“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...

It was another Sunday that we got into the Model-T in search of my Uncle John. “He has no ambition,” said my father. “I don’t see how he can hold his god-damned head up and look people ...

you go for these wenches, she said… you go for these whores, I’ll bore you. I don’t want to be shit on anymore… I said,

Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronte...

sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 j… female. brown paper bags filled with trash… everywhere. is one-thirty in the afternoon.

the dead dogs of nowhere bark as you approach another traffic accident. cars one standing on its

I took the envelope home to my mother and handed it to her and walked into the bedroom. My bedroom. The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even ...

So I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, and there I was—a substitute mail carrier. It began easy. I was sent to West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas exc...

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

You had to fill out more papers to get out than to get in. The first page they gave you was a personalized mimeo affair from the postmaster of the city. It began: “I am sorry you are te...

terror finally becomes almost bearable but never quite terror creeps like a cat crawls like a cat

I always wanted to ball Henry Miller, she said, but by the time I got there it was too late. damn it, I said, you girls

It was 12 hours a night, plus supervisors, plus clerks, plus the fact that you could hardly breathe in that pack of flesh, plus stale baked food in the “non-profit” cafeteria. Plus the ...