If you ask me about the next day, though, and I mean the day he killed himself, I won’t be able to tell you anything. I don’t remember. But if you ask me about the day before, I can tell you how Carrie looked in the muggy evening light, how the tips of his hair curled with sweat, how a cluster of pimples settled above his left eyebrow like a constellation.
The twenty-one hours to himself during the day aren’t so bad, but the three hours at night are paralyzing. He always tells himself, in the midst of particularly productive days, that he’ll be able to finally start doing things during the night, but when the time comes he’s scared of going out.
Philadelphia, 1962. “Dirty beatnik,” he muttered under his breath. Maurice Povich sat with his roommate on the balcony outside his dorm at the University of Pennsylvania. It was the night before graduation, and Al decided to light up a joint. … Read More
There was a bit of marinara sauce spilled out on the counter in a cluster of islands. Four blotches of red, decreasing in size and arcing away from the stovetop like Hawaii. The sauce was cold and was slowly drying … Read More
