I remember the Model-T. Sitting high, the running boards seemed friendly, and on cold days, in the mornings, and often at other times, my father had to fit the hand-crank into the front...

When I awakened it was 1:30 pm. I took a bath, got dressed, checked the mail. A letter from a young man in Glendale. "Dear Mr. Chinaski: I am a young writer and I think that I am a good...

I came out of the bar and checked the message board. The plane was on time. Katherine was in the air and moving towards me. I sat down and waited. Across from me was a well-groomed woma...

That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading at Venice Beach. She was about 28, fair body, pretty good legs, a blonde about 5~feet-5, a blue...

have we gone wrong again? we laugh less and less, become more sadly sane. all we want is the absence of others.

he came to the door one night wet… terrorized white cross-eyed tailless cat took him in and fed him and he sta… grew to trust me until a friend dr…

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…

the lilies storm my brain by god by god like nazi storm troopers! do you think I’m going tizzy?

they talk down through the centuries to us, and this we need more and more, the statues and paintings in midnight age

I used to take the back off the telephone and stuff it with ra… and when somebody knocked I wouldn’t answer and if they pers… I’d tell them in terms vulgar

There was this place. It stretched over the sea, it was built over the sea. An old place, but with a touch of class. We got a room on the first floor. You could hear the ocean running d...

Lydia phoned me in the morning. “Whenever you get drunk,” she said, “I’m going out dancing. I went to the Red Umbrella last night and I asked men to dance with me. A woman has a right t...