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Vocation
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.
March 1991Plum 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.
March 1991Instrument 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.
March 1991Men 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.
March 1991Heart Too Big
“The Fat Fucker showed up,” he said, mopping his plate with a biscuit. Robert nodded, acknowledging that he knew who Edsel was talking about, but wasn’t ready to speak himself until he’d concluded a particularly sensual moment with Ellen’s cooking.
February 1991The Color Of Light
Through rain and sun and fog, through snows that melted before he was done with them, in winds that screamed at him, the painter stamped and shouted and reached out with his brush to catch the light before it was gone.
February 1991Native Tongue
The trail had become steeper, winding past low trees and tall, dry grasses. Here and there were patches of snow. I tried to gauge how far there was to go, but rock outcroppings blocked the view: I couldn’t tell whether we were nearing the peak or merely coming to a change of grade.
January 1991Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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