away from our house. I was told not to play with them but I walked down the street and watched them anyhow. “Hey, Heinie!” they yelled, “Why d...

a great white light dawns across t… continent as we fawn over our failed traditi… often kill to preserve them or sometimes kill just to kill.

It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I ...

One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any horsedrawn wagons. The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the milk company we drove off on his rout...

he’s a runt he snarls and scratches chases cars groans in his sleep and has a perfect star above each…

The 5th grade was a little better. The other students seemed less hostile and I was growing larger physically. I still wasn’t chosen for the homeroom teams but I was threatened less. Da...

Then the supervisor moved us to a new aisle. We had been there ten hours. “Before you begin,” the soup said, "I want to tell you some– thing. Each tray of this type of mail must be stuc...