Garage Papers

Party-animal boomers endure the heat, using bandanas as head mops. I'm with them, dripping like crazy, skull faucet wide open. Elsewhere inside the A/C at Publix, Jewish women stately in yoga tights choose oranges and are more organic than anything in produce. An old guy came in snappy and most likely with-it back in the day, but not anymore. Camo-wearing Trayvon-killer Zimmerman Types buy bullets at Outdoor World. Old drivers pause when it's clear then turn into traffic at the worst moment. Woke up in sunny Miami and read some James R. Cain. Like EH, he could write honest American fiction that men like and buy, or used to. Example, just read the ending chapters of Serenade . Sweat or chill face. You never know who is a heroin addict. You never really know anyone's story, their credibility. Expecting to mince some friendly Spanish, came to find out many are cliquish, mistrustful, and reticent.  Old raggedy-ass copy of Gatsby at the pool, can't soak...

( This actually took place in March of 2014 ) * * * Dawn invited me to a promotional event for her novel, held at the public library in North Palm Beach. I drove 95 from Hollywood and met up with Dawn and her two relatives in attendance, Cousin Bobby and Cousin Kelly. (No glass chins in this group) North Palm Beach Library marquee Cousin Kelly and Dawn  Author and back view of Cousin Bobby Dawn is a natural. She spoke with a polished confidence and read the excerpts with eloquence. Not everyone there knew, but Dawn is quite an accomplished (and widely published) poet too. Sales seemed pretty good. The author signed and did her thing. Dawn signing my copy  Afterwards, the four of us went south on 95 to Yamato Road and had dinner at a busy tavern out on the terrace. Dawn and I did our best to exchange ideas about novels and writing and such, despite the noisy ambiance. Previously, we were denied entrance to the restaurant at Bobby's country club in Boca ...

It was around 1990. I don't remember much; it was a place for forgetting - a bland hideous place. I recall absolutely nothing about IBM - who I worked for, what I wrote, where I ate, who my friends were ( if any) - what the parking lot looked like (for some reason, I usually remember parking lots). I know that I worked there, that I came from IBM in Charlotte to RTP but that is all. I also spent some time at Data General.  I do remember Wayne S.  He was a wry funny guy with a Faulknerian accent and manner. He might have worked for me at Burroughs in Charlotte. He got me the job at Data General.  Walking in the surrounding woods at lunch I found a pristine skull which I assumed was a decapitated dog's head. I named it Woo Woo. Later somebody told me it belonged to a deer. Today it sits on top of a bookcase beside a statue of Robert E. Lee who is wearing a coroner's toe tag - both the statue and tag given to me by Steve K. who is also one of us. I remember most clearl...

The students sat in crooked rows on the floor of the gymnasium, dressed in their gym uniforms. The boys wore blue shorts and gold T-shirts. The girls wore one-piece suits consisting of solid blue shorts and a short-sleeved top with narrow blue and white stripes. The striped tops called to mind Handi Wipes, a cleaning cloth product. The gym suits seemed to be made of the same unidentifiable material as the Handi Wipes—lightweight, yet vaguely unpleasant. There was something demeaning about being dressed like a cleaning product, thought the girl who sat in the second spot of the second row of students. Squads, these rows were called. The girl in squad two didn’t like gym. She was myopic and clumsy, and didn’t excel at any of the activities. However, her dislike wasn’t fierce or desperate. Perhaps this was because she spent more time in her head, where her daydreams were vivid and entertaining, than in her body. It would be years before she learned to look at people’s bodies t...