if I suffer at this typewriter think how I’d feel among the lettuce— pickers of Salinas?

near the corner table in the cafe middle-aged couple sit. they have finished their

Bobby and Valerie came by and I introduced everybody around. “Valerie and I are going to take a vacation and rent rooms by the seashore in Manhattan Beach,” said Bobby. “Why don’t you g...

when I look back now at the abuse I took from her I feel shame that I was so innocent,

One night I was assigned to the stool next to Butchner. He didn’t stick any mail. He just sat there. And talked. A young girl came in and sat down at the end of the aisle. I heard Butch...

The next day was Saturday and Debra cooked us breakfast. “Are you coming antique hunting with us today?” We ate in silence for a while, then she said, “I liked your reading at The Lance...

Fay was pregnant. But it didn’t change her and it didn’t change the post office either. The same clerks did all the work while the miscellaneous crew stood around and argued about sport...

I don’t beat the walls with my fis… I just sit but it rushes in a tide of it. the woman in the court behind me h…

I didn’t contest the divorce, didn’t go to court. Joyce gave me the car. She didn’t drive. All I had lost was 3 or 4 million. But I still had the post office. “I saw you with that bitch...

The riots ended, the baby calmed down, and I found ways to avoid Janko. But the dizzy spells persisted. The doctor wrote me a standing order for the green-white librium capsules and the...

the boys come up the boys climb up the brown pole as the waterheater gurgles in Spanish

the men phone and ask me that. are you really Charles Bukowski the writer? they ask. I’m a sometimes writer, I say, most often I don’t do anything.