And Did You Get What You Wanted

Write About What You Know, And What Do You Know Better Than Your Own Secrets?

That Was In Crescent City, California, Up Near The Oregon Border. I Left Soon After. But Today I Was Thinking Of That Place, Of Crescent City, And Of How I Was Trying Out A New Life There With My Wife, And How, In The Barber's Chair That Morning, I Had Made Up My Mind To Go. I Was Thinking Today About The Calm I Felt When I Closed My Eyes And Let The Barber's Fingers Move Through My Hair, The Sweetness Of Those Fingers, The Hair Already Starting To Grow.

My Circumstances Of Unrelieved Responsibility And Permanent Distraction Necessitated The Short Story Form.

I've Done As Many As 20 Or 30 Drafts Of A Story. Never Less Than 10 Or 12 Drafts.

I Loved You So Much Once. I Did. More Than Anything In The Whole Wide World. Imagine That. What A Laugh That Is Now. Can You Believe It? We Were So Intimate Once Upon A Time I Can't Believe It Now. The Memory Of Being That Intimate With Somebody. We Were So Intimate I Could Puke. I Can't Imagine Ever Being That Intimate With Somebody Else. I Haven't Been.