“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...

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 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...

looking out the window smoking rolled cigarettes drinking Sanka and watching the workers come on in

feet of cheese coffeepot soul hands that hate poolsticks eyes like paperclips I prefer red wine

The drilling and squeezing continued for weeks but there was little result. When one boil vanished another would appear. I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a...

had her for 3 units and at mid-term she’d read off how many assignment… stories had been turned in:

people went into vacant lots and pulled up greens to cook and the men rolled Bull Durham or smoked Wings (10 a pack) and the dogs were thin and the cats were thin and the cats learned h...

Meanwhile, things went on. I had a long run of luck at the racetrack. I began to feel confident out there. You went for a certain profit each day, somewhere between 15 and 40 bucks. You...

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

Beowulf may have killed Grendel a… Grendel’s mother but he couldn’t kill this one:

I had Fridays and Saturdays off, which made Sunday the roughest day. Plus the fact that on Sunday they made me report at 3:30 p.m. instead of my usual 6:18 p.m. This Sunday I went in an...

yesterday drunken Alice gave me a jar of fig jam and today she whistles