Contents

Preface

Memories from a Sinking Ship

Memories from a Sinking Ship

A Good Man to Know

The Forgotten

Mrs. Kashfi

The Old Country

The Monster

The Ciné

Dark Mink

Nanny

Island in the Sun

An Eye on the Alligators

The Piano Lesson

The Lost Tribe

The Lost Christmas

My Catechism

Sunday Paper

The Origin of Truth

The Trophy

The Aerodynamics of an Irishman

A Rainy Day at the Nortown Theater

Renoir’s Chemin montant dans
les hautes herbes

Forever After

The Mason-Dixon Line

The Wedding

The Pitcher

A Place in the Sun

The Winner

The God of Birds

Sundays and Tibor

Poor Children of Israel

The Man Who Wanted to
Get the Bad Taste of the World
Out of His Mouth

Johnny Across

The Secret of Little White Dove

The Delivery

The Deep Blue See

Radio Goldberg

Why Skull Dorfman Went to Arkansas

Wanted Man

The Bucharest Prize

Blows with Sticks Raining Hard

The Chinaman

The End of Racism

Way Down in Egypt Land

Bad Things Wrong

Detente at the Flying Horse

Shattered

A Day’s Worth of Beauty

The Peterson Fire

Door to the River

Sailing in the Sea of Red
He Sees a Black Ship on the Horizon

Wyoming

Cobratown

Chinese Down the Amazon

Bandages

Soul Talk

Skylark

Flamingos

Wyoming

Saving the Planet

A Nice Day on the Ocean

Perfect Spanish

Seconds

Roy’s World

Nomads

Ducks on the Pond

Sound of the River

Red Highway

Lucky

K.C. So Far
(Seconds/Alternate Take)

Concertina Locomotion

Imagine

The Geography of Heaven

Man and Fate

Where Osceola Lives

The Crime of Pass Christian

Cool Breeze

Night Owl

Islamorada

On the Arm

Look Out Below

The Up and Up

Black Space

Fear and Desire

God’s Tornado

Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

The Age of Fable

The Great Failure

Irredeemable

Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

The Sultan

The Liberian Condition

Six Million and One

War and Peace

Chop Suey Joint

Significance

Einstein’s Son

The Albanian Florist

The Weeper

The Swedish Bakery

The Man Who Swallowed the World

Ghost Ship

Caca Negra

Roy’s First Car

El Carterista

Crime and Punishment

The American Language

Lonely Are the Brave

Force of Evil

The Choice

Bad Girls

The Sudden Demise of Sharkface Bensky

Portrait of the Artist with Four Other Guys

The Starving Dogs of Little Croatia

In the Land of the Dead

The Secret of the Universe

Far from Anywhere

Rain in the Distance

Bad Night at the Del Prado

The Theory of the Leisure Class

Innamorata

The Exception

Close Encounters of the Right Kind

Blue People

Call of the Wild

Arabian Nights

Last Plane out of Chungking

The Vanished Gardens of Córdoba

Benediction

The Red Studebaker

Alligator Story

The Vast Difference

The Birdbath

Storybook Time

The Red Studebaker

The Trumpet

Unspoken

Haircut

The Invention of Rock ’n’ Roll

Infantry

Drifting Down the Old Whangpoo

The Wicked of the Earth

Christmas Is Not For Everyone

The Cuban Club

Roy and the River Pirates

Dingoes

The King of Vajra Dornei

Real Bandits

Haitian Fight Song (Take Two)

The Cuban Club

Appreciation

The Awful Country

Deep in the Heart

Unopened Letters

Chicago, Illinois, 1953

The Colony of the Sun

Creeps

Achilles and the Beautiful Land

Men in the Kitchen

Anna Louise

Mules in the Wilderness

The Boy Whose Mother May Have
Married a Leopard

Stung

El almuerzo por poco

Vultures

I Also Deal in Fury

Hour of the Wolf

Lost Monkey

When Benny Lost His Meaning

Sick

The Best Part of the Story

Tell Him I’m Dangerous

The Shadow Going Forward

Feeling the Heat

The Sharks

Smart Guys

Apacheria

Dark and Black and Strange

The Vagaries of Incompleteness

King and Country

House of Bamboo

The Unexpected

The Way of All Flesh

Some Products of the Imagination

The Comedian

Lament for a Daughter of Egypt

The Old West

Incurable

Shrimpers

Learning the Game

The Fifth Angel

A Long Day’s Night in the
Naked City (Take Two)

The Religious Experience

The Familiar Face of Darkness

Las Vegas, 1949

In Dreams

Lucky

Danger in the Air

Child’s Play

The Message

River Woods

The History and Proof of the
Spots on the Sun

War is Merely Another Kind of
Writing and Language

The End of the Story

Innocent of the Blood

The Italian Hat

The Senegalese Twist

Kidnapped

The Dolphins

Dragonland

Role Model

Mona

Mud

The Phantom Father

Roy’s Letter

The World in the Afternoon

The World in the Afternoon

Wing Shooting

Acapulco

His Truth

Disappointment

The Navajo Kid

In My Own Country

Rinky Dink

Where the Dead Hide

Bar Room Butterfly

Absolution

The Goose

Spooky Spiegelman and
The Night Time Killer

Constantinople

The Same Place in Space

The Good Listener

The Garden Apartment

Kitty’s World