I was a difficult little boy, and when my mother’s chronic illnesses made it impossible for her to care for me, she packed me off to her errant ­father, the filmmaker Anton Pavlak.

“The Great Sandusky” was a hard man to get to know. Indeed, getting to meet him was my first campaign. We were both strong men of the world. He would help me. That he was in the city was common knowledge to all the regulars in the gym. I had seen a feature article on him in the paper.

On Sunday Bertie walked into an apartment building in St. Louis, a city where, in the past, he had changed trains, waited for buses, or thought about Klaff, and where, more recently, truckers dropped him, or traveling salesmen stopped their Pontiacs downtown just long enough for him to reach into the back seat for his trumpetcase and get out.

“IT DON’T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING” Mary Kingsley: My parents died and suddenly I was left with nothing to do. I went back to the piano, but Mozart would no longer calm me,

 Listen friend, let me tell you bout the metro. Tha’s the subway in Paris, aw ratheh the meat packin business. See, they pack you in that train like a suitcase, you know, at rush hour; everybody rushin, nobody movin and stuff. And you is stuffed, baby.

Barry Wingate walked out of the tunnel. He stopped in front of the barn across the lawn and took his windbreaker off. He began feeding dried com ears into a machine. Kernels of com spewed into a pail, making clattery noises. 

Bubbers was standing on tiptoes, his wily face pressed against the bars of the entrance gate that led to a fine old Kentucky estate known as "Locust." In her fifties—Bubbers had—her— her—

Legs stained... stains turn into fur patches... fur patches turn into puma hide ...palaver re escape route... boy’s lips... chicken feather along outer perimeter of lower redder one, with up-and-down wrinkles... too much pursing... s

  My mother shook herself and scratched herself. We walked along a narrow path, through meadows with yellow flowers alternating with fields, perhaps wheat fields.

I had sex with this guy one Saturday night before Christmas and gave him my number and, something about him, I should have known he would be the type to call. For once, I was almost grateful