consistency is terrific: shark-mouth grubby interior with an almost perfect body, long blazing hair—

They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor. “Let me see how you look, Chinaski.” He looked at me. “All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know whe...

Three or four days later I found her note and phoned Debra. She said, “Come on over.” She gave me the directions to Playa del Rey and I drove over. She had a small rented house with a f...

Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into pur cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in 8 minutes or les...

He hinted at times that I was a bastard and I told him to listen to Brahms, and I told him to learn to paint and drink and not be dominated by women and dollars but he screamed at me, F...

The toughest in the station. Apartment houses with boxes that had scrubbed-out names or no names at all, under tiny lightbulbs in dark halls. Old ladies standing in halls, up and down t...

here comes the fishhead singing here comes the baked potato in dra… here comes nothing to do all day l… here comes another night of no sle… here comes the phone wringing the…

neither does this mean the dead are at the door begging bread before

I cross the room to the last wall the last window the last pink sun with its arms around the world

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