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Joshua used humor to keep people at arm’s length — which was funny in itself, because his arms were stunted from polio at an early age and now lay close to his body, twisted and next to useless.

Lamb Of God

Robert came to my church when he was in his early forties. He was a short, stocky, shiny-faced man with glittering glasses and mind. And he was HIV-positive. He joined the church because he was preparing to die and wanted to die reconciled with God.

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

I knew I was in trouble. It was the way Mama looked at me from across the dining-room table, like I had wandered off and left her, even though I was sitting right there.

Maps

An overwhelmed train traveler, an Interrail passenger using a Third Reich map, a map aficionado

Friend

Jerking Off In Central America

For those of you who have never had a panic attack, the words may have no special emotional tug. For those of you who have had one, they will bring forth memories of a mind frozen in exquisite agitation, the whole room, the whole world enmeshed in a horror movie that refuses to go away.

My Journal Of The Plague Years

I saw Bobby the day before he died. Propped up beneath a plastic oxygen tent, he begged for a cigarette. I went across the street to a newspaper stand and bought him a pack, even though I don’t smoke and don’t think anyone should. Closing the door to his room, I turned off the oxygen and lit one for him.

Pine Boards & Strawberries

Finding Courage At A Cancer Workshop

As the end of my chemotherapy treatments approached, they became more and more difficult to endure. Freedom was so near, I could hardly bear to wait for it another second.

Atlantic Hotel In Long Beach

Chautauqua

Zeke’s too good. It isn’t healthy. You need vices to let go of when you get a problem — things you can drop, like a tail on a kite, when the breeze gets light and you find yourself falling.