she was sitting in the window of room 1010 at the Chelsea in New York, Janis Joplin’s old room. it was 104 degrees

Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into pur cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in 8 minutes or les...

I went upstairs to 409, had a stiff scotch and water, took some money out of the top drawer, went down the steps, got in my car and drove to the racetrack. I got there in time for the f...

A week later I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Lydia. A weekly entertainment newspaper published in California at that time had asked me to write an article on the life of the...

We were eating meatballs and spaghetti. My problems were always discussed at dinner time. Dinner time was almost always an unhappy time. I didn’t answer my father’s question. “Henry, an...

looking out the window smoking rolled cigarettes drinking Sanka and watching the workers come on in

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...

he carried a piece of carbon, a blade and a whip and at night he feared his head and covered it with blankets

my daughter is most glorious. we are eating a takeout snack in my car in Santa Monica.

Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn’t deceive anybody. It’s the deceivers who make y...

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,...

he came to the door one night wet… terrorized white cross-eyed tailless cat took him in and fed him and he sta… grew to trust me until a friend dr…

the old folks play a game in the park overlooking the sea shoving markers across cement with wooden sticks. four play, two on each side