eating cold plums in bed she told me about the German who owned everything on the block except the custom drapery shop and he tried to buy

I met an old drunk on the street one afternoon. I used to know him from the days with Betty when we made the rounds of the bars. He told me that he was now a postal clerk and that there...

I was sitting next to a young girl who didn’t know her scheme very well. “Where does 2900 Roteford go?" she asked me. "Try throwing it to 33," I told her. “You say you’re from Kansas Ci...

Well, I took the scheme sheet and I related everything to sex and age. This guy lived in this house with 3 women. He belt-whipped one (her name was the name of the street and her age th...

yeah sure, I’ll be in unless I’m… don’t knock if the lights are out or you hear voices or then I might be reading Proust if someone slips Proust under my d…

There were continual fights. The teachers didn’t seem to know anything about them. And there was always trouble when it rained. Any boy who brought an umbrella to school or wore a rainc...

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

I had worked my charms on her for a couple of nights in a bar— not that we were new lovers, I had loved her for 16 months but she didn’t want to come to my…

crud, he said, hauling it out of the water, what is it? a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said… no, said a guy standing by us on t…

I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten

“You ought to try to be like Abe Mortenson,” said my mother, “he gets straight A’s. Why can’t you ever get any A’s?” “Henry is dead on his ass,” said my father. “Sometimes I can’t belie...