1996 12 12
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Columbus Avenue, I’m the tense union of poor city rich city/
gentrification.
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121621
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Soon the world is on film that is burning.
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16941614
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The woman carried a wooden log which was her husband into the house.
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163232
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Sometimes you're searching for a family and you don't even know it. Sometimes a family finds you.
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181397
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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…
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1906109
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We were young, she said, it was all in front of us. We should never have settled for this.
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167000
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Vito sat alone on a bench, hunched over, staring at his running shoes. He wasn't having fun. The club wasn't nearly as crowded as usual. There were no outlandishly-dressed or made-up people present. Most in attendance were huddled directly before the band
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1727910
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Together at last, we'd gotten this far toward the warm end of those sweet Promises we made, once, with our sincerest written and passed down smart Words, done all on our own deeds, with some real gusto, and offered them as Christmas Lights,…
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17592013
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She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?
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84200
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Maybe in some lie you told, your life began making sense. Not mine. But your quiet beauty may be what carries you. We have to both quit eating Couch Potato Chips, and read the book Tender Is the Squid, instead. Your ghosts – they’re so soft and sensitive.
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166353
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I hoped I did not look as panicked as I tried not to feel.
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14721311
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I tried to talk, but only / whispers slithered out.
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83900
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I wanted daddy to stop for ice cream, but I didn't want to say so. I wanted him to stop by himself, or because somebody else asked him. If I asked him Delia would make fun of me.
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17202411
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whistling some blithering tune, trotting around the kitchen in his underwear with his ribs, a long row of meatless tragedies that screamed for something other than the meal he was making.
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96810
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but at least I wasn't drinking as much anymore.
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143321
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“We’re on our way to gold country to find the American Dream.” No point in mentioning the huge prairie dogs, the ones swarming and screeching beneath the horses in their Hell’s Angel gear and Nixon masks.
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99600
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My tongue lashes out like a whip.
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148100
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Ben tossed the newspaper aside, muttering. Carol, curled up on the sofa, peered past the glasses at the tip of her nose and past the crossword puzzle.
"What?"
"The Brits wanted to fight rather than be taken hostage. They had an escort boat ridin
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211000
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My half-brother Salvy laughs each time we meet here at the hospital to visit our father Phil, who has lung cancer. He laughs because Phil married my mother, not his. He laughs at my job in Valhalla, the final resting place for those who lose at the…
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159274
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Things aren't going to get better are they? Would you like a sugar cube? No. Are you sure? I put acid on it. Oh, well yes, I guess then. Cool. Things might get better for a little bit then. Or horribly worse. Ha. Awesome. They taste like an orgasm…
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132500
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Caster had always imagined the Consensus as a big room, as big as the world, filled with white space and people with quantum wings, flitting about, creating information. There were tinted bubbles for people to share for privacy, and the lights never went
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82300
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This is what we will remember of each other. Right here. Another night where we prepare ourselves, as the full moon rises through the murky blue and smoke-filled sky, where the rose mist simmers above the land. And you are out there, somewhere. Only our
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108300
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For as long as John could remember, he loved to blow up things. It started back in grade school with firecrackers and cherry bombs—he would put them in toys, tin cans, shit like that to see what would happen. Then he advanced to stronger stuff, M-80s. Skip and…
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151352
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156243
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"I accept it," Leo said in a low voice. "I accept it all. I know who I am, I know who you are, I might even know who Martin is, now. We all have to share this. I think I will forgive you, because I can'
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136711
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Her cash. It smelled like seven-dollar-a-quart gardenia perfume and cave aged cheese—like hope overgrown with mildew.
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161500
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He had forgotten what the culture was like in certain parts of the city. At the
lower end of Second Avenue, there lived an amalgam rare anywhere in the
world, save other pockets of Manhattan. Punks, hippies, gays, the homeless, and
artists of all strip
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117531
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She seizes my hand. I resist just enough to sense her strength.
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24481210
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You wanted to be a writer. Now you’re a writer.
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150911
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Paul had come to Hawaii, like many young haoles from the mainland, to party. Partying proved to be lucrative for him. By early October 1982 he had done well for himself in Hawaii, living in a country house with sprawling lawns that held back the jungle foliage…
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