you just don’t know how to do it, you know that, and you can’t do a lot of other useful things either. it’s the fault of the

That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading at Venice Beach. She was about 28, fair body, pretty good legs, a blonde about 5~feet-5, a blue...

was much easier to be a genius in… only 3 or 4 literary magazines and… or 5 times you could end up in Ger… you could possibly meet Picasso fo… maybe only Miró.

he was easy, fat as a hummingbird and I had him blowing, I jabbed and crossed and took my t… everybody was waiting for the main… drinking beer, and I was thinking

Information has been received in this office indicating that you were arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on March 12, 1969, on a drunk charge. In this connection, your atten...

Sara was preparing the turkey dressing and I sat in the kitchen talking to her. We were both sipping white wine. The phone rang. I went and got it. It was Debra. “I just wanted to wish ...

the legs are gone and the hopes—th… and I haven’t shaved in sixteen da… but the mailman still makes his ro… water still comes out of the fauce… myself with glazed and milky eyes…

The bandages were helpful. L.A. County Hospital had finally come up with something. The boils drained. They didn’t vanish but they flattened a bit. Yet some new ones would appear and ri...

The baby was crawling, discovering the world. Marina slept in bed with us at night. There was Marina, Fay, the cat and myself. The cat slept on the bed too. Look here, I thought, I have...

They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor. “Let me see how you look, Chinaski.” He looked at me. “All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know whe...

it is the man you’ve never seen wh… keeps you going, the one who might arrive someday. he isn’t out on the streets or