She stuffed fistfuls of her underwear into trash bags while the Detroit city bailiff leaned against the wall and fiddled with his phone.

My job as an elementary-school teacher ended abruptly after eight weeks. Walking heavily to my car, I was devastated, but I recognize now that I was never cut out to be a teacher, for reasons that have nothing

The train pulled into the quiet riverside station. A large man climbed out, carrying a battered suitcase. He was alone, a fact observed with puzzlement by the person waiting for him on the platform.

The following was recorded on November 17, 2014, as part of the Nonfiction at the Food Court reading s­eries at the Woodcreek Plaza Mall in Northfork, New Jersey. We are grateful to Muriel Leyner, ­curator of the series, and to both members of the audience for allowing us to print a transcript of the event.

My landlady stands in the doorway, one hand braced on the jamb, breathless from climbing the two flights of stairs to my room. She’s come up to bum a cigarette. It’s the same old story. Her doctor convinces her to kick the habit, scares the shit out of her, sends her home full of virtuous resolve. 

What came back specifically and vividly was the comic-book shop in New Jersey that my brother took me to soon after he’d gotten his driver’s license. It was forty miles outside of the city and housed in a converted depository that still said A & J TOMATOES from back when everything was farmland. 

As we heard them go upstairs, Marie’s hand moved on top of my thigh and nudged the edge of my crotch. She blew smoke up toward the paper lampshade. As long as I did not turn toward her, it was fine. I was helping Marie and Lee through a difficult moment in their marriage. 

Half a dozen years had passed since that first summer in Alna, and almost nothing had changed. The town was still full of young people crashing junk cars, dirty diapers littering the parking lots.

I had experienced blackouts ever since I first started drinking. That was the summer I finished tenth grade, at the Norway Cup, when I just laughed and laughed, a momentous experience; being drunk took me to places where 

I worked nights as a phone operator, and it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. The money wasn’t good, but it wasn’t awful either, and although the place looked inhospitable—a cramped office on Guardia Vieja, whose only window looked out on an immense gray wall—it was a pleasant place to work: not too cold in winter or too hot in summer.