Steven Huff

In 1964 I had a high school English teacher who, fifteen or so years earlier, had taught John Gardner, the famous novelist. Her name was Helen Schenk, and she taught at Alexander, a high school in rural Upstate New York. I was a poor student. Whatever magic she had worked on Gardner fizzled on me.

Wayne and Abby kept an open package of sleeping pills just sitting around the way another couple might keep a dish of exotic bitter candy that appears to be for anyone to grab

Before I became her darling I towed wrecked machines down the river behind my rowboat. Any kind of wreck you’ve got.

Later that day, someone would claim to have seen a surface-to-air missile strike the plane. Another witness on the ground would claim two or three missiles, he couldn’t be sure.

Bobo had met Latch three and a half years before in a bar on Memmer St. on the east side. It was called Little Cairo, and Bobo hung out there because it was just a neighborhood waterhole: no known crooks…