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

at high noon at a small college near the beach sober the sweat running down my arms a spot of sweat on the table

she cut my toenails the night befo… and in the morning she said, “I th… just lay here all day.” which meant she wasn’t going to wo… she was at my apartment—which mean…

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...

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...

the pleasures of the damned are limited to brief moments of happiness: like the eyes in the look of a dog… like a square of wax,

There was death in that place on the hill. I knew it the first day I walked out the screen door and into the backyard. A zing– ing binging buzzing whining sound came right at me: 10,000...

the schoolyard was a horror show:… freaks the beatings up against the wire f… our schoolmates watching glad that they were not the victim…

I kept the date in mind. It was never any problem creating a split with Lydia. I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the st...

So I was surprised when the phone rang a couple of nights later and it was Cassie. “What are you doing, Hank?” She gave me the address, it was either Westwood or West L. A. “I have plen...

maybe I’ll win the Irish Sweepsta… maybe I’ll go nuts maybe Harcourt Brace will call or maybe unemployment insurance or rich lesbian at the top of a hill.

they’re not going to let you sit at a front table at some cafe in Europe in the mid-afternoon sun. you do, somebody’s going to