One afternoon, long after lunch, they noticed that the actor wasn’t looking so good. When he wobbled during a particularly long take, one of the crew reacted, making a faint move toward the set. The actor was leaning over a balcony railing, confronting his defiant daughter who stood in the capacious parlor of their very large house.

A week and a half ago, this place had been a hub, a veritable mart of commerce, a rainbow soap bubble of bargain-hunting consumers. Now in the post-Christmas void of aisle after desolate aisle, out of whatever ambience the house sound system was chasing—old hit parade stuff, “one toke over the line, Sweet Jesus,” or “Proud Mary keep on turning, churning, burning”—one of those, I could hear him coming before I ever saw him.

Norm lay in bed, aware of a sudden dampness on his skin and a bitter taste rising in his throat, poking the back of his mouth with acid fingers. It was awful. He propped himself up on an elbow and coughed. His head pounded and he glanced at the clock radio on the plant table, its face blurred by a thick layer of

Whenever Neva drops by, I think she has come to get her turkey out of my freezer. She bought two for the price of one a year ago for the holidays, and since she had no room in her fridge for an extra turkey, the bird___ all frozen, featherless, and pimply-skinned___ came to live with me. I hardly knew her when she asked me if she