I had worked in a bottle factory, a bottle-top factory, a paper factory, a nut factory, a bolt factory, a clock factory, a wall factory, a door factory, a window factory, a whisky factory, a wheel

Tom had been promising for some time to take Stevie to the zoo, and today was the day. He paid their admission and the two entered the zoo grounds, passing the gift shop, built to resemble an

I wanna have cool recurring dreams, ones that'll make me sound smart when I describe them to people. Right now, I only have the same dreams everyone else has -- you know, where your teeth fall out,

Her heart swells like someone turned a faucet on. It is enormous. A fast-moving cloud of blackbirds dissipates into the trees. Or are they bats. They're at the zoo. It is the same as the bowling

7:13 

Tate found a sawbuck turtle near the metal shed. He called inside for me. I sat at the kitchen table, a napkin spread across my lap, ketchup from the bacon and egg sandwich swabbed along

After work on Fridays we'd usually go over to The Holly on 27th for a beer.

One night I'm working late so I don't get there till seven. Quigley is sitting at the bar in his usual place. I take

His name is David and he's in the hospital with a lot of things stuck in his arms, nodes pasted to his chest, tubes going into his nostrils and mouth. He has been staring at the TV for

I'm a big fan of blue. The dark, deep blues. Like that James Taylor song, deep greens and blues are the colors I choose. Green's nice, too, but I prefer blue.

Don't know if I could call it my

Up to our lunch room table came the newest, biggest loser in the ninth grade -- Intercom! We called him Intercom because he wore a big bolt-like hearing aid that, protruding from his ear, made him

Earl Jenkins was a security guard at PNC Park where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball. Every time he worked one of the sidelines, right down on the field, and he snagged a foul ball, he

Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. Sugar or Baby, something sweet, something helpless, something you are not and never will be. If they studied your face instead of grabbing your ass

Before the curious series of events that stunned a quiet community, Calvin Flack DDS wondered if he would ever find the perfect dental hygienist. Two weeks prior to opening his practice in

And the earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming 
--Tom Waits 
 

He came from Wal-Mart. Some fellow was loitering by the automatic doors with a stink my wife described as rotten apples

It's August, and it smells like grass and cranberry fruit snacks. I pick my brother up from the post office where he works. When he gets in, he says, "Let me take off these shoes."

We drive and

The pet store was across from Planned Parenthood. Rob and June just sort of wandered over. They were allergic to dogs and cats, and June pointed out that hamsters bite. Beside the hamsters, there

At school, we were allowed to wear costumes but were not allowed to bring treats. So we'd made the most of it -- we wore our costumes, we overcrowded the hallways with streams of sleepy ghosts. And

The cobble gloss contained inchoate images underfoot. Miram broke his stride and knelt to inspect the watery sheen but could not catch the specter. Drunken houseboat dwellers under an open awning

We spread a blanket off to one side of the boat launch, under some trees. Island Lake, in Shelton, Washington, is surrounded by small private homes, and this is the only public access. Since it's

He knew what he was doing. He knows I don't say hello to him, knows that when I see him I see an empty spot, but he walked into the meeting and looked straight at me and said hello. He knew I

The apartment smells of burnt toast when Marcia arrives home from work. Her husband, Gary, having toasted two loaves that afternoon, hovers over the linoleum kitchen counter cutting slices into

I'm functional in the sense that I make it to evening confrontations. At the sushi bar, Gita keeps talking about some girl she works with: "I just think that she's just really into identity.

I rest my head on a pillow, falling in and out of sleep. Outside the windshield, locusts reflect light like shooting stars as they catch in the car's turbulence. I rouse slowly, watching

"You played sports?" he asks over dinner. They're having baked chicken and baked potatoes. Clean food is how she thinks of it, only a little butter on the potato and no salt. He's pouring ketchup

The hair monster checked out the ass of a handicapped woman. She was standing with her back turned when the hair monster noticed her panty line against her white tights and thought, hey hey hey. He

She was what his father, who had a Betty Grable calendar in the garage, used to call a bleached blonde, and she was kind of daffy-taffy in that old Hollywood way. Face all smooth and creamsicle