there are these small cliffs above the sea and it is night, late night; I have been unable to sleep, and with my car above me

My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who didn’t have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors were unemployed he didn’t want them to thin...

she’s from Texas and weighs 103 pounds and stands before the mirror combing oceans of reddish hair

Two mornings later, at 4 am, somebody beat on the door. I let Tammie in. She sat down and I opened a couple of beers. “I’ve got bad breath, I have these two bad teeth. You can’t kiss me...

I had boils the size of tomatoes all over me they stuck a drill into me down at the county hospital, and

I was hungover again, another heat spell was on—a week of 100 degree days. The drinking went on each night, and in the early mornings and days there was The Stone and the impossibility ...

the Mexican dancer shook her fans… me and her ass at me, I didn’t ask her to and my woman got mad and ran out of th… it began raining and you could hea…

Somehow the money slipped away after that and soon I left the track and sat around in my apartment waiting for the 90 days’ leave to run out. My nerves were raw from the drinking and th...

this man used to be an interesting writer, he was able to say brisk and refreshing things. at the time

The next night as they moved the group from the main build– ing to the training building, I stopped to talk to Gus the old newsboy. Gus had once been 3rd-ranked welterweight contender b...

I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten

That evening after dinner Joanna produced some mescaline. “You ever tried this stuff?” Joanna had some paints and brushes and paper spread on the table. Then I remembered she was an art...

the strong men the muscle men there they sit down at the beach cocoa tans

So gramps wrote Joyce a big check and there we were. We rented a little house up on a hill, and then Joyce got this stupid moralistic thing. “We both ought to get jobs,” Joyce said, “to...