The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under the...

I remember the Model-T. Sitting high, the running boards seemed friendly, and on cold days, in the mornings, and often at other times, my father had to fit the hand-crank into the front...

My father had two brothers. The younger was named Ben and the older was named John. Both were alcoholics and ne’er-do-wells. My parents often spoke of them. “Neither of them amount to a...

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 ...

I had begun to dislike my father. He was always angry about something. Wherever we went he got into arguments with people. But he didn’t appear to frighten most people; they often just ...

I didn’t have any friends at school, didn’t want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me. During lunch one day I was a...

There were continual fights. The teachers didn’t seem to know anything about them. And there was always trouble when it rained. Any boy who brought an umbrella to school or wore a rainc...

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 ...

By the time they called me to dinner I was able to pull up my clothing and walk to the breakfast nook where we ate all our meals except on Sunday. There were two pillows on my chair. I ...

Lila Jane was a girl my age who lived next door. I still wasn’t allowed to play with the children in the neighborhood, but sitting in the bedroom often got dull. I would go out and walk...

During the second and third grades I still didn’t get a chance to play baseball but I knew that somehow I was developing into a player. If I ever got a bat in my hands again I knew I wo...

One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any horsedrawn wagons. The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the milk company we drove off on his rout...

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...

Later in the hospital they were dabbing at my knees with pieces of cotton that had been soaked in something. It burned. My elbows burned too. The doctor was bending over me with a nurse...

My father always ran the neighborhood kids away from our house. I was told not to play with them but I walked down the street and watched them anyhow. “Hey, Heinie!” they yelled, “Why d...

I didn’t know exactly why but Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank let me join them in some of their games. I think it started when another guy showed up and they needed three on a side. I stil...

Of all the guys left in the neighborhood, Frank was the nicest. We got to be friends, we got to going around together, we didn’t need the other guys much. They had more or less kicked F...

Frank liked airplanes. He lent me all his pulp magazines about World War 1. The best was Flying Aces. The dog-fights were great, the Spads and the Fokkers mixing it. I read all the stor...

The 5th grade was a little better. The other students seemed less hostile and I was growing larger physically. I still wasn’t chosen for the homeroom teams but I was threatened less. Da...

There were times when Frank and I were friendly with Chuck, Eddie and Gene. But something would always happen (usually I caused it) and then I would be out, and Frank would be partly ou...

Then I started attending Mt. Justin Jr. High. About half the guys from Delsey Grammar School went there, the biggest and toughest half. Another gang of giants came from other schools. O...

One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy attached himself to me. He was small and thin and had almost no hair on top of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real...

At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our teacher. He was an old guy about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly Fischman was in the class and she was real...

Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a blonde with a long sharp nose. Her nose wasn’t much good but you didn’t notice it when you looked at the rest of her. ...

Curly Wagner picked out Morris Moscowitz. It was after school and eight or ten of us guys had heard about it and we walked out behind the gym to watch. Wagner laid down the rules, “We f...

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...

Wagner wasn’t done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class when he walked up to me. “I’m putting you on garbage detail until further notice.” The kids had to work off their...

Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the 9th, I broke out with acne. Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine was really terrible. I was the worst cas...

That summer, July 1934, they gunned down John Dillinger outside the movie house in Chicago. He never had a chance. The Lady in Red had fingered him. More than a year earlier the banks h...

I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me over. I was sitting on the edge of the examina...