“It’s the manager, Freddy. He has started whistling this song. He’s whistling it when I come in in the morning and he never stops, and he’s whistling it when I go home at night. It’s be...

sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 j… female. brown paper bags filled with trash… everywhere. is one-thirty in the afternoon.

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.

welcome to my wormy hell. the music grinds off-key. fish eyes watch from the wall. this is where the last happy shot… fired.

red-eyed and dizzy as I the bird came flying all the way from Egypt at 5 o’clock in the morning, and Maria almost stumbled on her s…

I found that the only time to study was before sleeping. I was always too tired to make and eat breakfast, so I would go out and buy a tall 6 pack, put it on the chair beside the bed, r...

I used to hold my social security… up in the air, he told me, but I was so small they couldn’t see it,

Then I developed a new system at the racetrack. I pulled in $3,000 in a month and a half while only going to the track two or three times a week. I began to dream. I saw a little house ...

don’t worry about rejections, pard… I’ve been rejected before. sometimes you make a mistake, taki… the wrong poem

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 ...

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was—with my crazy 12 hour night I was no longer sure what was what—I said, "Look, baby, I’m sorry, but don’t you realize that this job is driving me...

So I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, and there I was—a substitute mail carrier. It began easy. I was sent to West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas exc...

is an orange animal with hand grenades fire power

My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who didn’t have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors were unemployed he didn’t want them to thin...