watch you walking with your machin… ah, you’re too stupid to be cut li… you’re too stupid to let anything… the girls won’t use their knives o… they don’t want to

we buy the scandal sheets at the s… get into bed and eat pretzels and… the church bells ring and the dogs… we turn on the tv and watch very b… then she goes down and brings up i…

in San Francisco the landlady, 80… Victrola up the stairway and I pl… until they beat on the walls. there was a large bucket in the ce… filled with beer and winebottles;

at high noon at a small college near the beach sober the sweat running down my arms a spot of sweat on the table

I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of the last to know, because I still didn’t talk to anybody. A boy walked up to “Your mother has a hole . . .”—he to...

The subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying his impossible orders. I couldn’t see how a man of such obvious cruelty could be allowed to have his position. The regulars didn’t ...

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

I had to fly to Illinois to give a reading at the University. I hated readings, but they helped with the rent and maybe they helped sell books. They got me out of east Hollywood, they g...

the higher you climb the greater the pressure. those who manage to endure learn

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 ...

On Thursday night Bobby phoned again. “Hey, man, what are you doing?” “Oh, come on, man, I’ll just stay for a few beers. . . .” “You treat him mean. He gets lonely when his wife is at w...

Then I started attending Mt. Justin Jr. High. About half the guys from Delsey Grammar School went there, the biggest and toughest half. Another gang of giants came from other schools. O...

Bobby’s wife worked two nights a week and when she was gone he got on the telephone. I knew that on Tuesday and Thursday nights he would be lonely. It was Tuesday night when the phone r...

The next morning Tammie found a prescription in her purse. “I’ve got to get this filled,” she said. “Look at it.” It was wrinkled and the ink had run. “Well, he tried to get this prescr...