Then the exterminator came and I liked him right away by the sound of his voice in the doorway talking to Ginger, crouching down, petting her, making some joke about the ants, but then he was all business: what have… Read More ›
William Burroughs
Ant prose, baiting strategies
We got an ant problem. The landscapers cleaned up all the beds outside and must have kicked up a colony. It started benign enough, one here, one there, but then they started crawling up the walls and in my beard… Read More ›
Factotum (for Peel)
After college I moved to the beach and got a job delivering pizzas; my friend Peel moved to New York and dabbled in homelessness and then on to Portland, where he fell in with a group of shoplifters who returned… Read More ›
Sterling Hotel snapshot, 1992
I sat at the end of the bar with the bartender Robbie watching It’s A Wonderful Life, his favorite movie. It was snowing outside and the bar was basically closed. He wasn’t supposed to, but Robbie only charged me for… Read More ›
The unknowingness: too many reflections, too much time reflecting
I spent almost two years out of work which was good, but a bit too long. It felt like oversleeping, a self-induced fog. And because I’m a project manager and have to organize things, I think my time out of… Read More ›
Five leaves left
When I met Shana at the airport it was late October, almost three years since she left Seattle. I still didn’t have a car so I rented one, which seemed nicer than making her ride the bus. The last time… Read More ›
Dog guest blog challenge
I strum the inner folds of Ginger’s ears, cupping her head and rubbing her with my thumbs, and she reciprocates by jamming her nose in my ear and nipping the lobes, which tickles and makes me giggle like a girl. I’m… Read More ›
Open your heart to a map of the badlands
Peel drew a map on a cocktail napkin: a laundromat between Avenue A and Avenue B on the lower east side, New York. He said they sell it right there on the street, through a gate. I took a bus… Read More ›
Drug Friend
Peel held his arm out to me like a piece of meat, like it wasn’t his, like it was something he found. He looked to me for a reaction at what I saw: the spots along his veins, scarred over,… Read More ›
The Waiting Room
Peel died of a heroin overdose in a cheap New York hotel, probably exactly what he wanted. I saved a letter he wrote in 1992, with his careful, shaky verse: instead of my name in the address line on the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 