Men And Their Sorrows

An Interview With John Lee

Most men are afraid to stop working because if they do, they will have to confront their pain directly. A man who works twenty hours a week has time to consider his anxieties. A man who works forty to sixty hours a week can avoid looking at everything.

The Marvelous Adventure Of Cabeza De Vaca

In the days that followed, in my first desolate confrontation with slaughter, I saw a far-off light, heard a far-off strain of music. Such words serve as well as any: for what words can describe a happening in the shadows of the soul?

Mistaken Identity

I want to love myself the way a stubborn question loves certainty, loves it in spite of itself.

Instrument Of The Immortals

Miss Eva Hodges, my piano teacher for eight years, now deceased, would be gratified to learn that I bought the Steinway. She’d be proud of me.

The Wrong Peas

In every diner, there are those who insist the waiter explain the precise inner workings of a tuna-fish sandwich before they place their orders. I’m not one of them.

Finding Out About Your Heart

After twenty-five years in the courtroom, you only have to look at the foreman to know a jury’s mind. The doc’s expression tells you what he has found out about your heart.

Plum Island

One of Quick’s students is fishing at the foot of the beach beneath the shack he rents on Plum Island. The dog wants walking. There is no escape. The girl’s name is Harley and she is barely passing Spanish.

Sunrise, Montana

My God, he was a beautiful man. The way he sat on a horse. Or the way he rolled a cigarette. Charlie Freeman. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Father

Sunday Morning