There was death in that place on the hill. I knew it the first day I walked out the screen door and into the backyard. A zing– ing binging buzzing whining sound came right at me: 10,000...

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

The ex-Japanese wrestler who was into real estate sold Lydia’s house. She had to move out. There was Lydia, Tonto, Lisa and the dog, Bugbutt. In Los Angeles most landlords hang out the ...

I was sitting with an anarchist from Beverly Hills, Ben Solvnag, who was writing my biography when I heard her footsteps on the court walk. I knew the sound—they were always fast and fr...

in junior high school Big Max was a problem. we’d be sitting during lunch hour eating our peanut butter sandwiche… and potato chips.

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

it was up in San Francisco after my poetry reading. it had been a nice crowd I had gotten my money I had this place upstairs

as the orchid dies and the grass goes insane, let’s have one for the los… met an old man and a tired whore

you’re a beast, she said your big white belly and those hairy feet. you never cut your nails and you have fat hands

I’ve come by, she says, to tell yo… that this is it. I’m not kidding,… over. this is it. I sit on the couch watching her ar… her long red hair before my bedroo…

But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson, who had had one professional fight (he’d lost)....

boy, don’t come around here tellin… can’t cut it, that they’re pitching you low and insid… they are conspiring against you, that all you want is a chance but…

I was sitting in my shorts one afternoon a week later. There was a tender little knock on the door. “Just a moment,” I said. I put on a robe and opened the door. “We’re two girls from G...

Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronte...

I don’t know how many bottles of b… I have consumed while waiting for… to get better. I don’t know how much wine and whi… and beer