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...

in the men’s room at the track this boy of about 7 or 8 years old came out of a stall

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...

3 small boys run toward me blowing whistles and they scream you’re under arrest! you’re drunk!

very tall girl lifts her nose at m… outside a supermarket as if I were a walking garbage can; and I had no desire for her, no more desire

I took it home, opened the beer, got into bed and began. It started well. It was about how Janko had lived in small rooms and starved while trying to find a job. He had trouble with the...

there he is: not too many hangovers not too many fights with women not too many flat tires never a thought of suicide

—he’s a dandy —small moustache —usually sucking on a cigar he tends to lean into cars as he transacts business

In the morning Dee Dee drove me to the Sunset Strip for breakfast. The Mercedes was black and shone in the sun. We drove past the billboards and the nightclubs and the fancy restaurants...

We were in the air twenty minutes when she took a mirror out of her purse and began to make up her face, mostly the eyes. She worked at her eyes with a small brush, concentrating on the...