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And We Sell Apples 1977

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I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."

The Messenger

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Sophie didn't stop for lunch when she worked. She showed up first in the morning and worked through until the last package was delivered. She pedaled from building to building and walked quickly, at just shy…

Christmas Morning

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Dad woke us up and said it was time to go.

Paperwork

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There were literally thousands of criteria that got people of every stripe and strata on the list, which had been maintained since before the very first human fingers scrawled crude images on blank surfaces. 

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

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"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Girl Friends

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Two women grab a table near a window in a coffee shop. Outside, the sky is the color of dulled aluminum. It is early spring and pollen assaults the air with a tint of sulfur.

Hands of a City

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On the usefulness of hands.

Better Days

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I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.

Wounded Knee

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“They picked me up in their spaceship about noon,” Austin Grantham says to me while pulling up an apple crate to use as a stool.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst

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The things we do for books, she thought.

Three

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Men and their inevitable disappointments—sure, why not?

Epitaph N+1

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We die in order to get some rest

Root in a Bottle

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He had expected more -- at least his grandfather's classic Packard touring car.

Roanne's Dream

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Roanne banged the chiva, turned tricks, and ran out of road.

The Tall Man’s Secret

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For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity

Casual

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Slip me in Between the cracks in your schedule Between the sheets of your bed Between your memories and your fears Between your eyes and the moon where I'll twinkle at you Slip me in somewhere, I won't disturb you Won't make you want to push me away Let…

MAO

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She was as distant as Mao, someone I never met, but whom everyone carried in their eyes,

Perversion

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“It’s a sad thing,” I said, “when a man has to suffer just for getting a little on the side.”

Letter to the Bean Factory

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The figure was covered in a light blue chenille bathrobe, splayed out on her back on the floor by the glass door, her hair done up in large curlers, a slipper lying askew by her left foot. Richie crouched near the face and the rancid flame of bourbon lea

Tradition and the Individual Talent

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Wee-wee-sweet-pea me? I live, I weep, a third of me passed in sleep, start a scene or two, play and dance the fool, …

The Art of Madness

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He had an addiction to elevating himself to higher levels of potential: some would call this ambition.

Full Circle

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I staggered away in the storm tears frozen to my cheeks.

The Scholiasts

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It was already 3:30 PM. Where had all the time gone? Linda looked up from her computer monitor over at Carlos, who had his face intently pointed at his. "We have to go soon," she said. "We want to avoid rush hour traffic.""Where did we put the address?" Carlos answered, not…

Happy Hour

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We were in the car more than anywhere else. A few days driving, then a few days to get back home.

Fool of Me

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This no man's island I'm perched high above isn't always so beautiful to the casual beholder of newly printed maps. Oh don't go and get your clouds all wrong. Puffed or thin, everything I say I believe in is a real feeling, until the music dies…

Frieden

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After each piece cancelled the other the generals folded up their checkerboards,

A New Kind of Madness

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in my youth I was enamored of the moon—that is to say, lunacyI applauded the bizarre in natureI appropriated the gratuitous from dreamsI drank brashness and frenzy from bookswhat mad things I did!(throwing a bucket of water on the naked couple in the bed)what…

What's in a Name?

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[CAUTION: THIS CAN CONTAINS THE CAFFEINE EQUIVALENT OF THREE CUPS OF COFFEE. PEOPLE WHO ARE ELDERLY, PREGNANT, OR SENSITIVE TO CAFFEINE SHOULD NOT CONSUME THIS BEVERAGE!]

In the Jukebox Light

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At first we envied Tom and Betty’s dancing. Friday nights at The Big Club, Saturdays at Mickey’s, and none of us can remember a time we saw them in the arms of another partner.

Letter to the Editor

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Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.