God, grant me the serenity to accept, with upraised palms, smooth like two nickels, the word that sometimes, like a loosed neuron, frenetically flits across a yellow field,
St. Francis’s Prayer and the Serenity Prayer
A Funeral
Florida was everything that my parents had promised, and I was miserable. The hotel featured a sprawling labyrinth of hot tubs, waterslides and juice bars. The arcade had games I normally would have never been allowed to play, and women in red, blue and purple swimsuits of varying styles were everywhere. At first, the distractions were enough, but I soon became twitchy and weird like an animal with fleas. Everything sent me into a state of chaotic desire, the warmth of the swimming pool, the sound of the squeak of my back on the rickety waterslide, the coolness my hand felt on the side of a concrete.
An Invisible Thread
He would affix an alarm clock above his head so that if he drifted off to sleep while he was writing, the alarm clock would go off and fall on him. That way he could continue to write even when he was exhausted.
Kelvinator; Dear Balouchi Weaver of the Afghan Mountains; Driving to the Early Service; The Day Begins; Meet for Lunch
A doe’s head, just her head, Midways in the county road. Raccoons. Possums. Squirrels. Whole deer But never a severed head.
His Name Started with F
He sat on the far end of the bleachers in the schoolyard, legs pulled up with both arms wrapped around his knobby knees. He had frizzy black hair that was big enough to poof around his head and fine enough to let light leak through like a halo...
Not Always Duck Soup
The year 1974 began with me watching a Marx Brothers movie on WGN in the partially finished basement of our next-door neighbors, the Birdlemans. Hopped up on Pepsi and cocktail wieners, I relished the late-night affair, despite the basement’s dog hair and exposed, asbestos-wrapped plumbing. Mr. and Mrs. Birdleman were upstairs entertaining friends in the manner still reminiscent of the prior decade—stiff drinks, cigarettes, and Polyester knit dresses.