when I was in grammar school my parents were poor and in my lunch bag there was only a peanut butter sandwich.

she had huge thighs and a very good laugh she laughed at everything and the curtains were yellow and I finished

“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...

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

you just don’t know how to do it, you know that, and you can’t do a lot of other useful things either. it’s the fault of the

the rag. she sat there, glooming. I couldn’t do anything with her. it was raining. she got up and left.

The voices of the people were the same, no matter where you carried the mail you heard the same things over and over again. “You’re late, aren’t you?” “Where’s the regular carrier?” “He...

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...

You had to fill out more papers to get out than to get in. The first page they gave you was a personalized mimeo affair from the postmaster of the city. It began: “I am sorry you are te...

they’d come around and they’d ask “you finished your 2nd novel yet?” “no.”

Every route had its traps and only the regular carriers knew of them. Each day it was another god damned thing, and you were always ready for a rape, murder, dogs, or insanity of some s...

sit on this bench and look at the sea and the freaks and the lovers. need new eyes a new mouth new pillows, a new woman.