I took Tammie. We got there a little early and went to a bar across the street. We got a table. “Now don’t drink too much, Hank. You know how you slur your words and miss your lines whe...

A couple of nights later Becker walked in. I guess my parents gave him my address or he located me through the college. I had my name and address listed with the employment division at ...

After nine or ten hours people began getting sleepy and falling into their cases, catching themselves just in time. We were working the zoned mail. If a letter read zone 28 you stuck it...

yes, they begin out in a willow, I… the starch mountains begin out in… and keep right on going without re… pumas and nectarines somehow these mountains are like

My drinking slowed down the next week. I went to the racetrack to get fresh air and sunshine and plenty of walking. At night I drank, wondering why I was still alive, how the scheme wor...

Times were still hard. Nobody was any more surprised than I when Mears– Starbuck phoned and asked me to report to work the next Monday. I had gone all around town putting in dozens of a...

Joyce found a job with the county, the county Police Department, of all things. I was living with a cop! But at least it was during the day, which gave me a little rest from those fondl...

I began getting dizzy spells. I could feel them coming. The case would begin to whirl. The spells lasted about a minute. I couldn’t understand it. Each letter was getting heavier and he...

the girls are coming home in their… and I sit by the window and watch. there’s a girl in a red dress driving a white car

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—

she was a short one getting fat and she had once been beautiful and she drank the wine she drank the wine in bed and

the essence of the belly like a white balloon sacked is disturbing like the running of feet on the stairs