I’m making a run south down I-55 to replenish my supply. I have Trent with me. He has a small Swiss Army knife in his front pocket and keeps pulling it out and digging around in his fingernails. Even though I’m driving, I watch him as he digs dirt out, cutting himself a little… …Trent is nervous about this whole thing. It makes him twitch and move around like he has to piss. He’s never bought or sold before; he’s never done much of anything before.

At night, when Connie comes home, we sit together on the terrace and talk about our day. I tell her about my time in the mailroom, sorting the mail for the Chicago Sun-Times. She tells me about her book signing, her meeting with her agent, or something else more extravagant than anything I have to say… …My wife has a fake regard for the importance of life. For a sex novelist, she has very little idea what sex means, at least in my view. She writes books with titles like Hearts Afire and Steamy City. Some have been bestsellers, and she has a fan base of women I will never meet.”

It is then that I see a fireball coming down out of the sky in a gentle descent. It is small, but it grows larger until I can see it clearly. It is an airplane, swooping in over the city and on fire. I have an instinct to wake Connie, but I don’t. I stay at the window most of the night, watching out towards O’Hare airport.”

The end of the world will be something to see. That is what I tell my father when I take him for breakfast at the IHOP on Sundays. This is part of our routine, something he can handle, something he may need. While we are there, I fill his head with silly thoughts about the end of the world, how I’ll watch from the living room television.

Today at IHOP, he tells me to shut up. He tells me flat out, “Shut up. You sounds stupid.”

My mother has been dead for seven years, and he has these moments when he sounds just like her, as if she is popping right out of his mouth.
(from I Just Found This Hat)

It was wrong what they were doing, forcing an old man to travel so far in the Taurus’s cramped backseat. They tried to get him to sit up front, but it didn’t work. He kept opening the door, so they finally left him in the back where childproof locks kept him in. Ted drove with Arnez in the passenger seat. A map lay between them, the route outlines in pink highlighter. They are peanuts and potato chips and didn’t stop. The crumbs gathered in the seat creases. The old man snored as his white, dry tongue dangled out, steadied by his chapped lips. The car smelled of stale, wet clothes.
(from Best Road Yet)