I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of the last to know, because I still didn’t talk to anybody. A boy walked up to “Your mother has a hole . . .”—he to...

Bobby’s wife worked two nights a week and when she was gone he got on the telephone. I knew that on Tuesday and Thursday nights he would be lonely. It was Tuesday night when the phone r...

Marina Louise, Fay named the child. So there it was, Marina Louise Chinaski. In the crib by the window. Looking up at the tree leafs and bright designs whirling on the ceiling. Then she...

On Thanksgiving Iris prepared the turkey and put it in the oven. Bobby and Valerie came over for a few drinks but they didn’t stay. It was refreshing. Iris had on another dress, just as...

I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future. I didn’t like what I saw down there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everybod...

she was sitting in the window of room 1010 at the Chelsea in New York, Janis Joplin’s old room. it was 104 degrees

I laugh sometimes when I think ab… say Céline at a typewriter or Dostoevsky... or Hamsun...

Meanwhile, there was still Joyce, and her geraniums, and a couple of million if I could hang on. Joyce and the flies and the geraniums. I worked the night shift, 12 hours, and she pawed...

crud, he said, hauling it out of the water, what is it? a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said… no, said a guy standing by us on t…

first time my father overheard me… this bit of music he asked me, “what is it?” “it’s called Love For Three Oran… I informed him.

another bed another woman more curtains another bathroom another kitchen

she sits up there drinking wine while her husband is at work. she puts quite

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...

vain vanilla ladies strutting while van Gogh did it to himself. girls pulling on silk hose