“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…

I found a room on Temple Street in the Filipino district. It was $3.50 a week, upstairs on the second floor. I paid the landlady—a middle-aged blond—a week’s rent. The toilet and tub we...

listening to Wagner as outside in the dark the wind bl… trees wave and shake lights go off and on the walls creak and the… bed...

I had Fridays and Saturdays off, which made Sunday the roughest day. Plus the fact that on Sunday they made me report at 3:30 p.m. instead of my usual 6:18 p.m. This Sunday I went in an...

He hinted at times that I was a bastard and I told him to listen to Brahms, and I told him to learn to paint and drink and not be dominated by women and dollars but he screamed at me, F...

the Egyptians loved the cat were often entombed with it instead of with the women and never with the dog but now

the canaries were there, and the l… and the old woman with warts; and I was there, a child and I touched the piano keys as they talked—

“Be quiet. Don’t wake Dancy. She’s my daughter. She’s 6 years I had a 6-pack of beer. Tammie put it in the refrigerator and came out with two bottles. “My daughter mustn’t see anything....

I’ve watched this city burn twice in my lifetime and the most notable event was the reaction of the politicians in the

Later in the hospital they were dabbing at my knees with pieces of cotton that had been soaked in something. It burned. My elbows burned too. The doctor was bending over me with a nurse...

my goldfish stares with watery eye… into the hemisphere of my sorrow; upon the thinnest of threads we hang together, hang hang hang

Fay was all right with the pregnancy. For an old gal, she was all right. We waited around at our place. Finally the time came. “It won’t be long,” she said. “I don’t want to get there t...

neither does this mean the dead are at the door begging bread before